Sunday, April 29, 2007
Colorado Springs is one of those cities struggling to manage growth. Here's an interesting article that gives you an overview of the challenges that civic leaders face. Read more.
One of the biggest challenges involves balancing the financial resources of the city with the continued demands to invest in expensive infrastructure. That's an important intersection between physical planning and economic development.
Sound physical planning can maximize a community's return from infrastructure investment. It's away to manage the overhead of a community.
In contrast, sprawl adds to the region's overhead and places inevitable upward pressures on tax rates.
(A 2003 Brookings report explores the implications of this pattern of no growth sprawl in Pennsylvania. Learn more. You can read about an update report published thisspring here.)
Managing regional growth requires crossing political boundaries and raises the inevitable question of sharing revenues from growth.
Recently, Lexington, KY explored these issues with Myron Orfield, a noted consultant in the field. You can download the reports from the Bluegrass Tomorrow web site here.
posted by Ed Morrison |
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Some Background on EDPro Weblog
The purpose of this weblog is to help economic development professionals -- EDPros -- keep up with the changes sweeping our profession. Strap on your goggles. It's a whole new game. There are no experts any more. The only place to learn about economic development is from other EDPros who are doing it.
One other point: the prevaling approach (paradigm, if you like) in economic development is shifting from competition to collaboration. There are a lot of reaasons underlying this shift, but here's the important insight: You, your community, and your region will do better by collaborating and sharing information.
If you are using a news reader, here is the link to syndicate this site:
Here's the link if you are a bloglines subscriber:
Speaking and workshops on Open Source Economic Development
As the idea of Open Source Economic Development starts spreading, more people are asking about it. Visit the I-Open web site to learn more. My colleagues and I are happy to explain the basic concepts in a talk or a workshop. E-mail Susan Alshuler if you'd like to learn more about workshops and speaking.
Background on Ed Morrison
Download some background information on me here.
Managing growth in Colorado Springs
