Did Two Decades of Urban Renewal Benefit Small Businesses in Houston’s Third Ward?

“One of those things that [respondents] shared in a focus group was that there is a sort of discrimination based on the location of the business, more than it was about the race, which to me was intriguing to find ... It also brought out a point that there was predatory lending practices because of their location. Once the lender knew that the location was in the community specifically, then the offerings of interest rates were much higher than normal. And I think that really speaks to [respondents’] perspective of inequities.”  — Alisha Small

About the Episode

Houston’s Third Ward is one of the city’s most historic Black neighborhoods. It’s also the site of longstanding and consequential debates about gentrification and redevelopment. Urban revitalization is meant to spur economic growth and benefit inner-city communities like the Third Ward — but do the changes actually benefit existing small business owners?

Economist Alisha Small joined the “Baker Briefing” podcast to discuss her research into the impact of urban revitalization efforts on small businesses in the Third Ward.

For more, read Small’s recent working paper: “The Economic Interdependence of the Developed and the Developing: Two Decades of Urban Revitalization and Its Economic Impact on Third Ward Small Businesses.”

This conversation was recorded on Jan. 30, 2025. Subscribe and listen to “Baker Briefing” on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

A full transcript of this episode is available here. This transcript was AI-generated and has not been through editorial review.

About ‘Baker Briefing’

Hosted by David M. Satterfield,  the “Baker Briefing” podcast delivers timely analysis on breaking policy developments and other critical policy issues of the day in conversations with experts at the Baker Institute. New episodes are released weekly.

Certain episodes of “Baker Briefing” are recorded in front of a live audience at Rice University in Houston, Texas. These recordings are free and open to the public. To learn about upcoming recordings and other public programming from the Baker Institute, subscribe to our “Events Digest” newsletter, delivered weekly.

This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.