{"id":91051,"date":"2021-03-24T12:21:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T12:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcity.org\/daily\/entry\/how-to-bring-manufacturing-back-to-cities-and-bring-people-of-color-along"},"modified":"2021-03-24T12:21:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T12:21:00","slug":"how-to-bring-manufacturing-back-to-cities-and-bring-people-of-color-along-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/24\/how-to-bring-manufacturing-back-to-cities-and-bring-people-of-color-along-too\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Bring Manufacturing Back to Cities \u2014 and Bring People of Color Along Too"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
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(Photo by Andy Spear; courtesy LISC)<\/p><\/figcaption>\n\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

Ilana Preuss founded <\/span>Recast City<\/a> in 2014 to help build communities where small-scale manufacturing businesses could thrive. The challenges, she found, were steep. \u201c6\u00bd years ago, when I talked about small-scale manufacturing and product businesses, nobody knew what I was talking about,\u201d she recalls. City support for small manufacturers was limited; zoning often didn\u2019t support their needs for space; inclusive job pipelines were not common. Given the challenges present for small manufacturers across the board, it was even harder for manufacturers of color and from marginalized communities not only to start a successful business, but help build wealth in communities that have historically been marginalized. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\n\n

One opportunity Preuss identified \u201cis that [small scale manufacturing] is not an established business sector,\u201d she says. \u201cSo when you say, \u2018Let\u2019s pull together a group of small-scale manufacturing business owners,\u2019 and you work with the community to make sure those business owners represent the demographic diversity of the community, there\u2019s no entrenched interest that we\u2019re displacing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That has meant space for innovation, advocacy, and intentionally inclusive talent development as many cities look to better support small-scale manufacturers. Here are four solutions that emerged to better serve BIPOC manufacturers to gain a foothold in this quickly-growing space. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harnessing local business support<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

When Preuss begins working with a community hoping to better support small manufacturers, she reaches out to any and all groups providing local business development support to get them in the same room and on the same page. \u201cIn most communities, the business development support is very disjoined \u2026 there\u2019s a lot of different siloes and they\u2019re almost never looking to product businesses to invest time and energy in,\u201d she noted. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Columbia, Missouri, consulting for a commercial hub coined \u201c<\/span>The Loop<\/a>,\u201d she helped identify those gaps. \u201cThe Hispanic Chamber of Commerce wasn\u2019t involved with the downtown start-up training programs \u2014 there were language and location barriers \u2014 and the Black-owned businesses newer to the area didn\u2019t feel connected to the existing trainings going on.\u201d Getting everyone in the same room not only identified how to better distribute resources; it helped identify the support marginalized manufacturers needed but weren\u2019t getting. \u201cThere was a huge demand for space to cook,\u201d Preuss says. It resulted in a commercial shared kitchen<\/a>, which opened during COVID-19, with the goal to provide affordable space and support to Black and Latinx manufacturers who most needed it to grow their businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocacy for zoning reform <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Cities, by and large, have been slow to update zoning codes to accommodate the evolution of small-scale manufacturing. (Today, manufacturing can mean everything from commercial food production, robotic development and 3-D printing.) And if a city wants equitable job growth, <\/span>it has to zone for it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

A few cities adopted promising models. In San Francisco, the city passed the <\/span>Eastern Neighborhoods Plan<\/a> in 2009 to protect industrial zones in the east side of the city. In 2013, the nonprofit SFMade<\/a> advocated the city to build more, resulting in \u201cinclusionary industrial zoning\u201d in which a developer could build office space \u2014 not previously allowed on industrial sites \u2014 if they agreed to include affordable industrial space. That resulted in the Manufacturing Foundry at 150 Hopper<\/a>, 50,000-square-feet of affordable manufacturing space coupled with business development support provided by SFMade. <\/p>\n\n

In Newark, the city <\/span>is building its first \u201cMakerhood<\/a>,\u201d an affordable mixed-use development with light manufacturing space and apartments. The city and developer worked five years to craft the zoning, which includes a requirement that building tenants must also live there \u2014 a way to prioritize local manufacturers in Newark, many of whom are people of color. The developer also founded a nonprofit, Makerhoods Inc., to support the city\u2019s existing maker community and provide future support to those selected to live and work in the building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing diverse hiring pipelines<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The largest tenant at the Manufacturing Foundry at 150 Hopper is <\/span>Humanmade<\/a>, a maker space with wood and metal shops, laser and 3D printing areas, industrial sewing and electronics stations, alongside a priority to make those resources available to marginalized communities. Still too often in manufacturing, \u201cemployers believe there is a skill gap \u2014 but as a team we see there\u2019s more of an opportunity gap,\u201d notes SFMade\u2019s workforce and youth program manager George Col\u00f3n. Humanmade\u2019s Next Generation Manufacturing Skills Training<\/a> recruits people traditionally shut out of the modern manufacturing sector, with no prior experience, and trains them with the skills necessary to achieve employment. <\/p>\n\n

The Forge<\/a><\/span>, a makerspace in Greensboro, North Carolina, developed a pre-apprenticeship program<\/a> specifically to support under-connected residents across the county with workforce opportunities. Participants who succeed are then placed in a full time, paid apprenticeship. SJ Works<\/a>, a city program offered in San Jos\u00e9, California, launched several years back<\/a> to bring teens in gang-impacted neighborhoods into industries like manufacturing, tech and healthcare. In early 2020, it expanded with a mentoring program to further support job readiness, workplace skills, financial literacy and career exploration for youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving toward community ownership<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

As the <\/span>Rainier Beach Action Coalition<\/a> worked toward more inclusive economic development in Rainier Beach, Seattle, community members focused on development of a neighborhood \u201cfood innovation district\u201d \u2014 an area that \u201cclusters manufacturing, technology, and food sectors around the light rail station to provide access to career-path living-wage jobs, strengthening the local economy through production rather than consumption,\u201d as the Black-led coalition puts it. One key component was figuring out how to develop such a site under community ownership, to ensure development decisions, finances and operations were determined by the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seattle\u2019s <\/span>Equitable Development Initiative<\/a> provided funding for the coalition to capacity build around their goal, then granted $2.1 million<\/a> this year for the coalition to purchase light-rail-adjacent land that will become the food innovation district. The future manufacturing, production and community space will be the result of an \u201cauthentic, deep community engagement process,\u201d according to Gregory Davis, managing strategist of the coalition. \u201cWe anticipate that being a process of 18 months \u2026 we knew this needs to be community led.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

This article is part of Elements of an Equitable Recovery<\/a>, a series on solutions helping small, especially woman- and minority-owned, businesses survive and thrive. This series is generously underwritten by LISC<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

Emily Nonko<\/a> is a Brooklyn, New York-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Curbed and other publications.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t \n\t\n

This post was originally published on Next City<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t(Photo by Andy Spear; courtesy LISC)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tIlana Preuss founded Recast City in 2014 to help build communities where small-scale manufacturing businesses could thrive. The challenges, she found, were steep. \u201c6…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91051"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93023,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91051\/revisions\/93023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}