Here’s a great article that documents what many enlightened urban practitioners have long known: that equitable economies are healthier economies.
The more inequity, the less stable a place is, both economically and socially. The less stable a place is, the less confidence employers, residents, and investors will have in its future. The less confidence they have in its future, the fewer of them will arrive (or stay).
A recent report by Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor (published In an upcoming issue of Urban Studies) found “evidence that growth duration is positively related to a number of factors one might expect, including lower levels of reliance on manufacturing and a higher proportion of the population with middle education levels. But of most interest here is that growth spells seem to be shorter when there are higher levels of metropolitan political fragmentation, higher levels of racial segregation, and most significantly (both for theory and in terms of statistical significance) a higher level of income inequality.”