2
for waivers of federal regulations and program requirements to make it easier for communities to
use existing federal funds to help carry out their strategic plans. Both types of communities were
also to receive special consideration for any pending or subsequent applications for federal aid
tied to an EZ/EC activity.
Overall, almost 300 applications were submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) for the urban portion of the program, including 74 applications for
EZ designation and 219 for designation as an EC. Six cities were designated as urban
Empowerment zones (Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, and
Philadelphia/Camden, NJ). Los Angeles and Cleveland were designated as Supplemental
Empowerment Zones; Boston, Houston, Kansas City, and Oakland were designated as Enhanced
Enterprise Communities and 61 cities received EC designation. The research we present here
focuses primarily on the EZ programs in Atlanta and Baltimore.
Atlanta and Baltimore
The cases we present are a rich basis for learning about the EZ initiative. The program in
Atlanta was troubled from the start and was frequently a target of federal warnings and
intervention. Despite this, the interim evaluation sponsored by HUD reported that Atlanta’s
Empowerment Zone experienced more job creation than any of the other five original designees.
1
Eventually, the Atlanta EZ program was terminated early and Atlanta was designated as a
Renewal Community, having accomplished little despite years of effort. How can this troubled
history be reconciled with evidence that suggests that Atlanta was, by some measures, the most
successful program?
The answer is that it is difficult to attribute changes that take place in a complicated urban
economy to any particular cause. While Atlanta experienced job growth, it is necessary to
examine what happened there in detail to draw reasonable inferences about what can be treated
as an effect of the EZ initiative.
By contrast, Baltimore seemed to be the federal government’s favorite Empowerment
Zone. Baltimore hosted HUD-sponsored conferences and visitors from around the world who
came to see an effective federal urban program in action. Baltimore also was cited by the interim
evaluation as having experienced significant job growth, second only to Atlanta. Although
effective program management in Baltimore creates a more plausible basis to see this job growth
as a result of the EZ initiative, the same problems of linking job growth to the EZ program that
exist in Atlanta also exist in Baltimore. Baltimore’s EZ program was managed and implemented
effectively, but it is not clear what the program contributed to job growth in the Empowerment
Zone.
This discussion suggests several important points. First, it is difficult to interpret the
significance of economic development and job creation data without a detailed examination of
what happened within each city. Second, the problem of learning what effects the various EZ
1
The final report observed this and noted that it was difficult to know whether or not to treat this as a program effect
as there were several possible confounding factors that must be accounted for.
Convention