I tend to think of the requisites for moving forward fall into three categories. The first, and probably most important, is what could, broadly speaking, be called investment in people. And that includes education and training at all levels, not only skill training but social skill training, Head Start, to adult skill and technical training. It includes decent housing, and it includes health care. The second category is public safety, and the President has made this a high priority through the Brady Bill, the assault weapons ban and the program to put police back on the streets.
Public safety is a precondition to economic activity.
The third is access to private sector capital and other measures to create economic activity in the inner cities. This has received relatively little public attention, but is critical to revitalizing America's distressed cities. The last two decades have seen enormous innovations in finance and in the financial markets. Ideas that were unknown on Wall Street have now become commonplace. Financial markets in the United States are today the most innovative, the broadest and deepest in the world.