A Community Accounting Matrix for Buffalo's East Side Neighborhood

A community accounting matrix (CAM) is an economic model that summarizes the transactions between the various industries and types of household in a neighborhood, as well as the neighborhood's links with its adjoining city and region. This article describes the construction and findings of a prototype CAM for the mainly African-American-populated East Side neighborhood of Buffalo and the more affluent, mainly white-populated city and suburbs. The CAM thus quantifies key structural relationships between race, space, and class in the Buffalo area. The CAM is used to calculate the implications of changes in this structure, such as continued shifts from manufacturing to services in the metropolitan area. It may also be used to evaluate neighborhood development projects and strategies that are designed to reverse the East Side's historic decline. The article begins with a summary of the demographic and economic history of Buffalo and the East Side and summarizes an analysis by Taylor of the need for a territorially focused community development strategy for the East Side. In the light of this analysis, several requirements for the CAM are discussed. The construction of CAM is then described, using a variety of data and a cultural accounting methodology developed elsewhere. Calculations are presented that demonstrate the “multiplier†and income distribution processes at work in the East Side's economy. Last, some possible applications of the CAM are discussed, and the empirical structure of the CAM and preliminary findings are related to other theories of poverty and the inner city.