How can university-based entrepreneurship programs make a difference in the inner city? The initiative described herein represents a novel approach to entrepreneurial development, and specifically, to the role universities can play in championing meaningful change within disadvantaged communities.

Syracuse University is located directly east of the economically and socially depressed South Side of Syracuse, New York. The South Side has been hurt more severely than any other area in the region by the systemic decline of the Greater Syracuse economy over the past two decades. Many factors contribute to the severe cycle of economic and social depression on Syracuse’s South Side. Similarly, a host of factors require substantive attention if the cycle is to be broken and the South Side is to experience a renaissance. These factors range from housing to education, and from economic well-being to human and social support services. Its residents have referred to the area as an “economic desert”.

And yet, we believe that significant change is possible, that there are valuable assets on which to build, and that the key to sustainable economic development is entrepreneurship. On balance, larger companies within the Syracuse metro area are not likely to expand significantly in the coming years, and few established firms are likely to relocate operations to the area given the region’s contemporary tax, regulatory, labor, and operating cost environment. This set of conclusions is even truer when it comes to Syracuse’s South Side. As a result, the solution rests with organic development through the creation and growth of entrepreneurial firms on the South Side. Entrepreneurship is the key to empowerment.