Remains of the Progressive City? First Source Hiring in Portland and Chicago

Abstract

Within urban scholarship, there is an ongoing interest in the potential for progressive alternatives to growth-oriented economic development. This article examines the experience of two U.S. cities, Portland (Oregon) and Chicago, in the use of "First Source Hiring" policies from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Although Portland's policy endured over a long period of time, it has fallen into obscurity, while Chicago's program was short lived but stimulated a period of significant innovation within the workforce development field in its wake. I conclude that their respective experiences illustrate why and when history matters, calling attention to the importance of institutionalization of progressive policies and practices.

First Source Hiring: An Essential Tool for Linking the Poor to Employment or a “Dead Letter” Progressive Policy?

“…Shortcomings in the original "good faith" orientation of FSH led to the enactment of municipal hiring quotas for local residents. The FSH program in San Francisco has not functioned as a comprehensive solution, but it has helped to catalyze a larger workforce development system, contributing to institutional density (Chapple 2006;Schrock 2014b). FSH in San Francisco has enabled OEWD to strategically insert equity hiring policy into the city's economic development relationships, for example, Hunters Point redevelopment (Jacobs 2010).…”

“…Chapple (2006) posits that inner-city job opportunities are strengthened by building social and economic institutions that facilitate connections with local workforce and hiring companies. If FSH and related policies are to be a component of a larger process of institutional construction (Schrock 2014a(Schrock , 2014b, then the question of scale is important (Doussard 2015). For example, the LAX model appears to be scalable by replication at other large municipal projects in Los Angeles.…”

“…The urban problems of the 1970s and 1980s are even more acute today, intensifying the need to prioritize the integration of workforce and economic development (Bartik 2007;Doussard 2015;Garmise 2009;Goldstein, Lowe, and Donegan 2010;Leigh and Blakely 2013;Schrock 2014b). There is growing interest in revisiting the use of targeted hiring strategies to achieve this integration (Herrera et al 2014).…”

“…The "first-wave" FSH programs, led by Portland and Chicago, originated in the late 1970s and ran through the 1990s. FSH was a response to local advocacy groups, such as Acorn, for targeted hiring policies leading to significant increases in new hiring of residents in underserved areas of racially segregated American cities (Molina 1998;Schrock 2014aSchrock , 2014b; Table 1). Short-term case studies of first-wave programs in Portland, Berkeley, and Minneapolis 2 in the 1990s claimed improved job placement and wage levels for FSH participant job seekers.…”

7. The Opportunity Challenge: Jobs and Economic Development

“…In many cases, job creation was more rhe toric than fact (Giloth 1992). Second, many cities established "first source" hiring programs that required companies receiving public investments to consider preferred candidates, such as job seekers referred by local employment and training providers, although there was no requirement for hiring them (Schrock 2015). Third, a few cities like Boston set up Neighborhood Jobs Trusts to allocate payments from developers of large-scale proj ects to support job training (Keating 1986).…”