Trump’s Opportunity Zones Don’t Work. This Might.
A simple fix from the Clinton administration would give investors the right incentive.
Donald Trump’s Opportunity Zones don’t encourage the kind of investment that would do the most good.
Photographer: Jim watson/AFP via Getty Images
A spate of looting in Chicago in mid-August should remind us that the problem of concentrated urban poverty still exists in the U.S. While looting is often an outgrowth of protests — not only in big cities like Chicago, but also more recently in places such as Kenosha, Wisconsin — it also can represent a response to a sense of economic privation and inequality. Chicago itself is a notoriously segregated and unequal city, so it’s unsurprising that economic frustrations would boil over there in addition to anger against police brutality. Nor is Chicago unique — as urbanist Jason Segedy has noted, declining neighborhoods are still very common in the U.S. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
President Donald Trump did implement one policy that was supposed to help improve the situation of poor urban neighborhoods — the Opportunity Zones program — but it looks to have been a dud. Fortunately, better ideas exist.