| |
|
Economy Watch
Saturday, July 31, 2004 Here's the latest news on the economy from last week. Economy slows sharply in the spring as consumers cut back on spending U.S. Economy Grew More Slowly Than Expected in Spring Economy Cools Amid Shopping Slowdown Vital Signs for the Week of Aug. 2 What Impact Will E-Commerce Have on the U.S. Economy? Download the article Fed: Belief in hell makes economy sizzle Economic Optimism Surges According to PwC's Manufacturing Barometer World economy strong enough to weather oil rise - IMF U.S. job quality improving with economy-Fed study posted by Ed | Incentive packages for Dell Dell is expanding in Cincinnati (a distribution center), Oklahoma City (a call center) and, possibly, North Carolina (a manufacturing facility). Here's a review of the incentive packages involved. Read more. posted by Ed | Tucson revamps its economic development efforts Tucson's civic leadership is putting together a new effort to strengthen the collaboration among the 30+ public and private groups that workin economci development. The new entity represents an impressive collaboration among elected officals, private setor leaders, and university and community college leaders. Read more. posted by Ed | Workforce challenges ahead A new Accenture report highlights the major failings in our workforce development systems. Only 17% of the executives participating in the survey see their workforce as "industry leading". Read more. posted by Ed | NEO fund makes its first investments A new collaboration among foundations in Northeast Ohio, the Fund for Our Economic Future, released the list of its first investments last week. Read more. Collaboration among our regional foundations is a good step forward. The next opportunity for the Fund will come in establishing an on-going collaborative partnership with our region's colleges and universities. Right now, the Fund considers our region's higher education institutions as vendors, not partners. Instead of inviting colleges and universities into their strategy discussions, the Fund is asking our colleges and universities to bid on two Requests for Proposals. This approach is largely a legacy of industrial economy thinking: the notion that you get your "best ideas" from a competition among your vendors. A more appropriate approach for the Fund arises from a different starting point. The best ideas on regional economic transformation come from collaboration and networks. The foundation community in Minnesota is taking this more open, collaborative approach to regional economic development. Learn more. Minnesota foundations see their role as "realigning systems" through expanded collaboration. The McKnight Foundation, which is leading the Minnesota alliance, could provide some useful insights to the Fund for Our Economic Future. (To understand, in part, why colleges and universities are central to regional economic development, read this article.) posted by Ed | Oregon gets traction in nano Oregon is a bit of a long-shot when it comes to building a globally competitive cluster in nanotechnology. But civic leaders in the state have come up with an innovative strategy, and Oregon scored a significant victory last week. The feds are starting to pour money into the collaboration. The Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute forms the centerpiece of the state strategy. It is a collaboraation among Oregopn Stgate University, the University of Oregon and Portland State University. Read more. posted by Ed | Anatomy of a deal: Georgia renegotiates with Rubbermaid To lure Rubbermaid to Atlanta, Georgia agreed to a $1.3 million incentive package. Now that Rubbermaid is undergoing a major corpoate restructuring, the company is moving only a fraction of the jobs to Atlanta. Georgia is renegotiating its deal. The state wants to reduce the package from $1.3 million to $400,000. Learn more. posted by Ed | Philadelphia's CEO group extends its scope Philadelphia's CEO group is extending its geographic reach into Delaware and New Jersey. The CEO Council for Growth focuses on initiatives to expand collaboration among different economic development groups in the region. Read more. posted by Ed | Enterprise Florida helps universities in Florida, Canada to connect Wednesday, July 28, 2004 Here's another case of a state implementing innovative foreign economic partnerships. Enterprise Florida has provided support for a new strategic alliance between the University of Miami and McGill University in Quebec. The alliance focuses on engineering and information technology. :Read more. Why is this important? Three reasons. First: in the knowledge economy, it's is all about brainpower. Many state legislators don't get this point yet, but colleges and universities are the core of our future economy. Second, globalization is short-hand for the integration of global markets. As markets integrate, national government policies (trade policies, primarily) become less important. Regional economic policies, on the other hand, become more important. States that recognize this fact will move more aggressively to support these alliances. To compete globally, you need to think regionally. Finally, strategic alliances are the name of the game. In a world of networks, no one organization can survive alone. Strategic alliances -- either across neighborhoods or across the globe -- are the primary vehicles through which wealth will be created. Strategic alliances are replacing the large, vertically integrated organizations of the Industrial Age. posted by Ed | Web Watch: Arizona's local economic profiles Arizona has posted detailed economic profiles for its local communities. Read more. You can download them from this page. The Department of Commerce has calculated detailed location quotients for communities, based on six digit NAICS codes. In addition, they have a brief write-up for each community. The files are in a variety of formats, so you can manipulate the data, if you like. Another step in the analysis would help most communities, though. The information is still dense, and EDPros in mpost smaller communities don't have the time or inclination to sort through what all this means. posted by Ed | New Mexico universities push tech transfer New Mexico universities are setting aggressive goals for technology transfer and university spin-outs. For example, the University of New Mexico hopes to generate three new businesses in the next year. Read more. posted by Ed | Anatomy of a Deal: Scripps in Florida Tuesday, July 27, 2004 Armed with $1 billion from the federal government, Governor Bush went shopping and landed The Scripps Research Institute. Local governments threw in another hefty sum -- up to $667 million -- for infrastrcuture. Scripps got a great deal: an East Coast site at no cost. Governor Bush claims that this seed will grow into 50,000 jobs and 500 businesses. Others are not so sure. The controversy continues. Read more. posted by Ed | Wichita reviews tax incentive policies Wichita is reviewing its tax incentive policies, and from the looks of it, the review is about due. The City provided tax incentives to a local health club to expand. Read more. The deal violates one of the basic rules of economic development: not all businesses are created equal. Sheltered businesses -- firms that survive on local customers -- do not create long term wealth. We generate wealth from traded businesses that conduct business outside our regional economy. So, giving tax incentives to health clubs redistributes wealth (from taxpayers to owners of health clubs), but it does little to generate any net benefits for Wichita. In most economies, about one third of the employment is in traded businesses. These firms generate higher wages, and they represent the economic drivers of the economy. You can think of it this way. In economic development there are three types of money. "Good money" comes from selling goods and services outside the economy and importing income. "Neutral money" comes from businesses that circulate money within the economy. Hardware stores, retail shops, and health clubs all deal in neutral money. "Bad money" represents funds that we send to outside suppliers. This is money that has leaked out of the economy. David Morganthaler a noted venture capitalist and close adviser to REI, provided me with this quick explanation. posted by Ed | Georgia EDPros head to Macon Georgia EDPros held their monthly meeting in Macon. They learned how a community can leverage its assets through collaboration and focus. Read more. posted by Ed | Anatomy of a Deal: Dallas Cowboys go for a new stadium Monday, July 26, 2004 The Dallas Cowboys will be trying to convince the voters in Arlington, TX that they should pay for half of a $650 million new stadium. They will focus on economic development, despite the fact that there is no evidence that stadiums generate additional investmetn. (This is especially true for football stadiums that are idle all but 8 days a year. Read more. (Free registration required.) posted by Ed | Why broadband matters If you have any doubts about why broadband matters, read this article. posted by Ed | Wisconsin's biomanufacturing strategy Wisconsin has about 250 biotech companies that employ more than 19,000 workers. From this base, state EDPros hope to build a stronger industry cluster based on bio-manufacturing. This strategy will provide opportunities for some of the factory workers that have been laid off from other manufacturing companies. Read more. posted by Ed | Fort Smith maps an incubator strategy If your community is considering an incubator strategy, you might connect with Fort Smith, AR. Davie Spindle, the EDPro who heads the city's economic development department, is circulating a plan to create incubators in a seven county Oklahoma/Arkansas region. Read more. Visit the Fort Smith web site. posted by Ed | Lessons from a new cluster forming in Oregon Oregon is moving ahead with a strategy to build a cluster in secure networks, and their experience carries some valuable lessons in how clusters form. Read more. posted by Ed | Rethinking economic development in Tucson Tucson's civic leadership is moving in the right direction by rethinking the roles of economic development. Learn more The traditional categories that we are using -- attraction, retention and expansion -- do not focus on the underlying "drivers" of our economy: brainpower and innovation (both of which are embedded in regional innovation systems, called "clusters"). Further, these tradiitonal categories give too little attention to building quality, connected places -- the type of places where innovation can flourish. (We tend to view these investments as "community development", another line in the sand.) Our basic economic development categories are seventy years old. Attraction strategies started in Mississippi in the 1930's. Business "retention" is a term that focused on what Northern states could do after firms started moving to the South. That wave started with textiles in the 1950s. Workforce development has its roots in federal programs that date to the 1960's. By thinking in old categories, we close ourselves off from the new opportunities in front of us. posted by Ed | Economy Watch Sunday, July 25, 2004 Here are good articles from last week: Disposable income is where politics, economy meet Forecasting economy a bit like shooting craps Wavering voters have doubts about Bush, worries about economy Leading economic indicators decline in June Consumer confidence stands still U.S. economy picking back up -- Greenspan Greenspan's remarks on economy send mixed message posted by Ed | Work Keys as the basis for workforce development If you do not know what you are doing in workforce development, you might call the folks in Grant County, Indiana. They are moving ahead with a program based on Work Keys. Learn more. This type of skills-based approach makes sense. Work Keys tends to be relatively expensive, but the basic focus on skills bridges the language gap between employers and educators. Learn more. The concept for Work Keys is rooted in the Secretary's Commision on Acheiving Necessary Skills (SCANS) that concluded its work during the first Bush Administration. If you are new to workforce development, start here. The SCANS reports provide you with an understanding of the basics. Visit the SCANS web site. Alternatively, start with a really good book, Teaching the New Basic Skills. You can buy is used on Amazon for less than a buck. Go. posted by Ed | The myth of sports arenas as economic development Sports arenas and stadiums are often promoted as economic development engines, but -- in truth -- they have limited impacts. And in some cases the net impact is negative. Here's an opinion article from Sacramento that explores the myth. Read more. If you are interested in reading more about sports stadiums and economic development, here's a good report: Stadiums, Professional Sports, and Economic Development: Assessing the Reality. Here's another article from the Brookings Instituteion. Sports, Jobs, & Taxes: Are New Stadiums Worth the Cost? posted by Ed | Finding manufacturing's future This morning's Atlanta paper carries a good article on the future of manufacturing in the U.S. In the later decades of the 19th century, manufacturing in the U.S. moved from small job shops to mass production. The railroad and telegraph created opportunities to reach a mass market. Tapping new energy sources -- first coal, then electricity -- enabled manufacturers to create a factory system capable of producing to meet these markets. High volume production appeared first in process manufacturing -- petroleum (Standard Oil), steel (US Steel), soap (Proctor and Gambel), cereal (Pillsbury, Quaker Oats), and processed food (Swift in meat packing, Campbells in soups). When Henry Ford introduced the Model T, he set the stage for another transformation in U.S. manufacturing. He introduced high volume manufacturing in sophisticated fabrication and assembly. Alfred Sloan at GM then integrated mass production with sophisticated mass marketing. We are now facing a new transition for American manufacturing. The trends have been underway since the late 1970's. And the new directions are becoming clearer. Read more. (Free registration required.) As the article hints, over the longer term, U.S. manufacturing can move into high end manufacturing processes (composites, powdered metallurgy, nanotechnology), design integration (design simulations, rapid prototyping), and systems integration (systems design and support). All of these new directions will require stronger manufacturing networks among companies. Part of the short term challenge is simply to adopt sound manufacturing processes. A recent seminar in Washington State illustrates the point. A recent report from Pennsylvania suggests that companies that respond to the challenge by becoming faster, better and more cost-effective will best position themselves to compete. To succeed, the study pointed to the need for Pennsylvania manufacturers to pay special attention to increasing sales through process and product innovation. An article this morning from Mississippi shows how manufacturers are upgrading to boost productivity. We need to accelerate the change in our thinking. This challenge is the biggest one we face: breaking the brain barrier of old habits. Read a good opinion article from a manufacturer in New Hampshire. For a view of manufacturing from the UK, read the recently released report from the Department of Trade and Industry. Manufacturing is now giving the UK economy a boost. Read more. posted by Ed | Shifting the mirrors in Louisville Building an entrepreneurial economy involves redrawing mental maps, as much as anything else. It means starting to see the world differently, by looking for connections and opportunities. Most economies that stagnate have a leadership preoccupied with fears, limitations and destructive rivalries. These places need a collective leadership head adjustment. Here's a good story on how a high tech entrepreneur started to shift perceptions in Louisville. Read more posted by Ed | Resource: Report on Rural Knowledge Clusters Saturday, July 24, 2004 A couple of years ago, the Economic Development Administration published a good report on rural knowledge clusters. Written by Lee Munich of the State and Local Policy Program, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, the report outlines some of the new dynamics of rural economies. Download the report. posted by Ed | Building stronger networks to support entrepreneurs One of the key factors in building an innovation-led economy comes from a strong network of organizations to support entrepreneurs. EDPros in the Triad region of North Carolina are building closer connections between the two entrepreneurial support organizations. They hope the new collaboration will provide a more flexible, comprehensive and responsive range of services. Read more about what they are doing. posted by Ed | Moving toward e-government Friday, July 23, 2004 IT executives in Montgomery County, MD are pointing to a new trend for EDPros. In the years ahead, we will need to focus on promoting streamlined business permitting through the Internet. Read more If you want to learn more about this issue, start with the Center for Technology in Government. posted by Ed | Leveraging Cabela's to build a small town brand Hamburg, PA was hoping that the opening of a Cabela's nearby would prove to be a boom to tourism. They learned, however, that nothing comes for free. Hambrug must market -- build its brand -- in order to lure Cabela shopers for a visit. In addition, the folks in Hamburg are considering more focused strategies like bus tours. Packaging attractions is a standard, practical approach to building tourism. The bus tours will link visits to Cabela's with tours of Hamburg. As one civic leader noted: "I think their lesson was the (customers) from Cabela's are not going to come to Hamburg without you doing things. You have to be aggressive with marketing yourself to (the store's visitors)." Read more. posted by Ed | Birmingham's business improvement district Within a business improvement district (BID), special tax assessments fund inprovements. Mobile, AL is conssidering establishing a BID, so they looked to Birmingham for guidance. Here's a good article on how a BID works in Birmingham. Read more. The International Downtown Association reports that small communities with populations ranging from up to 25,000 have BID budgets ranging from $25,000 to $100,000. Cities of up to 80,000 people have average budgets of $100,000 to $125,000 with large urban budgets reaching into the millions. Learn more about BIDs from this helpful site from the University of Wisconsin Extension. Or, download a BID manual from Massachusetts. posted by Ed | Texas is moving toward cluster-based strategy Count Texas as the latest state to move toward a cluster-based strategy. In September, Governor Perry will announce an economic development strategy for Texas based on building six or seven in the state. Read more (Registration required.) posted by Ed | Bioscience business development in Florida University of Miami (Florida) is moving ahead with plans to build a "research park", a building of 40,000 to 60,000 square feet at a cost of $18 million. Promoters hope the project will connect with the Scripps project in nearby Palm Beach County. Read more. posted by Ed | Building regional cooperation in South Florida The heads of the economic development groups in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties think that regional cooperation will appear in South Florida...eventually. The biggest challenge is changing the perceptions of local political leaders to the opportunities from cooperation. Read more. posted by Ed | Lose the umbrella in the chemistry beaker Thursday, July 22, 2004 After piling on the incentives to lure Scripps to locate in Florida, local officials are gagging at the idea of creating even more incentives to lure ancillary bioscience companies. They're right to resist. Scripps President Dr. Richard Lerner has said that incentives are unnecessary. "If you have to be here, then you have to be here -- and it's almost the other way around. They'll pay a premium to be here." Read more. You can probably save a little money on creative ads, too. posted by Ed | Now, I'd buy a car from THAT company Wednesday, July 21, 2004 July 20th: Mitsubishi denies reports of production cuts at Illinois plant July 21st: Mitsubishi cutting 1,200 workers at Normal plant posted by Ed | Tucson and Phoenix try to end the addiction The mayors of Tucson and Phoenix are trying to end their region's addiction to incentives for low wage retail jobs. This task is tough, especially when local governments are driven by sales tax collections. Read more. The discussion betweeen the two mayors points to a deeper challenge facing EDPros. We are competing in a global economy, and this pressure encourages us to think and act regionally. However, our governance structures are not set up that way. We are dominated by local jurisdictions and political leaders who -- by their nature -- think and act locally. We like it this way. Most of us think that government services function best when they are close to the people they serve. But that also leads to closed systems and "stove pipe" thinking: Dangerous patterns in a shifting global economy. Competitive regions will figure out new arrangements -- new ways of coming together -- to target their investments more strategically. On a small scale, that's what Tucson and Phoenix are trying to do. posted by Ed | Wise advice Our criminal law professor in law school used to tell us, "When the big green door slams shut, make sure you are on the outside." The same holds true for economic developers. Some EDPros "buy a life style" with travel and entertainment paid for by their employer. It's risky behavior if you are not careful. Read more. Now, TVA is tightening the controls after news of $45 cigars, a $199 bottle of wine and $75 veal chops. Read more. posted by Ed | Lehigh Valley leaders look to Greenville, SC Tuesday, July 20, 2004 One of the best ways to define local strategies is to find comparable communities and learn from them. The civic leadership in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania recently invited an EDPro from Greenville, SC to explain what has happened in her city. Greenville has remade its downtown, and the folks in the Lehigh Valley are trying to learn the lessons of Greenville's success. Read more. posted by Ed | Finding political balance in cluster strategies Sunday, July 18, 2004 South Carolina is moving its economic development strategy aggressively toward a cluster-based approach. But one fact is clear: the approach needs to be politically balanced. In South Carolina, as in most state legislatures, the rural vote often dominates. Rural legislators will not go along with an economic strategy that they see as benefitting only urban areas. Read more. A cluster-based approach -- which focuses on building "agglomeration economies". These clusters are inherently biased toward metro areas. So, if South Carolina pursues a cluster-based strategy alone, the state will be pouring more investment into metro areas (measured on a per capita basis). One way out of the box: Look at dynamic strategies of rural economies in places like Western North Carolina. There, AdvantageWest is moving aggressively to build entrepreneurial networks. You can see another good example with The Appalachian Center for Economic Networks . In rural areas, South Carolina should be focusing on building these entrepreneurial networks. That's the best way to achieve political balance. The Center for Rural Entrepreneurship is a good place to start learning about this approach. (The worst way for South Carolina to mediate these pressures would be to carve off investment for pet projects, like spec buildings in rural counties.) posted by Ed | Economy Watch Saturday, July 17, 2004 Here are the best articles I came across last week. There weren't too many. Economics writers must be on the beach. Hourly Wages Not Keeping Up With Rising Prices Recovery leaves many behind Kerry gambles economic discontent will overshadow rising optimism Vital Signs for the Week of July 19 Economic Darwinism for airlines: Survival of the cheapest How a Technology Gap Helped China Win Jobs posted by Ed | Prisons don't help rural counties A research team has recently published a national study that examined the widely held belief that opening a new prison provides an economic boost to rural communities. The report provides no evidence that prisons spur growth. In fact, new prisons are associated with slower growth in the poorest rural counties. Read more . (Free registration required.) As onte of the researchers noted, "Building a prison is like building an enormous Super 8 Motel where the guests don't want to stay. I don't think you can parachute in a motel and have it change the economy one way or the other." For a couple of years, I worked in Westr Feliciana Parish, LA, home Louisiana's famed Angola Prison (Dead Man Walking). One spill-over from the prison came from a copuple of local hotels that served families of prisoners. The other main spillover came from tourism, driven by The Angola Prison Rodeo and the Angola Museum. Here's an account from an independent traveler's web site. Not too many prisons can become tourist attractions, though. posted by Ed | Early child care in New York: an economic development issue Here is another in a growing list of reports on early child care as an industry. Read more. You can download the report from this page. Early child care is moving to the center of the economic debate on two fronts. First, advocates are making the point that the child care industry is, indeed, quite large and important. Second, economists are making the argument that investments in early child care are good economic development investments. For a summary of these arguments, see this article from the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis. Go. posted by Ed | Historic preservation and economic development Here's a good article on why historic preservation and economic development go together. In today's economy, competitive communities need quality, connected places. That means historic areas with a deep sense of place. The new director of the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation has a good perspective to share. Read more. posted by Ed | State governments shift work offshore Virtually every state government shifts work offshore through state contractors. A new report provides a national analysis of offshore outsourcing of state government work. The analysis focuses on information technology and food-stamp call centers. Read more. Download the report. It's easy to reach the wrong policy conclusions from this report. We can move toward increasing regulation and restrictions (as this report suggests) -- a move that will ultimately fail. Or, we can take the insights of this report to underscore the real challenge: investing in brainpower. While state legislators will spend hours trying to restrict outsourcing, they ignore a far more disturbing trend, the persistent decline of state investments in higher education. State and local tax fund appropriations for higher education (measured as a ratio of state personal income) has been declining steadily since the mid-1970's. posted by Ed | Curbing sprawl in southeastern Massachusetts Improvements in transportation have made southeastern Massachusetts a hot spot for sprawl. At the same time, the region is a national leader in defining public policy approaches to manage the change. Here's a good article on what one small town in the region is doing. An important insight: town planners say that their biggest failure so far has been educating the public. They will be making a concerted effort to inform the public of the costs of sprawl. As one planner noted, the problem is that many residents have the false impression that more and more single-family homes mean more revenue for towns. The Partnership for Southeastern Massachusetts: Vision 2020 leads the effort to respond to sprawl. On their web site you can download the results of a smart growth audit in southeastern Massachusetts. You can also download the audit form used to collect the information. This provides a good checklist of what towns and counties can do to manage sprawl. posted by Ed | Web Watch: TVA's new site for sites Write about Web Watch here. Last May, TVA launched a new GIS-based web site for site selectors. TVA Sites is an interactive site that allows users to find available industrial properties, office buildings and land throughout TVA’s seven-state region. Site selectors can retrieve business planning, economic, geographic and site-specific demographic and labor force data. They can also create and print maps with a web-based mapping tool. For years, TVA has been investing in GIS-based site selection tools. Many of the early versions did not work well. In addition, they have to integrate their efforts with their affiliated organization the Tennessee Valley Industrial Development Association (TVIDA). They've come up with a simple solution. If you access the TVA site through one of the regional assocaitions, say, West Tennessee Industrial Development Association, the TVA site comes up branded with the WTIA logo. See a sample page. This TVA solution provides a good model for others to follow. How do you market a region, but at the same time maintain the identity and branding of your constituent organizations? TVA has found the answer. posted by Ed | New directions for Louisiana? It will take time Mike Olivier, the new head of economic development for the state, gives an overview of where he is heading. Read more. Unfortunately, Olivier dismisses the perceptions of corruption too easily. Corruption in Louisiana undermines economic development. (I lived in the state for ten years and have stories to tell.) The problem cannot be so easily dismissed, and passing an ethics statute -- while a good step -- is a small step. Corruption imposes a real, substantial cost on the state. Political and civic leadership have failed the people of Louisiana for generations. Rubbing out this perception will take years of concerted focus by a new generation of civic leaders. While Governor Blanco has aligned herself with this new generation, she has yet to mobilize the civic networks she needs to sustain reform. Corruption represents the central economic development issue for the state. Overwhelming statistical evidence proves that economies with high corruption levels have poorer economic performance. Here is a report that summarizes the evidence. Download. The second economic development thrust for Louisiana should be education improvement. In today's brainpower economy, education is everything. After decades of neglect, the state has a long way to go. View a comparison. The state needs an economic development leader who puts brainpower at the center of the state's economic development agenda. posted by Ed | Boise launches angel network Wednesday, July 14, 2004 Boise, ID is another regional economy that is moving forward with an angel network. Read more. posted by Ed | South Carolina tech schools meet to develop strategy For over a year now, South Carolina has been moving its economic development program to a more cluster-based strategy. Now the state's technical schools are meeting to align their efforts in the same way. Read more. The technical schools are working on a cluster based framework outlined for them in a recent report from Stuart Rosenfeld of Regional Technology Strategies. You can download a copy here. posted by Ed | Kentucky announces new life sciences initiative (Join the club) Tuesday, July 13, 2004 Add Kentucky to the list of states that will be focusing economic development resources on life sciences. It's another state that appears to be heading into a highly competitive arena that -- thusfar -- has not produced much in the way of jobs. Read more. This step may make sense, but where's the strategy? Without some clear thinking about assets and opportunities, states like Kentucky risk investing without high probabilities of success. Life science companies are extremely risky, and they take a lot of money to get off the ground. posted by Ed | Sarasota finds new opportunities in clinical research Here's an example of innovation through building networks. A former Food and Drug Administration executive is developing an initiative to build a clinical research organization (CRO) in Sarasota. The new initiative -- which could pump additional millions into the local economy -- connects the county's aging population with its strong clinical resources. Read more. posted by Ed | Oklahoma launches rural initiative The State of Oklahoma is lauanching a new initiative to redesign rural development strategy in the state. The legislature has allocated $200,000 to the Rural Action Partnership Program this year. That's only enough to hire a couple of employees and do a study. Read more. posted by Ed | New innovation center for Rockford The manufacturing downturn has hit a number of regions hard. Northwest Illinois, around Rockford, is a good example. To restructure the economy, new strategies based on innovation and entrepreneurship will need support. The State of Illinois is making the right move by investing $300,000 in the Northwest Region Entrepreneur Center. Read more. One question: Where is the local commitment of public and private funds. If this initiative starts off as simply as stand alone investment by the state, it will likely fail. $300,000 sounds like a lot, but you can burn through it in not time. Another concern: I don't see any college or university partners in the mix. posted by Ed | New innovation center in Springfield, MO Springfield, MO has launched a downtown innovation center. The initiative has promise because it is tied to the Center for Applied Science and Engineering (CASE) at Southwest Missouri State University. A number of companies have signed up to collaborate on CASE projects ranging from a coating for Navy jet cockpit canopies to computer chips that can store decision-making software. The big bucks for the center come from the departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Together, they have committed to invest $8 million on mill renovation and $13 million on collaborative projects between the university and the private sector. Read more. (Does election year politics have anything to do with this? In Missouri, the latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows President Bush with 48% of the vote and Senator Kerry with 44%. Four years ago, Bush won the state of Missouri by a narrow 50% to 47% margin.) posted by Ed | Anatomy of a deal: Wal-Mart in Baytown Wal-Mart chose Baytown, TX for its largest ever distribution facility. The State of Texas helped out with a fat incentive package financed by the Permanent School Fund of Texas. The Fund will buy the facility from Wal-Mart and lease it back for 30 to 40 years. The rent payments go to the fund. But the fund is tax-exempt, so local cities, counties and school districts cannot collect taxes on the land or the building. Not surprisingly, this deal has raised a few eyebrows. Read more. posted by Ed | Swinging for the fence: Phoenix mayor wants $100 million fund Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has a big idea. He wants to create a $100 million "Knowledge Economy Capital Fund" to attqract new high-tech companies. Read more. posted by Ed | Dell's expansion as seen from Tennessee Monday, July 12, 2004 Five years ago, Dell chose Tennessee for the location of its first expansion outside Texas. Now Tennessee EDPros feel themselves on the sidelines as "Project Merlin" moves ahead in North Carolina. Project Merlin represents a Dell manufacturing and distribution project: 400,000 square feet in Greensboro, near a newly planned FedEX hub. Read more. posted by Ed | Michigan struggles to keep up with biotech commitments Five years ago, Michigan committed to invest $50 million a year for twenty years in life sciences. A recession and a budget crunch have cut into these plans. Investments this year will total about $18.5 million for life sciences. Read more. posted by Ed | Wisconsin starts its angel program Wisconsin state officials are meeting with investors and venture capitalists to design the new incentive porgram for angel investing. Legislation passed this spring provides $30 million in tax credits over the next 10 years for angel investors and an additional $35 million for investment funds that back early-stage companies. Read more. posted by Ed | Economy Watch Saturday, July 10, 2004 Here's the best economics writing I found last week: Kerry's economic balancing act A look at next week's economic reports Vital Signs for the Week of July 12 Update 1: Consumer Confidence Still Growing Weak data raises concern over US economic outlook Message war over economy Non-manufacturing activity sinks posted by Ed | Resource: Review of incentive and job quality triggers A number of states and localities tie incentives to different measures of job quality. Here's a report that reviews these provisions. Download. posted by Ed | Athens, OH shifts the mix Add the chamber in Athens, OH to the ED groups that have figured out that the name of the game has shifted from recruitment to innovation. Read more. Someone estimated that there are about 10,000 economic development organizations in the US. My guess is that only about 5% are managed by people who really understand that strengthening regional innovation systems represents the central challenge for economic development in the years ahead. "Clusters" represents a shorthand term to describe regional innovation systems. The problem is that most EDPros don't really understand the concept. Many of us think "clusters" (a productivity concept) represents the same thing as "targeting" (a marketing concept). (See, for example, the comments of Mike Olivier, Louisiana's new economic development chief here. The changes sweeping our economy are far more profound. We are moving into an era of Netowrk Cappitalism in which value is generated by networks. These changes will carry deep impacts on our regional economies. For example, read how one venture capitalist in Silicon Valley predicts that the emergence of India and China will have profound impacts on Silicon Valley. Go. posted by Ed | Roadmap to improve Iowa Values Fund The Iowa Supreme Court struck down the Iowa Values Fund, but it is likely to come back in some form. A new report by The Iowa Policy Project outlines a road map to improve the legislation when it is reintroduced. Read more. The report explores the thorny problem of providing incentives to "high wage" jobs. The author maintains that the wage and job thresholds in the old scheme were too low and that the policy was full of loopholes. Download a copy of the report. posted by Ed | Jacksonville reviews its incentive policies Jacksonville, FL is reviewing its incentive policy, a step other communities should follow on a regular basis. But the experience also points to the frustrations that often pop up with public reviews: You have to explain the policy and be open to critiques. In the end, though, this transparency is critical to building political consensus. Read more about the process in Jacksonville. Go. posted by Ed | Technology corridor forming along the Missouri River Civic leaders in Nebraska and South Dakota are seeing a new technology corridor along the Missouri River. They have come to an important insight: in a world of global competition, far more unites us than divides us. Our interdependencies are the source of our economic strength. Read more. posted by Ed | Missouri governor signs new economic development law Missouri enacted new legislation to spur economic development in the state. The Job Now legislation provides more incentives for incumbent worker training, among other initiatives. The training support is targeted to companies with more than 100 employees. Read more. posted by Ed | Anatomy of a deal: Dell in North Carolina One thing is for sure: When it comes to incentives, Dell is in the dirver's seat. Forsyth County (Winston-Salem) in North Carolina is putting together the biggest package in a decade. Read more. posted by Ed | Experiential tourism Thursday, July 08, 2004 Many rural communities are coming to understand the importance of a tourism strategy built around their natural, cultural, and historical resources. One consulting firm, Fermata, has built a business advising rural communities on these strategies. Learn more about one community in Kansas. Go. Visit the Fermata web site. posted by Ed | Technology corridor emerging in Indiana One of the important aspects of economic development comes in the emergence of new technology clusters. As EDPros we like to think that we can "target" clusters and develop them. The truth is that clusters emerge largely on their own. Here is an example from Indiana. Read more. You can read the original article here. We are far better off identifying these emerging market patterns and facilitating the connections among companies and support organizations. Clusters are not "things", like industrial parks or spec buildings. They are systems of innovation. We can strengthen these systems by promoting collaborations among related organizations. posted by Ed | Development along the Kennebec In the knowledge economy, competitive communities are building quality, connected places...places that people want to live and work. Not surprisingly, major natural features that we tended to ignore in the past have become focal points for new business development. Here's an example. In Maine, the revitalization of the Kennebec has led to new development opportunities all along the river. Read more. posted by Ed | Resource: State policies to promote entrepreneurship Here is a good guide from the National Governors Association on policies to promote rural entrepreurship. Download the report. It provides a useful framework to focus your thinking on options available for rural communities. Some weaknesses: The report does not explore in sufficient detail the connections among heritage or eco-tourism strategies, branding, and the development of other business clusters in arts, culture and specialty foods. In addition, the report does not address how broadband internet strategies are opening new opportunities for rural areas. Finally, the report does not address the promising approach of social network analysis to build networks of rural entrepreneurs. posted by Ed | New York State creates center for energy technologies New York State has awarded $10 million to establish a new center on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The center represents a parterneship among RPI, Cornell University and the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The center will focus on renewable energy and energy conservation systems, including fuel cells and the hydrogen economy, smart lighting, smart displays, and emerging renewable energy systems.Read more. posted by Ed | Web Watch: Greensboro launches a new site location web site More communities are moving to integrate GIS into their web sites. Greensboro is the latest. Read more. Visit the site. posted by Ed | Kentucky's new branding campaign Kentucky is moving on a new branding campaign. Read more Article 1. Article 2. posted by Ed | More on Louisiana's new director Mike Olivier, Louisiana's new economic development chief, is starting out with some blunt talk and a small cloud of controversy. Article 1 and Article 2. The state doesn't need a harder sell. Instead, Louisiana needs leadership to wake itself to the new realities of global competition in the knoweldge age. Here's a place to start. Read an excellent paper on best practices from the National Governors Association. Download. posted by Ed | Louisiana tries to buff its image Friday, July 02, 2004 Louisiana is trying to dispel the notion that corruption is a common way of doing business in the state. Governor Blanco has passed three ethics reforms, but old patterns of behavior will take time to change. Read more. posted by Ed | Reinventing Cleveland Cleveland is an old industrial city...From 1880 to 1930, Northeast Ohio was the Silicon Valley of the Industrial Era. Innnovation drove the economy. Cleveland's patenting rate was the highest in the nation. And this innovation attracted talent, entrepreneurs and capital from across the country. Northeast Ohio's relative manufacturing productivity peaked during World War II, and the region's leadership missed the next wave of innovation in electronics. By the mid-1950's, the Northeast Ohio's technology base had matured and started to decline. By the late 1970's, when the first wave of globalization hit, the collapse of major industrial sectors drove the city into bankruptcy. In the early 1980's Cleveland began its recovery. The path started with large scale investments in downtown: a publicly-led, privately supported strategy. This work (led in part by my brother, Hunter, who was city planner) led to a new face for downtown. Read more. Now Cleveland's leadership faces another challenge...defining a regional strategy that is privately-led and publicly supported. This will be far trickier to pull off. posted by Ed | Consultant report: US companies not "offshoring" enough EDPro Mark Waterhouse has sent this link along. A report by an influential consulting firm is exhorting U.S. companies to speed up "offshoring" operations to China and India, including high-powered functions such as research and development. In blunt terms, the report by the Boston Consulting Group warns American firms that they risk extinction if they hesitate in shifting facilities to countries with low costs. That is partly because the potential savings are so vast, but the report also cites a view among U.S. executives that the quality of American workers is deteriorating. Boston Consulting Group, which counts among its clients many of the biggest corporations in the United States, admonishes them that they have been too reluctant rather than too eager to outsource production to "LCC's," or low-cost countries. The report, released in May, has gone almost unnoticed amid generally upbeat news as strong economic growth has begun fueling an increase in jobs, diminishing public debate about offshoring. But the report's conclusions underline the intensifying pressures on corporate America to shift jobs overseas. Although many economists believe the trend will benefit the U.S. economy overall by improving productivity, and that new job creation will more than compensate for the jobs migrating to China and India, the study suggests that the movement of jobs abroad is likely, if anything, to accelerate strongly in coming years. Source. (Free registration required.) posted by Ed | |
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
 |
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
