Pennsylvania's public policies inhibit business growth and job creation, and darken the prospects of young people who remain in Pittsburgh , guest speaker Glen T. Meakem told the African-American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania's annual luncheon yesterday.

Running down a laundry list of public policies from business taxes to the right of public sector unions to strike, the tech entrepreneur and managing director of Meakem Becker Venture Capital challenged the nearly 400 attendees in the grand ballroom of the Omni William Penn hotel to ask if each policy is " helping or is it hurting?"

Mr. Meakem framed his questions within the context of the region's continuing loss of population, and the state's No. 1 ranking for African-American homicide victims, according to a report released in February by the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

"This blood in our streets is the ultimate evidence that the economic policies of the state of Pennsylvania are just not working," Mr. Meakem said.

The speech, which also highlighted the importance of personal values, drew hearty applause from the gathering.

"I know that we have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,'' said architect Howard K. Graves, who for many years led the city's only African-American architectural firm. "I t's important for us to take responsibility for our own preparation so that when we do have the opportunities we can deliver."

But, he added, "Everyone has to be accountable. We don't need a white businessman or a white politician to sanction what is right. We know what is right. We just have to make politicians do the right thing."

Floyd Cephas, executive director of the North Side Christian Health Center, also expressed approval of Mr. Meakem's speech, saying, "He led with grace and followed with truth."

But not all who heard were convinced.

"Black communities in the last four decades have been beset with Depression-level rates of unemployment and underemployment,'' said Richard Adams, Jr., assistant dean of multicultural affairs and equity at Community College of Allegheny County. "Nothing short of a massive Marshall Plan type of approach will effectively eliminate the large pockets of poverty that exist."

Mr. Meakem made his fortune as a co-founder of FreeMarkets, an Internet auction company that was founded in 1995, was valued at nearly $10 billion the first day of trading when it went public in late 1999, and was sold in 2004 for $493 million.