Articles

Few states are as focused as Michigan in regenerating older downtowns. Michigan's Cool Cities initiative has gained nationwide attention.

In a companion program, Michigan has  focused on eliminating blight in some of its most devastated downtowns. This Cities of Promise initiative focuses on each cities: Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Hamtramck, Highland Park, Muskegon Heights, Pontiac and Saginaw.

In addition, the state's Main Street program has launched a Cultural Economic Development program. In four communities, the state is providing support to encourage economic development and downtown revitalization through arts and culture.

Read more.

To me, Richard Florida's promise has never quite connected up with this practice. In other words, it's particularly difficult to apply his ideas. In addition, Florida seems to repackage a variety of ideas from people like Jane Jacobs, Peter Drucker, Charles Landry and others, without appropriate acknowledgement. (This risk is faced by any great popularizer; I once worked for Robert Reich, and Bob periodically faced criticism for borrowing ideas to liberally.)

Yet, in a complex world, Florida offers some relatively simple formulas, and that, I suppose, is the key to his popularity. Yet, if when I want some more practical quidance, I turn to organizations like Partners for Livable Communities and Charles Landry's books, The Creative City, The Art of City Making and The Intercultural City.

Here's a thoughtful critique out of Canada on Florida's work and his most recent book. Read more.

Young professionals are helping to rebrand older industrial cities. Here's a New York Times article that explains the trend.

Read more.

One of my favorite examples of this movement is taking place in Youngstwon, OH, where young professionals are changing the economic development cliomate in the region.

"Thinkers and Drinkers" is one of the regular civic meetings they hold to discuss critical opportunities to revitalize Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley.

You can read more on three of the blogs that have emerged as the new voices of Youngstown:

Defend Youngstown

I Will Shout Youngstown

Youngstown Renaissance

Young, creative and innovative professionals are bringing back these cities.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is one of the best newspapers in the country focusing on regional economic developmen.  Taking the Southeast Wisconsin economy as a backdrop, the paper regularly explores how the regional economy is transforming.

Unlike many papers that focus on economic problems, the Journal Sentinel spends a good deal of effort identifying new patterns of wealth creation.

Here is an example.

In a recent series of articles, the Journal Sentinel profiled a small group of engineering students engaged in building new business around bio-diesel. Read more.

The series underscores a number of new trends at work. First, of course, entrepreneurship plays a central role in the new story of regional transformation and wealth creation.

Second, the series illustrates the growing importance that universities are playing in regional economic development. Finally, the series underscores the importance of seeing some of our older economies with new eyes.

So, for example, Milwaukee is building off its manufacturing assets to create new hubs of innovation and faster growth companies. Here's an article that underscores these trends. As one manufacturer in the article notes, "We've peeled the rust off the belt."

Creating a new narrative for older economies represents one of the central challenges of economic development. Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin are in the middle of re-writing their story. Re-crafting a region's core narratives is what branding is all about.

Read more.

As we move toward a network-based economy, stories play an important role in building prosperity. Stories convey meaning. They shape our perceptions, our mental maps.

Most branding efforts in economic development are driven by marketing techniques that have little connection with these deeper stories.

Here's two examples of regions that are changing their stories.

• In Western Virginia, the recruitment of two high tech firms has started to change how young people are viewing their future prospects. As one high schooler noted: "Now, there’s going to be a lot more jobs for college-educated people. I guess you could say we feel like more opportunities will follow since these came here." Read more.
• In Southeastern Michigan, a region battered by manufacturing shutdowns, the regional EDPros are shifting the story to the new investment that is flowing into the region. Read more.

There are other places in which civic leaders are actively shifting the story. My favorite is Youngstown, where a group of young professionals -- led by a young mayor and Congressman -- are embracing the notion of a shrinking city. View a couple of the blogs that are shifting the conversation here and here.

Civic leaders in Detroit and southeastern Michigan are gaining momentum in transforming their economy. Last week, leaders of the New Economy Initiative announced that John Austin would be heading up their effort.

Austin has written extensively about the opportunities emerging in the Great Lakes. Here's his report from Brookings: The Vital Center. 

In this context, here is an interesting article comparing Detroit to Pittsburgh. Read more. 

The economic slowdown is hitting efforts to revitalize downtown St. Louis. Lenders are demanding higher proportions of pre-sales or pre-leases to secure financing. Prices are falling, and retailers, under a squeeze, are reluctant to commit to expansions when the downtown residential market is slowing down. 

The article underscores the fact that downtown regeneration involves intervening in complex systems. The trick, of course, is to find leverage points -- anchor investments that can change the underlying dynamics. This strategy gets harder as the economy slows.

Yet, these leverage investments are still around, and the job of the EDPro is to continuously find these investments and manage expectations of the transformation. 

Read more. 

The State of the nation's infrastructure is not good.  The collapse of the bridge in Minnesota highlighted the problem, but the dramatic collapse, of course, does not touch on the extent of the investment required to upgrade the nation's infrastructure. We are investing less than 40% of the investment needed to maintain our current system of roads, rail and bridges.

Here's a good overview.  

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Cleveland Public Radio's Dan Moulthrop to discuss Cleveland's efforts to brand the region of Northeast Ohio.

You can listen to our discussion below. I later connected our conversation to some slides.