Today, metropolitan Chicago limits its own innovative capacity when it fails to expose many residents to a culture of innovation and to invest in their education, skills acquisition, and entrepreneurship.{{Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, “Inclusive Growth,” July 2017, https://cmap.illinois.gov/wp-content/uploads/Inclusive-Growth-strategy-paper.pdf}} Research demonstrates that even high-aptitude students from lower income and diverse backgrounds are impeded from participating in innovation and invention.{{Alexander Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova, and John Van Reenan. “Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 24062, 2017, http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/inventors_paper.pdf.}} A U.S. Department of Commerce report also found that minority-owned businesses receive fewer, smaller, and more expensive loan and equity investments than non-minority businesses.{{Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Cleveland, “Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Minority-Owned Firms,” 2017, https://www.clevelandfed.org/en/community-development/small-business/about-the-joint-small-business-credit-survey/2016-small-business-credit-survey.aspx.}} Without more investment in the region’s human capital and deliberate steps to ensure financial inclusion, these drains on productivity will continue to hinder the region’s economic growth.{{Christ Benner and Manuel Pastor. Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America’s Metro Areas. California: University of California Press, 2015.}} An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland showed that racial and ethnic diversity, openness to immigrants, and low rates of racial segregation contribute to growth in employment and productivity.{{Randall Eberts, George Erickcek, and Jack Kleinhenz. “Dashboard Indicators for the Northeast Ohio Economy: Prepared for the Fund for Our Economic Future,” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Working Paper, no. 06-05, 2006.}} Put simply, strategies for inclusive growth will broaden the pool of creative talent and market-driven inventions available to businesses. Exposing diverse residents to successful entrepreneurs and the so-called “opportunities of failure” can create a fertile environment for innovation in all areas of the region.{{Olav Sorenson. “Regional ecologies of entrepreneurship,” Journal of Economic Geography 17, no. 5, 2017. 959-974.}}

Action 1

Improve access to capital, science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics education, and training opportunities for residents of economically disconnected areas (EDA( Economically disconnected areas have a concentration of low income residents and either minority re...
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s).

Implementers

Innovation ecosystem, such as investors, institutions of higher education and research, and technical service providers

Action 2

Provide mentorship, internship, apprenticeship, and other opportunities that ensure all residents with an aptitude for invention are exposed to a culture of innovation.

Implementers

Innovation ecosystem, such as startup incubators, accelerators, institutions of higher education and research, and private businesses