Changing public perceptions about the inner city and recognizing the assets that are already there are key to developing its economy, said the Los Angeles mayoral candidates at a conference April 30 held on the economic future of Los Angeles' inner city.

A panel that included Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn and former California Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa took up the topic at Freud Playhouse at an event held for the release of a report by Operation HOPE and The Anderson School following last year's Inner City Economic Summit. The summit, co-sponsored by the school, brought together public officials, including former Vice President Al Gore, academics, executives, entrepreneurs and leaders of community-based organizations to envision a new urban America.

John Bryant, founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, the nonprofit, public-benefit investment banking organization behind the summit and report, called the document a "new business agenda for the new millennium," perhaps marking a major turning point for the inner city.

"We have moved into a new phase where no longer do we need to bring (those with) the capital, dragging their feet and screaming, to the inner city," observed Anderson Dean Bruce Willison, a panelist, co-chair of the event and member of the Operation HOPE Board of Directors. "There are some people who are eager to do business and bring capital into the inner city."

In Los Angeles and in other urban areas around the country, there are inner-city neighborhoods that investors have overlooked, Villaraigosa said. "There's this big economic engine that just hasn't been oiled or tuned up. This report is an opportunity for us to do that fine tuning, to create the infrastructure that we need," he said.

Participants stressed that the economy can flourish in the inner city if the private and public sectors and communities collaborate, if money is invested wisely and those in and outside the city change their perception of what can occur there.

"If you can change that perception and make a difference, good things will follow," predicted Hahn, who proposes starting with the education system. After-school programs, mentoring, better coordination between schools and employers and improved recruitment of teachers could help make it happen, he said.

While it's important that investors alter their opinions of the inner city, Hahn said, residents need to recognize they shoulder equal responsibility for job growth by making the area a cleaner, safer and more hospitable place to do business.

The city also should be looking into the possibility of creating a biotech corridor in Watts, Hahn said, building on the city's extensive existing assets, such as the UCLA, USC and King-Drew medical centers.

Villaraigosa also stressed the importance of education, as well as affordable housing, small business- and home-ownership, and neighborhood empowerment and revitalization. Creating an urban film institute also is an idea worth investigating, he said.

"If there's anything about this effort that's important, it's the idea that there are assets here, human assets. There's a whole community that longs to be included," said Villaraigosa.