GO! A Blog about Growth & Opportunity

Many Connecticut residents, particularly those who identify as racial or ethnic minorities or who live in historically-disadvantaged neighborhoods, face astonishingly high unemployment rates.

In New Haven, unemployment ranges from 3 percent in high-income neighborhoods such as Westville and East Rock, to 20 percent in low- income neighborhoods such as Dixwell, Newhallville, and the Hill -- and “underemployment” rates are often twice these figures. New mapping tools can allow us to visualize exactly what these barriers to job access might look like when plotted across a metropolitan region.

In a recent Living Cities article, WANTED: Job, Training, and a Bus Pass, Emily Garr Pacetti of the Fund for Our Economic Future proposes a “Growth and Opportunity Framework” to ensure that the benefits of economic growth are widely shared and sustained. The three-pronged approach (see Venn Diagram) asserts that “sustained growth can only come through cross-sector strategies that reinforce connections among workforce and training efforts, employer demand, and the spatial and social disconnect between jobs and workers.”

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