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Black business owners and workers too often face systemic biases: from underrepresentation in the boardroom to higher rates of unemployment. In <\/em>Black-Owned and Proud<\/em><\/a>, we profile innovative Black entrepreneurs building businesses and bringing much-needed change to the face of enterprise.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As a master\u2019s candidate of urban planning at the University of California, Berkeley, Ari Takata-Vasquez<\/a> longed for a more practical application of the discipline. She feared that much of what she was learning wouldn\u2019t be implemented in the cities and neighborhoods that needed it most, like Oakland, California, only five miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had researched Oakland and saw that it had the biggest retail leakage in the country, meaning people in that area were buying goods and services outside the area. \u201cOakland loses $2 billion annually to San Francisco or Walnut Creek, neighboring cities that don\u2019t have the same negative perception Oakland has,\u201d she says. \u201cThat money could be circulated locally and used to create jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n