"Michael Porter recently argued in the Harvard Business Review that a sustainable economic base can be created in the inner city only if it has been created elsewhere: through private, for-profit, initiatives and investment based on economic self-interest and genuine competitive advantage - not through artificial inducements, charity, or government. Porter's ideas have prompted endorsement as well as criticism. More importantly, they have inspired a search for new solutions to inner city distress as well as a reassessment of current approaches."--BOOK JACKET. "The Inner City includes not only the viewpoints of academicians but also those of practitioners. All take up Porter's challenge, though in different ways. Five community service organizations, whose primary focus is the inner city, present perspectives on their organizations' strategies for inner city revitalization. Each brings a unique approach to problems of the inner city."--BOOK JACKET. "Following the impassioned arguments of the contributors are two responses, one from the co-editors and one from Michael Porter himself. The Inner City defines a core debate in the United States over the future of a racially divided urban America. It is of inestimable importance to policy analysts, government officials, African-American studies scholars, urban studies specialists, sociologists, and all those concerned with inner city revitalization."--Jacket.