Articles

Folks in Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana held a regional summit this week. They heard a powerful message from James Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. You can read about his address from this article.  

Kauffman has released the latest version of its State of the New Economy index. You can download the report here. 

Here are some articles from around the country on the report. 

• Oregon is helping forge ‘new economy,’ report says
  
• Five States Lead National Transformation to 'New Economy'
  
• Report: State among top 6 in new economy
  
• States face new imperative to turn to global, entrepreneurial and innovation-based “New Economy” to boost competitiveness
  
• Massachusetts Leads in 'New Economy'
  

Earlier this year, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. landed a big transportation study for the state of Georgia.  The $2.5 million price tag prompted a number of a critics. Read more.

Now, in a report released last week, the McKinsey consultants have concluded transportation bottlenecks could impose a large-scale costs on the state's economy.

Transportation woes could cost Georgia 320,000 potential jobs and $515 billion in economic benefits over the next 20 years if the state sticks to “business as usual,” according to a new state report released Thursday.

Traffic jams and the lack of access to reliable transportation in metro Atlanta will increasingly limit the number of jobs people can commute to, and the number of potential workers an employer can expect to attract, according to the study presented to the state Transportation Board.

That, in turn, could make Atlanta a less attractive market for employers. And as bad as freight congestion is now, commercial hauling in the state will get even worse from places like the Savannah port.

Read more.

An innovation corridor is emerging in Dayton, OH lnear the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  It is the type of mixed-use development that can help revitalize a region.  The Air Force Base and Wright State University provide an anchor to the development.

You can read more here.

View Larger Map

Over the weekend, the Washington Post carried an interesting article on what you do with big-box retail stores after they die.

Read more.

New Hampshire

Civic leaders in New Hampshire are beginning to focus on the opportunities from the emerging "green economy".  In a recent forum, a professor from the University of New Hampshire outlined the possibilities for the state:

Ross Gittell, a University of New Hampshire economics professor at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, said the state could see as many as 25,000 new renewable energy jobs in 10 years if President-elect Barack Obama's plan to invest $150 billion in green energy is approved by Congress.

He said the total green jobs in New Hampshire by 2018 could be well over 40,000, or about the same number as finance and insurance industries today. Currently, Gittell said New Hampshire has 16,800 green industry jobs, or 3.2 percent of the state's 600,000-person workforce.

Read more.

Los Angeles

Last week, the Los Angeles Business Council conducted a Sustainability  Summit to explore the same opportunities. You can download a copy of the agenda here. The Council issued a set of five principles begin defining a strategy for capitalizing on the move toward a green economy. You can read about these principles here.

You can download a copy of the California report: Energy Efficiency, Innovation and Job Creation in California from this page.

Earlier this year, the University of Massachusetts produced a report that provided state estimates of job gains from moving toward a "green", low carbon economy. You can review this document below:

Green Recovery U Mass Report on Green Jobs

In the absence of a national broadband policy, the US has fallen behind other developed countries in broadband penetration. The biggest challenge comes in bringing broadband to rural communities.

IBM recently announced that it was accelerating investment in technology to provide broadband services over power lines. This new commitment by IBM offers the hope that underserved rural communities might finally get connected to broadband.

Read more here and here.

In the future, I suspect that we will find more economic development incentives directed toward building the anchors we need for regional innovation. Here's a good example. In Missouri, the Boone County Industrial Development Authority has awarded funds to the Missouri Innovation Center.

The Industrial Development Authority represents a traditional economic developer organization focused on a recruitment. Now they are providing funds directly to the innovation Center in order to support the development of an incubator.

Read more.

Recently, the Association of University Research Parks released a report on creating innovation zones around universities and government labs. The report focused on the role the federal government can play in accelerating these innovations zones.  A number of states are already experimenting with innovation zones, including Michigan, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

The Boone County example shows how traditional economic development incentives can be redirected toward  developing infrastructure needed to support an innovation economy. In Cuyahoga County recently, we launched a local innovation zone  initiative.  The effort directs County funds as seed investments in partnerships designed to accelerate open innovation.

Last evening, Ed Gordon called, and we had an interesting conversation on a topic we both care deeply about: the future of our workforce.

Ed is the author of the 2010 Meltdown and  Skill Wars. His new book is coming out in April. The title:Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline.

Some months ago, Ed and I traveled through East Central Illinois on a series of regional forums that explored what communities could do to create new pathways for talent development. Ed's new book will outline what communities and regions are doing to form partnerships that cross both organizational and political boundaries.

We need these partnerships to accelerate innovation in education and workforce development and to integrate our talent development strategies with economic development.

These are not easy tasks. Next week I will be in Idaho working with the Governor's summit of workforce development. We will be applying some open source tools and frameworks to develop strategic action plans for six regions within the state. I will make some posts from a summit next week and let you know how it's going.

These types of summits are becoming more popular as business and education seek to find ways to collaborate. Here's an example of the summit from Corpus Christi, Texas.   The challenge, of course, comes in translating ideas into action. Open source approaches to economic and workforce development are designed to address this chronic problem.

If you're curious about open source approaches to workforce development, you might be interested in the presentation available here.

In Ohio, the Department of Development is introducing auto parts manufacturers to emerging opportunities in alternative energy. Read more .

If there's a region that studies more and does less, I can't think of one.

Central Louisiana has another report. This one is on the region's capital markets. Read more.

(My comment is not directed at the quality of the report. Rather, it's a reflection of watching Central Louisiana's leadership for over a decade. This report and its recommendations, are very good. We'll see if anything happens.)

You can download the report here.

Central Louisiana Capital Markets Sep 08

Although the Michigan economy is struggling mightily, the mindset in Kalamazoo is changing. Read more.

To learn more about the Kalamazoo Promise, visit their web site.