With former President Bill

Clinton scheduled to move into his newly renovated 14th story, 8,300-square-foot

office space in Harlem this week, most media sources will focus on the

obvious, that the new economic Harlem renaissance is a modern day Cinderella

story.

Sound the whistles. Strike

up the bands. Here comes another "do-gooder," ex-somebody, whose

pockets are full of taxpayer money, to sweep into the lives of the downtrodden

to make everything better for everybody.

What longtime residents and

small-business owners in Harlem would probably tell you, for those who

would bother to ask, is that it's a Cinderella story all right, and that

their coach is about to turn into a pumpkin.

Empowerment zone capital investment

is an economic shot in the arm in areas where former neighborhood havens

have eroded into abandoned, crime-ridden hovels. The zones were created

growth in the most distressed inner city areas of the United States.

New stores, new restaurants,

and trendy renovated housing bring jobs and people who help to breathe

new life into a once dying area.

Government incentives usually

manage to lure both corporate administrative and retail business in to

the targeted area, which brings even more jobs and more people. The influx

of people forces city personnel to renew their commitment to provide manpower

and services for the empowerment zone to improve public safety and neighborhood

infrastructure.

In Harlem, where just a few

years ago residents didn't even have a full-size grocery store, empowerment

zone investment is raising the quality of life. Crime is down. People

can live, work, and shop locally. It's a pretty positive picture.

Mind you, these are investments

in the millions of dollars paid for by the taxpayers, but in big urban

population centers where space is finite and population is a steadily

increasing variable, generating what will eventually be a self-sustaining

productivity level in an area that once was an economic drain seems to

be cost-effective in the long run.

But in all of this progress

lies a lesser told story that should speak to the very heart of urban

renewal. Longtime residents and business owners, those who stuck it out

when Harlem was a place that no one else dared to go, those to whom the

community rightfully belongs, are being squeezed out by the very progress

that should be a dream come true. The cost to rent business and residential

space has tripled, even quadrupled, according to longtime residents.

Imagine the day that, at long

last, your business picks up. You go from breaking even to actually making

a profit. The police presence that you used to plead for has finally arrived,

and crime is down, just like you knew it would be as soon as someone bothered

to enforce the laws. Your streets are cleaner and more attractive. You

can finally afford to buy some new things to spruce up your place.

And then your lease expires.

Your new lease is triple what

you used to pay, and you have to leave your community, just when your

community is looking like a nice place to live.

The solution seems simple,

so simple that it is hard to fathom why it wasn't part of the empowerment

plan in the first place extend a similar package of incentives to longtime

residents and business owners that you extend to the outside businesses

and big corporations. Create a formula so that the incentives only go

to the people who were operating businesses prior to the implementation

of the empowerment plan. Reserve some housing that is affordable, with

sliding scale rents subject to income levels, for those who are longtime

residents. Make an effort to preserve the local flavor of the empowerment

zone by seeing to it that the people who have been there in the trenches

trying to make something of their community can afford to stay there.

I'm not a big fan of big public

spending, but if the government is going to invest in an area for urban

renewal, then the beneficiaries of that investment ought not just be the

big city investors and big corporations who can afford to take the minimal

risk.

If the goal is truly empowerment,

and that's what the name says, then there needs to be some clearer focus

placed on whom we are empowering, and it darn well ought to include the

people who lived there before the "do-gooders" swept in on their

coach.

Otherwise, it's just another

big business scheme at taxpayer expense, and a human interest story that

should be an epic embarrassment to the urban renewal movement.

If that's the case, then big

money can go on in and renew any area they want, on their own dime.

People in Harlem don't need

any glass slippers. They need a good solid pair of shoes.

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