Topping List of Inner-City Needs--Jobs

Wanted: more jobs in urban communities, and more well-trained employees who can fill them.

Creating thousands of jobs in private businesses won’t be easy given the dismal economic climate in California. Government help is limited by looming federal deficits, swollen state mandates and local budget shortfalls. However, a mix of public and private strategies--economic, social and political--could lead incrementally to a sustained urban renaissance in Los Angeles.

Among the best strategies are those proposed Wednesday by the Senate Special Task Force on a New Los Angeles. The group, headed by state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), concentrated on creating economic opportunities in poor neighborhoods and encouraging cross-cultural healing.

The 31 recommendations address job creation and training, insurance and loan redlining, community policing, court reform and multicultural education. All of these problems need attention. However, one proposal stands out.

The creation of a new Economic Development Financing Authority would facilitate investment by flush state pension funds and private businesses in manufacturing, retail development, industrial parks, recreational facilities, affordable housing and other worthy projects.

The state would function as the guarantor of last resort. These new projects would create jobs and speed social healing by reducing the worsening competition between Latinos and African-Americans for decent jobs, decent housing and decent neighborhoods.

These are scarce commodities in many urban communities because of government neglect, according to a new RAND Corp. book, “Urban America Policy Choices for Los Angeles and the Nation.” The book reviews critical problems such as homelessness, immigration, crime, drugs, education, health care for the uninsured and other urban ills. The analysis concentrates on the levels of effectiveness of past policies and offers numerous recommendations.

Effective job training must be included among remedies. Successful programs create skilled employees who can get good jobs, and keep them; that would be quite a feat in Los Angeles given the city’s horrendous double-digit unemployment.

A very successful organizer of urban training programs, the Philadelphia-based Opportunities Industrialization Centers/America, is expected to create the largest job training center of its kind in the West in an effort to serve residents of riot zones. Financed generously by the Chevron Corp., with additional support from other private businesses, the center is expected to train 5,000 residents over four years to work in industries such as petroleum and hotel services.

Rebuilding Los Angeles will take all of this--and much, much more.