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CitySCOPE Podcast

Welcome to CitySCOPE, a podcast about cities and inclusive economic development from Kate Cooney and her students at the Inclusive Economic Development Lab at the Yale School of Management.

CitySCOPE show art

Kate Cooney

Senior Lecturer in Social Enterprise and Management
Kate Cooney
Bio

Kate Cooney's research uses institutional theory to study the intersection of business and social sectors. Current work focuses on the cross-country comparisons of new social business legal forms, corporate supply chain transparency, social return on investment methods and inclusive economic development strategies in the American city. To understand how hybrid organizations are shaped by commercial and institutional isomorphic pressures, she has studied commercialization in the nonprofit sector, social enterprise, workforce development programs, and the emergence of new social business legal forms. She has also written broadly about market based approaches to poverty alleviation the negotiation of competing institutional logics in social enterprise organizations. Projects underway include CitySCOPE podcast, a series examining inclusive economic development in American Cities (Listen to Season 1 Charting the Opportunity in Opportunity Zones) and a MacMillan Center funded grant titled Consumer Activism and Supply Chain Transparency: Anti-Slavery Movements in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Prior to joining the faculty at Yale SOM, Dr. Cooney was on the faculty at Boston University teaching courses on nonprofit management, urban poverty and economic development, and community and organizational analysis. Kate Cooney currently serves on the Board of Directors of Dwight Hall at Yale, Center for Public Service and Justice.

Episodes

  • Podcast
    Season 3
    Episode 6
    Duration 43:29

    McDonald's and Black America

    In Episode 6 of the CitySCOPE podcast Kate Cooney speaks with Marcia Chatelain, Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University about her Pulitzer Prize winning book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. Topics include: McDonald's trajectory from regional to national franchiser, McDonald's as a site of Civil Rights social movement activity, the fight for the right to franchise for Black entrepreneurs, attempts at restructuring McDonald's franchises into community ownership models, and what we can learn about Black capitalism through this history. Take a listen!

  • Podcast
    Season 3
    Episode 5
    Duration 01:06:30

    The Stanley Tucker interview

    In Episode 5 of the CitySCOPE podcast we share the interview with Stanley Tucker, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Meridian Management Company, Inc (MMG). Stanley has been in the business of supporting and scaling minority and women owned businesses for fifty years. Stanley began his career as Director of the Maryland Small Business Development Financing Authority, building the organization from the ground up. Today, his firm MMG, Inc manages three additional funds: the Maryland Casino Business Investment Fund, Community Development Ventures, Inc., and MMG Ventures, LP which together provide the continuum of capital needed to take a firm from birth to exit. Described as working with a mix of creativity and pragmatism, Stanley is recognized for generating some of the most innovative programs in the country. Be sure to join us for this one!

  • Podcast
    Season 3
    Episode 4
    Duration 01:00:18

    Black Capitalism

    Join us for Episode 4 of the CitySCOPE podcast where we continue our exploration into the history of initiatives to support Black owned businesses in the United States. In this episode we feature conversations about the policy side of the story with Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University and Fred McKinney, recently retired Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University and the past Director of the People’s United Bank Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship also at Quinnipiac University.

  • Podcast
    Season 3
    Episode 3
    Duration 40:22

    American Dream, Part Two

    Episode 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast features Professor Gerald Jaynes, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, African American Studies, and Urban Studies with lead in commentary from Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University and Fred McKinney, former Carlton Highsmith Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University and the past Director of the People’s United Bank Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship also at Quinnipiac University. This week we look at some stories of 19th and 20th century Black entrepreneurs who made it big, despite the odds.

    *Photo credit: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File.

  • Podcast
    Season 3
    Episode 2
    Duration 52:18

    American Dream, Part One

    On episode 2 of the CitySCOPE podcast, we explore the research on ethnic and immigrant entrepreneurship and the American Dream and how it relates to the literature on Black business. This episode features conversations with Zulema Valdez, Associate Vice Provost for the Faculty and Professor in Sociology at the University of California, Merced and Gerald Jaynes, the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of Economics, African American Studies, and Urban Studies as well as Tim Bates, Professor emeritus at Wayne State University.

    *Photo credit: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

  • Podcast
    Season 3
    Episode 1
    Duration 23:21

    Supporting and Scaling Black Businesses

    Welcome to Season 3 of the CitySCOPE podcast! In episode 1, we introduce our theme–Supporting and Scaling Black -owned and Black -led businesses. To kick things off, Kate Cooney from the Yale School of Management and James Johnson-Piett from Urbane discuss the importance of the current moment and the surge of attention and support for Black businesses. As always, we conclude with a sneak peek of the conversations to come over the future episodes of the 2021 season. We have some great guests lined up and we can’t wait to share our conversations with you!

  • Podcast
    Season 2
    Episode 8
    Duration 52:16

    Reflections for New Haven

    Join us for episode 8 as hosts Alexandra Sing, Marisa Berry and Kate Cooney wrap up Season 2 of the CitySCOPE podcast rethinking community engagement and the role of narratives in inclusive economic development. In this episode, we reflect on how the lessons learned from other cities might apply in New Haven, the city where we live!

  • Podcast
    Season 2
    Episode 7
    Duration 51:41

    Envisioning the Future City

    In the U.S. political economy, some economic regions grow and gain in prosperity in sustained ways while other cities' fortunes rise and fall over time. How do cities come together to shape these trajectories? In this week's episode, our co-hosts Evan Oleson and Stephen Henriques speak with Prabal Chakrabarti from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston about the lessons learned from the Working Cities Challenge aimed at supporting catalytic cross-sector initiatives to reimagine economic paths forward in smaller, post-industrial cities. We also speak with James Johnson-Piett from Urbane Development about his work on the Sunnyside Yard Master Plan where multiple communities came together to envision the way a major public development project could support future visions of the city. James shares how this envisioning process can also be used at the neighborhood level, using an example from Philadelphia to illuminate different development pathways for a neighborhood as it evolves alongside broader strategic initiatives at the city level.

    Photo credit: Urbane Development

  • Podcast
    Season 2
    Episode 6
    Duration 49:10

    Changing the Regional Story for Workforce Development

    What is your mental model of an ideal worker? Is your mindset creating blind spots about talent development? In this week's episode of the CitySCOPE podcast, our co-hosts Norbert Cichon and Brice Eidson speak with leaders of two workforce intermediaries that have developed creative strategies for regional workforce development. David Dodson, past President of MDC Inc., (and Yale SOM graduate!) highlights the importance of connecting young people to work and learning opportunities early in their education-to-career trajectory, both for the young people and for their employers. His experience with the Made in Durham effort in Durham, North Carolina illustrates both the opportunities and the challenges in this work, even in an economically strong region, home to innovative, globally competitive companies. Jerry Rubin of Jewish Vocational Services in Boston, shares lessons from his decades of work developing smart and responsive initiatives building bridges to career opportunities in the healthcare sector. At a time when the American economy is producing both highly paid jobs for those with higher levels of education and large numbers of low wage jobs, Jerry shares what he's learned about how to direct supply side training toward demand-side needs and the importance of pairing those initiatives with strategic efforts to address job quality at the sector level. Join us for a great conversation!

    Photo credit: Made in Durham

  • Podcast
    Season 2
    Episode 5
    Duration 37:46

    Meaningful Inefficiencies in Civic Engagement

    We commonly hear calls for government to operate more efficiently from legislators, oversight groups, and government executives alike. While public sector efficiency may be valuable for functions like street repair, permitting, and waste collection, can it also raise barriers to meaningful civic engagement between residents and their governments?

    This week on the CitySCOPE Podcast, our co-hosts Uzma Amin and Tessa Ruben speak with Eric Gordon, director of the Engagement Lab and professor at Emerson College about creating meaningful inefficiencies that allow people to engage with government systems. Gordon draws a parallel between civic engagement and play: games are full of inefficiencies, it is games' intentionally cultivated difficulty within a clear rules structure that make them fun and meaningful.

    At a time when trust in government in the United States is at an all-time low, Gordon challenges us to ask: how might we create opportunities for a play-like sense of engagement in civic processes to connect communities to public systems, and to each other, in meaningful ways?

    Listen to find out more!

    Photo credit: Courtesy of Craig Walker / Boston Globe Staff