SBA takes renewed interest in cities

After years down on the farm, the Small Business Administrationis rediscovering cities.

"We must enable small business to flourish in Chicago," saidEdward D. Murnane, the SBA's Chicago regional administrator. "It's aninvestment in our future."

He recently launched a pilot program here to get the most out offederal, state, county, city and private aid for entrepreneurs andexisting companies with 500 or fewer employees.

The project is designed to close loopholes between the agenciesin order to help the businesses without costing Uncle Sam any moremoney.

Currently, city, county state and federal agencies operate 29financial programs to assist businesses, but the heads of the variousorganizations may not be aware of what the others are doing, Murnanesaid.

"They may be duplicating each other's efforts. What we have todo is look at what each agency is doing and what's not being done.We want to create an environment that's supporative of smallbusiness," he said during an interview in his Loop office.

The payoff can be impressive.

"Between 1976 and 1986, more than 389,000 new jobs were createdin Illinois and of that total, 96.2 percent were created by smallbusiness," Murnane said.

Besides Illinois, the SBA's Chicago region encompasses Indiana,Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota.

The six states are the home to 3.7 million of the nation's 16million small businesses.

The SBA's renewed interest in the urban landscape comes yearsafter the Reagan administration failed after hard pushing to phaseout the agency. Also James Abdnor, who headed the SBA from March,1987, to April, 1989, emphasized the development programs in ruralareas over inner-city neighborhoods.

His successor, Susan Engeleiter, has placed economic developmentin major cities high on her priority list - with President Bush'sendorsement.

Murnane said officials from the city's Department of EconomicDevelopment, the Illinois Department of Commerce and CommunityAffairs and Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry haveorganized the Small Business Coordinating Council to identify andreview various programs.

Joseph J. James, Chicago's commissioner for economicdevelopment, said the cooperative effort will help to promote moreminority and women-owned businesses.

"The economies of major urban areas are dependent, in part, uponthe health of their small businesses," he said.

"The various agencies need to develop a close workingrelationship with each other."

Murnane plans to develop similar programs in Detroit andCleveland, and other SBA regions also are keep an eye on progress.

Joseph Pellegrino, deputy regional administrator for the Bostonregion, said he is considering a similiar program because of thesimilarity of the demographics in Boston and Chicago.