Report cover featuring diverse people in a lab, a light-rail system, and people of color presenting about affordable housing
Economic Inclusion and Climate Equity

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.

Linking Innovation With Inclusion was partly inspired by PERE’s 2013 work for The San Diego Foundation: Equity Indicators for a Greater San Diego: Focus on Demography, Economy, and Civic Health. Download (PDF) >> 

Download report

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

Media Coverage

“Report pegs S.D. economy to inequality”

The San Diego Union-Tribune

By Dan McSwain

“USC Report: Inequality Could Stifle Economic Progress In San Diego County”

KPBS Midday Edition

By Maureen Cavanaugh

“Report: San Diego Must Address Inequality For Economic Growth”

KPBS

By Jean Guerrero

“USC Report: Inequality Threatens San Diego’s Future”

San Diego Free Press

By Doug Porter

Op-Ed: “How to Include Everyone in San Diego’s Innovation Economy”

Times of San Diego

By Barbara Bry

Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America’s Metro Areas

By Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520284418/equity-growth-and-community

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ffjnd4

Read our other publications by research area

    Immigrant Integration & Racial Justice

    Our work on immigrant integration and racial justice brings together three emphases: scholarship that draws on academic theory and rigorous research, data that provides information structured to highlight the process of immigrant integration over time, and engagement that seeks to create new dialogues with government, community organizers, business and civic leaders, immigrants and the voting public to advance immigrant integration and racial equity.

    Economic Inclusion & Climate Equity

    In the area of economic inclusion, we at ERI advance academic theory and practical applications linking economic growth, environmental quality, and civic health with bridging of racial and other gaps; produce accessible and actionable data and analysis through the data tools; and establish research partnerships to deepen and advance the dialogue, planning, and actions around racial equity, environmental justice, and the built environment.

    Social Movements & Governing Power

    ERI’s work in the area of governing power includes: conducting cross-disciplinary studies of today’s social movements, supporting learning and strategizing efforts to advance dialogues among organizers, funders, intermediaries, evaluators, and academics, and developing research-based social change frameworks and tools to inform—and be informed by—real-world, real-time efforts towards a vision of deep change.

    Publications Directory

    In 2020, the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) merged to form the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

    The full list of publications published under our previous and current names can be found in our publications directory.

    a view of the Los Angeles skyline