The Project: Impact of Urban Revitalization on Small Businesses Study

The Impact of Urban Revitalization on Small Businesses Study began in January 2022 and is a community-engaged project conducted by the Baker Institute McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth in cooperation with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The goal of the study was to learn directly from Third Ward business owners and community members about how urban redevelopment has impacted small businesses in the Third Ward during the years 1999-2021. The community-engaged study gained perspectives of small business owners in a historically African-American community experiencing economic and demographic change. This research was conducted with the assistance of community research assistants TaCorra Brooks, Vernon Jackson, Natasha Living, Leah Clark, and Tyrus Jones. The study also analyzed community business data. On March 25, 2023, the findings of the study were presented to the Third Ward community first.

Based on the small business community’s complete response to the research, the McNair Center, alongside community researchers and community stakeholders, will recommend public policy measures to government decision-makers and stakeholders in the greater Houston metropolitan area with the goal of improving economic outcomes for small businesses. Completed initiatives of this project have included:

• The recruitment of research assistants from the Third Ward community
• The engagement of over 600 businesses through personal visits by community research assistants and the principal researchers
• The gifting of an online business directory developed by Creek Town Digital for small businesses and the community to facilitate continued business networking and local patronage among residents and businesses
• The presentation of a historical context of Third Ward businesses and owners’ experience with community-led storytelling of neighborhood businesses via a historical consultant
• The gifting of an interactive digital map designed by the Rice Spatial Studies Lab to visualize economic and business changes in the Third Ward over the revitalization period
• The hosting of events related to the research in the community:
• Community Kickoff Event held on February 23 and 24, 2022, at SHAPE Community Center
• Business Owner Focus Groups held May 13 and 20, 2022, at SHAPE Community Center;
• Third Ward Business Appreciation Day held on November 15, 2022, at Emancipation Cultural Center, and;
• Third Ward Entrepreneurship Celebration (“Data Walk”) held on March 25, 2023.
• This included the first presentation and exhibit of the study results to gain the community’s response for inclusion in the final report.
• Community partners included:
• Greater Houston Southeast Management District
• Emancipation Park Conservancy
• Small Business Administration Houston Office
• SCORE Houston
• Lemonade Day Houston
• SHAPE Community Center
• Houston Community College
• Unity Bank
• Texas Southern University Debate Team

Our Research Team

Community Partner, SHAPE Community Center

SHAPE believes that educators are innovators and is on a mission to improve lives through programs emphasizing unity, self-determination, collective work, responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. The center, which originally had a staff of two, now supports more than 25 full- and part-time workers and hundreds of volunteers.

Deloyd T. Parker, Jr., Co-Founder & Executive Director, SHAPE Community Center

For over 50 years, Deloyd Parker has overseen the growth and operations of SHAPE Community Center. Growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, Parker’s parents instilled in him a sense of humility, a willingness to help, the courage to face adversity, and the strength to fight injustice. Under the leadership of Parker, SHAPE has weathered the ebbs and flows of community organizing and development. SHAPE has gained international attention, but Parker’s greatest achievements center around improving the lives of children, families, and the community as a whole.

Georgia D. Provost, Historical Consultant

Georgia D. Provost is a retired Houston ISD educator, retired Texas Southern University professor, and president and CEO of Provost Studios, LLC since 1980. During the 1970s and 1980s, she wrote a newspaper column saluting Black business owners in the Forward Times newspaper. She has provided her personal collection of columns and historical context of Black businesses in the Third Ward for this research project. If there are legends in Houston, Texas, they are certainly Georgia, her son, Jerome, and the late Coach Herbert J. Provost of Provost Studios, dubbed “Texas’ leading professional photographers.” The firm has chronicled the Houston community since 1948. Provost Studios, LLC also served as the official photographer for historical black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Texas, including Texas Southern University, Prairie View University (now Prairie View A&M), Bishop College, Texas College, and Jarvis Christian College, in addition to HBCUs in Louisiana and Mississippi. The Impact of Urban Revitalization on Small Businesses Study salutes Georgia Provost for her contributions to this research and to the landscape of businesses in Houston’s Third Ward.

Uilvim Ettore, GIS Researcher

Uilvim Ettore is an experienced professional in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and environmental engineering, currently working at Rice University’s Spatial Studies Lab. As a GIS researcher, he has contributed to the development of an interactive web map displaying the historical information of small businesses in Third Ward.

Principal Researcher, Alisha Small

Alisha Small is the McNair Center scholar for economic growth at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. As the principal researcher for this study, Small worked for over 14 months developing positive, long-term relationships with Third Ward business owners, community members, and stakeholders who supported the work. The project concentrated on outreach to hundreds of business owners to gain their perspectives. Alongside community research assistants, community members, and community partners, the study focused on leaving tangible economic, educational, and historical benefits to remain in the Third Ward after the completion of the research. Additional research support was provided by Alexandra Bello, research manager, and Ana Hogan, research assistant. Small recognizes that without the support the project team, and especially the participation of stakeholders in the Third Ward, this project could not have thrived — and for that, she is grateful.

Rice Spatial Studies Lab

Located at Rice University’s Center for Research Computing, the Spatial Studies Lab (SSL) brings together GIS specialists, developers, scholars, and designers who are interested in combining diverse sets of data, at the intersection of time and space. SSL’s areas of interest include cultural heritage, public health, social justice, disaster response, and climate change, in the form of web experiences

McNair Center for Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth

The McNair Center for Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth provides actionable policy analysis and recommendations that aim to expand the economy through private enterprise. The McNair Center is housed at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan, data-driven think tank. The institute conducts research and provides fact-based recommendations to policymakers, business leaders, academics, and the public.