Fresno Drives toward a Strong and Sustainable Community-Based Economy

By Steve Dubb

Fresno, California’s fifth-most-populous city, defies many stereotypes we may have of the Golden State. Be honest: When you think of California, do you picture beaches, Silicon Valley, or Hollywood? Think again. Fresno, with 520,000 people living more than two hours away from the coast, is neither an entertainment capital like Los Angeles nor a biotech corridor like San Diego nor a tech hub like San Jose or San Francisco. Nor is Fresno wealthy; its median household income, at just above $41,500, is roughly half that of its Silicon Valley cousins.

But Fresno is at the heart of a nearly million-person, rapidly growing, majority Latinx community, located in one of our nation’s most productive agricultural regions, the San Joaquin Valley. And Fresno has also often been a site of innovation in nonprofit-led community building.

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