This Article examines the extent to which the Empowerment Zones Program is properly viewed as a neutral, rational, and beneficial program for poor, inner-city communities and their residents by exploring the limits and potential of its chief mechanism, economic development, as a tool to achieve social justice for the inner cities. This Article grounds its exploration within the contested terrain of the city, not simply as a legal or juridical concept, but in terms of its reality as a lived place on the eve of the 21st century.