For example, Lemann cites an Urban Institute report that shows how jobs have followed people to the suburbs in large numbers, and that calculates that the African-American population of the suburbs increased by 38 percent in the 39 largest metropolitan areas during the 1980s. Development strategies invite us to reconstruct an inner-city economy that has not existed for decades. Dispersal strategies counsel us to destroy the inner city in order to save it. But there is a third approach to enhancing the employment prospects of inner-city residents. A mobility strategy would seek to connect the residents of inner cities to employment opportunities throughout the metropolitan area.
Jobs are no longer around the corner.
Rather they are over the suburban horizon. Instead, the mobility strategy focuses on making the inner city a more viable place. Many are now only barely so, and only with enormous personal and communal struggle against horrifying conditions. Viability in the inner city means the same things it means in all the other places people live. At the very least, it means the inner city must be safe and supportive.