Today marked a milestone for the City Miami with the release of the SocialCompact Drill Down Report, which shows that our city's neighborhoods are both bigger and carry more spending power than previously thought. In other words, the City of Miami has more than 137,000 more people than the Census projected. As much as we have been able to accomplish in the last 8 years in terms of poverty reduction and financial literacy, the DrillDown may be the most significant project of my administration. By demonstrating the real number of people in our community and their real income, this study tells banks and retailers, investors and the federal government, that Miami truly is primed for investment.
This report, which you can read in full HERE, indicates that the City of Miami has more than 500,000 residents and is therefore eligible for millions of dollars in federal dollars for our residents that we have not received. It also indicates that several of our city's neighborhoods are 'leaking' their income dollars; residents spending their money outside of their neighborhood or the city. This means that in neighborhoods like Wynwood, where the household income is as much as 186% more than the last Census showed, there is an opportunity to attract local banks, services and employers that may not have considered this district before.
I would like to thank Social Compact for their extremely important work and both the Citi and John S. and James L. Knight Foundations for the support that made this possible. Now, it is up to us. I call on you to join me in the next year and be an advocate for our city - let us work together to ensure that our residents get counted accurately in the 2010 Census.
For more information about the report, click HERE. You can learn more about City of Miami poverty reduction programs at www.ACCESSMiamiJobs.com.
-Manny
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