At the 2013 California Economic Summit, two topics kept reappearing: California’s growing prosperity gap and how advancing a triple bottom line—equity, economy and environment– may be the answer to the state’s poverty problem.
Unemployment rates for coastal communities have dipped, many below the state’s unemployment rate of 8.9 percent. In many inland areas, unemployment is in the double digits.
It’s clear many who attended the Summit believe all Californians should care about regions that are not thriving and if you make all of the economies stronger, the state’s overall economy will be better off—from urban to rural areas from the north to the south.
More than 450 business leaders, economic developers, educators, civic representatives and more gathered for two days of collaboration to fix the state’s economy. We talked to them about the state’s divergent prosperity or “two Californias.”
