底特律缘何成为城市改造的典范

想象一个店铺餐厅林立、顾客欢声笑语的繁华市中心。而离那里几个街区的地方，则是楼房破烂不堪、土地闲置、失业率和贫困率居高不下的社区。

这不是个别城市的境况。实际上，美国和其他国家的许多市区都在上演类似的场景。一些充满生气、经济蒸蒸日上的富裕都市也会有社区缺少投资、工作、教育和培训。

这种情况十分紧迫，不过幸好还有希望：美国城市是出色的创新实验室。而没有一个城市比底特律更好地体现了这一点。

2014年起，我们与底特律的市长麦克·达根和社区领袖密切合作，以解决底特律的一些最紧迫的问题。从培养训练有素的劳动力到让社区恢复活力，再到促进小型企业发展，我们的一切工作都遵循了包容性增长的战略，通过帮助现有居民来推动经济发展。

由于当地领导人的合作和参与，我们在这些挑战上已经取得了相当的进展。以重振社区为例，我们很早就意识到，如果不在市中心和繁忙的商业走廊以外的区域进行投资，底特律就无法完全回归。因为城市萧条而遭遇重创的那些环绕底特律市区和中城的社区，需要我们的鼎力支持。

2016年，公有、私有和慈善组织一同成立了战略社区基金（Strategic Neighborhood Fund, SNF），这项倡议让社区开发商与私有、慈善和公有资本联合起来帮助贫困社区。

过去两年里，战略社区基金一直在利用基金来建设商用和住宅房地产，维持并增加更多经济适用房，改善社区基础设施和服务，如增加行人照明、提高路口安全性、优化公园、共享自行车线路、拆除破旧房屋等。West Village数十年来第一个新建的混合用途小区Coe就是战略社区基金开发的此类项目之一。如今，得到慈善捐助和政府补贴的战略社区基金还将募集1,300万美元，在已经开展的三个社区项目之外，再让底特律的七个社区重新振兴。

通过战略社区基金这样的合作，底特律开始努力创造“20分钟社区”：居民通过走路或骑车，能在20分钟之内享受基本的需求与服务，包括杂货店、餐厅、医院、学校、公园和公共交通系统。这样做的目标是提高居民的便利性与生活质量，为所有收入阶层的人营造可以并且愿意居住的环境，从而消除障碍，创造机会。

促进小型企业发展，尤其是那些由少数族裔的企业家拥有的企业，也是我们复兴社区的重要一环。

由黑人拥有的企业在底特律占比为77%，在美国50个人口最多的城市中排名第一。满足这些企业家的需求，对于让他们放手创造机遇、推动当地经济增长而言至关重要。由底特律发展基金（Detroit Development Fund）支持，得到摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）和凯洛格基金会（W.K. Kellogg Foundation）赞助的有色企业家基金（Entrepreneurs of Color Fund）为那些无法获得传统形式资金的人提供了低息贷款和技术支持。这个基金十分成功，以至于它在2018年吸引了新的投资者，规模达到1,800万美元，是以前的三倍，最近还扩张到了旧金山、芝加哥和南布朗克斯。

尽管还有许多工作要做，但这些全面的实地工作已经描绘了让世界各地城市最为困扰的问题迎刃而解的蓝图。

摩根大通最近把这个模式引入了法国。公司宣布在“大巴黎”（Greater Paris）投资3,000万美元，并会重点关注该地区贫困率和失业率最高的社区。这项投资将针对贫困社区，目标是促进小型企业发展，向居民提供攀登经济阶梯所需的技能培训。

我们的城市改造模式行之有效，是因为它给居民提供了改善生活的机会。我遇到的这些居民希望城市、企业和社区的领袖抛开狭隘的利益，通力协作来解决社区问题。

我希望更多的城市能够注意到我们在底特律为应对艰难的经济挑战所做的工作。帮助挣扎的城市重新焕发生机与我们所有人息息相关，只有通过有意义的合作，我们才能实现这一目标。（财富中文网）

作者彼得·L·谢尔是摩根大通的企业责任主管和中太平洋地区董事长。

译者：严匡正

Imagine a bustling downtown filled with inviting shops, restaurants, and happy patrons. Just a few blocks away sit neighborhoods with dilapidated houses, buildings, and vacant lots, high unemployment and high poverty rates.

This isn’t the story of any one city. In fact, we see this playing out in far too many urban areas across the U.S. and around the world. Some of the wealthiest cities with vibrant and growing economies have neighborhoods that are struggling from lack of investment, jobs, education, and training.

This situation is urgent, but thankfully there is hope: American cities are excellent laboratories for innovation. And no city better reflects this than Detroit.

Since 2014, we have been working closely with Mayor Mike Duggan and community leaders to solve some of Detroit’s most pressing issues. All of our work—from creating a trained workforce to revitalizing neighborhoods to boosting small business expansion—follows a strategy of inclusive growth that strengthens the economy by helping existing residents.

Thanks to the cooperation and engagement of local leaders, significant progress has been made on these challenges. Take neighborhood revitalization, for example. We recognized early on that Detroit would not fully come back if we did not invest in areas beyond downtown and busy commercial corridors. The neighborhoods—communities surrounding downtown and Midtown Detroit that have been hardest hit by the city’s downturn—needed significant help.

In 2016, public, private, and philanthropic partners jointly developed the Strategic Neighborhood Fund (SNF), an initiative that brings together community developers and private, philanthropic, and public capital to help distressed neighborhoods.

Over the past two years, the SNF has been using funds to build commercial and residential real estate, preserve and add more affordable housing, and enhance community infrastructure and services such as pedestrian lighting, safer street crossings, park improvements, bike-share lanes, and the removal of blighted homes. The Coe—the first new mixed-use development in West Village in decades—is an example of one such project developed by the SNF. Now, drawing from philanthropic contributions and public subsidies, the SNF is working on raising an additional $130 million to revitalize seven more neighborhoods in Detroit, on top of the three it already oversees.

Through partnerships like the SNF, the city has been working to create “20-minute neighborhoods”: areas where residents are a 20-minute walk or a short bike ride away from basic needs and services, including grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, parks, and public transit. The goal behind this is to remove barriers to opportunity by enhancing convenience and quality of life for residents and creating the conditions for which people at all income levels can and want to live.

Boosting growth of small businesses, particularly those owned by minority entrepreneurs, has also been a critical part of our approach to neighborhood revitalization.

Detroit has the highest percentage of black-owned businesses, 77%, out of America’s 50 most populous cities. Meeting the needs of these entrepreneurs has been vital in unleashing their power as drivers of opportunity and local economic growth. The Entrepreneurs of Color Fund—facilitated by the Detroit Development Fund, with funding from JPMorgan Chase and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation—provides low-cost loans and access to technical assistance to people who can’t obtain traditional forms of capital. This fund has been so successful that in 2018 it attracted new investors, tripling in size to $18 million and recently expanding to San Francisco, Chicago, and the South Bronx.

While much work remains to be done, these comprehensive efforts on the ground have yielded a blueprint for addressing the most vexing issues faced by cities around the world.

Recently, JPMorgan took this model to France, announcing a $30 million investment across Greater Paris with a particular focus on the region’s neighborhoods with the highest poverty and unemployment rates. The investment will target distressed neighborhoods with the goal of boosting small business growth and providing people the skills training needed to climb the economic ladder.

Our urban renewal model works because it helps provide people with opportunities to improve their lives. The residents I’ve met want civic, business, and community leaders to set aside their parochial interests and work together to solve community problems.

My hope is that more cities will look to our work in Detroit for solutions to stubborn economic challenges. We all have a stake in restoring struggling cities, and we can only get there through meaningful collaboration.

Peter L. Scher is the head of corporate responsibility and chairman of the mid-Atlantic region for JPMorgan Chase.