Inside Cambridge Community Foundation's Innovation and Equity Cities Report

11a Ware Street, Cambridge MA

Description

The City of Cambridge has evolved from an education mecca to an innovation hub, powered by universities, research centers, labs, talent, massive private investment, and a diverse environment conducive to innovation. Our city is a tale of ironies, an intertwining of success and challenges, wealth and poverty, dynamism and dispossession. Looking back at the last decade, we can see that innovation-driven growth and prosperity obscured cracks in our civic foundation that threaten the very things that made Cambridge special in the first place — its diversity of people, households, race, income, ideas, and businesses — as well as the sense of community that comes with being a place that is welcoming and accessible to all. This Equity & Innovation Cities report places Cambridge in the context of other innovation cities and provides data on the impact of its economic success on our community. The report looks at Cambridge in-depth, across five income segments, or quintiles, each with about 20,000 people, to understand the divergent lives of individuals within those segments. This Conversation will attempt to take a deep dive into the report and its findings, hoping to start a dialogue leading to a civic agenda that brings together sectors of the city to meet these challenges. The Cambridge Community Foundation is holding a talk on “Cambridge: Innovation, Growth, and Inequality in a Post-pandemic World” on Wednesday, April 7th at 8:30am EST to discuss the findings of their report. Register for the April 7th talk here: https://garnish.swoogo.com/CCFEquityReport MODERATOR: Geeta Pradhan, President, Cambridge Community Foundation (http://cambridgecf.org/meet-geeta-pradhan-ceo-of-the.../) Jessica Martin, Policy Research and Operations Specialist at CCF, Data Gatherer for this report PANELISTS: Mayor Sumbul Sidiqqui, Mayor of Cambrige (https://www.cambridgema.gov/.../citycounci.../sumbulsiddiqui) Rev. Irene Monroe, ALL REV’D UP on WGBH (89.7 FM) (https://www.irenemonroe.com/) Dr. Thomas Shapiro, David R. Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at The Heller School for Social Policy, Brandeis University (https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html...) The Conversations on the Edge series is presented in partnership with First Republic Bank (https://www.firstrepublic.com/) and the Cambridge Community Foundation (https://cambridgecf.org/).