Linking Innovation With Inclusion: Demography, Equity and the Future of San Diego

July 29, 2015

By Manuel Pastor, Alejandro Sanchez-Lopez, and Jennifer Ito

Please note: reports dated earlier than June 2020 were published under our previous names: the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) or the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII).

San Diego’s high-tech sectors—including clean-, bio-, and medical technologies—have thrust the region into the top lists of the most innovative cities in the world. Yet, according to the National Equity Atlas, San Diego ranks #62 in income inequality measures among the largest 150 metro regions in the U.S. Despite its post-recession gains, the region’s long-term growth is hampered by an existing system of economic and environmental inequality. What can be done to ensure that the next San Diego is a more sustainable and equitable San Diego?

Linking Innovation with Inclusion: Demography, Equity, and the Future of San Diego presents an in-depth analysis of equity indicators for the region to form a set of principles and recommended strategies to unite diverse, regional stakeholders under a common agenda toward a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future.

• Linking high-tech with high-need: investing in education for youth and disadvantaged workers, reducing environmental burdens, and increasing sustainable economic opportunities in low-income communities;
• Linking innovation and inclusion: fostering economic inclusion, immigrant integration, and boosting community capacity through university partnerships;
• Linking people and place: promoting new forms of planning and transit that help communities develop in place and connect to local employment, addressing affordable housing needs, and increasing civic engagement.

This research was funded by the Ford Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.