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 Slowed down a tad by 9/11 and then recession, the tsunami of immigration into the United States again rolls on, creating classes of winners and losers among U.S. cities and regions.
Its likely no accident, for example, that while the foreign born population of the country shot up 57 percent from 1980 to 2000, from 19.8 million to 31.1 million, it actually sank 26 percent in Buffalo and its environs. In Pittsburgh the decline was 23 percent, in Cleveland 11 percent.
By contrast, the New York City region was renewing itself (and avoiding total population decline) with a 71 percent rise in its foreign born. Chicago gained 91 percent, Boston 66 percent. Denver had a 258 percent increase, Portland 217 percent, Minneapolis-St. Paul 197 percent.
And surprise new immigration gateways opened upAtlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. Immigration even soared in such unlikely places as Salt Lake City and Charlotte, N.C., according to a recent Brookings Institution analysis based on Census data.
Is immigration a real elixir for faltering urban economies? Yes, reply activists in a number of low-immigration cities, among them Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Schenectady and Louisville.
And now Cleveland in earlier times actually known as a city of immigrants has joined the ranks of cities seeking more immigrants. Civic and ethnic groups have mounted major community-wide immigration forums over a three-month period, joined by the regions largest newspaper, the Plain Dealer.
The pro-immigration argument laid out by Cleveland attorney Richard Herman, a leader of the new drive, focuses heavily on economics. His region, Herman argues, is suffering an entrepreneurial drought. Cleveland residents need only look across the Great Lakes to the bustling international metropolis of Toronto to see the difference. Torontos population is 43 percent foreign-born, Clevelands only 5 percent.
And Toronto, Herman suggests, is typical of cities where burgeoning immigrant clusters have sparked waves of technology start-ups, small neighborhood proprietorship, real estate investment and international trade.
Why? Its apparently the combination of sheer immigrant energy with globalizationthe Internet, satellite communications, ease of travel, enabling people from vast areas of the globe to connect, transfer information and money and engage in borderless commerce.
Among some immigrant groups, Herman claims, the rate of entrepreneurship is two to three times that of the U.S. population. Skilled immigrants introduce both intellectual and financial capital. In 2000, Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs alone headed 29 percent of Silicon Valleys technology businesses, collectively accounting for $19.5 billion in sales and over 77,000 jobs. Close to a quarter of founders or chairmen of biotech firms that went public in the U.S. in the early 90s were from outside the country.
So the Cleveland area will be well-advised, argue Herman and his colleague, community development specialist Rose Zitiello, to create an immigrant entrepreneurial center to offer counsel and help grow immigrant-owned firms. And to telegraph through immigrants global networks word that Cleveland has a welcome mat out, is anxious to become a vibrant multicultural mecca.
Its a fascinating prospectCleveland and other cities embracing immigrants for the energy and entrepreneurial vigor they bring, notwithstanding the countrys post-9/11 apprehension about immigration. And the embrace comes with real irony: some of the most scientifically and technologically skilled immigrants are from India, a center of another byproduct of globalizationthe outsourcing of U.S. jobs.
While immigration gets championed as an economic booster for cities, African-American political leaders tend to be leery that promoting more newcomers is a diversion that makes it easier to ignore their constituents struggling for an economic footholdmany black men, for example.
Even in politically correct New York City, however, new attention is getting focused on targeting assistance to the types of entrepreneurial immigrants whove already begun to revive such areas as the South Bronx and Manhattans Jackson Heights and Washington Heights.
The biggest impediments, identified at a forum sponsored this spring by New Yorks Center for an Urban Future, are ignorance about banks and bookkeeping, difficulty navigating the shoals of city business permit issuance, and language and cultural barriers (even when working with fellow immigrant groups).
Immigrants, the forum heard, have a huge cash economy. Many come from places without credit bureaus and fear banks and government. Their businesses are often based on all-cash napkin book keeping, so that when an immigrant business decides to grow, a banks likely to say you have no history.
The key is to teach the immigrant public about how America works, so these communities can become less insular, said Nathalie Bernal of Accion New York, a group that makes loans and provides counsel to micro entrepreneurs. Teach them about taxes and about building creditthat you cant put your money under the mattress.
With bankable credit, of course, immigrants are poised to tap mainline capital, heavily based on Americans savings and investmentsa sort of a red, white and blue win-win scenario. What a novel idea!
Copyright © 2004 Washington Post Writers Group
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