Articles

Portland, Oregon has released a plan for integrating economic development and climate protection for the Portland metro region. The draft plan, called a Greenprint, calls for a concerted drive toward climate-sensitive economic development that will require the united efforts of both the business and government sectors.

Read more.

This initiative is part of a broader strategy to integrate sustainability and economic development, sponsored by the Climate Prosperity Project.

You can review the report here:

Portland Greenprint Report

Here is an update on the funding for broadband deployment in rural regions under the Recovery Act. The US Department of Agriculture has funded projects in 31 states.  Read more.

Last week, I was in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where cell service is a challenge. We were conducting an overview of the strategy emerging from a series of civic forums. One of the initiatives moving forward has been to strengthen broadband deployment in the county.

It doesn't take much to convince you that a County without strong high-speed connections is at a severe disadvantage in developing and attracting new business. Here was the scene: I was having breakfast at the Huddle House in Central City, and I was trying to upload a presentation that I was giving later in the week to Brevard County, Florida. By the time I'd finished my coffee, scrambled eggs and grits we were only through about half of the file.

In a remarkably short period of time by Cleveland development standards, the Health-Tech Corridor has come together to create a promising innovation zone. Add the State of Ohio to the list of investors in the zone.

Following a report completed by AngelouEconomics, partners in the zone announced the formation of the Corridor initiative only a couple of months ago.

You can read more about Ohio’s investment in the Health Tech Corridor here. You can visit the Corridor web site here.

Disclosure: Working with Cuyahoga County a couple of years ago him, I designed the innovation zone initiative for the County.  You can learn more about the innovation zone initiative here.

As cities around the country, especially in older industrial areas, struggle to find a place in a new network-based economy, the role of urban universities is emerging as a key leverage point.

The late US Senator Paul Tsongas, a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, built his political career on the regeneration strategies he led for his home city. He would be proud to see the launch of a new $70 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

The center, to be completed 2012, will expand the university's research enterprise and serve as a hub for new business development. Learn more here.

The Bloomberg administration is taking some important steps to create entrepreneurial hotspots within New York. The City recently opened incubators for technology start-ups, fashion companies and designers of energy-efficient buildings. A facility for biotech will soon break down ground.

In the latest move, the City is contributing to a new venture capital fund, which will make investments of $250,000-$1 million in startups. The fund will be privately managed. Read more. 

The startup fund made its first investment in a company making iPhone apps.

Bloomberg has crafted a smart strategy to support entrepreneurs. The strategy involves different dimensions of building an ecosystem to support early stage growth: specialized training, tax incentives, low-cost space, as well as networks and services delivered through specialized incubators.

Earlier this week, county officials in Camden County, North Carolina completed work on a set of industrial park covenants designed to define the scope of a new eco-industrial park.

You can read more about the project here.The article references the Cake Charles Sustainable Technology Park, which was established about 15 years ago as the nations first eco-industrial park. The article argues that the park failed largely because the covenants governing business activity in the park were too loose.

You can download a copy of the feasibility study for the park here or attached to this post. You can learn more background on eco-industrial parks here.

The University of Wisconsin–Green Bay has produced a very good summary of the balance between industrial park development and the economic benefits of environmental design. I have attached it to this post.

Detroit has more than 200,000 vacant or abandoned parcels of land that, when combined, equal about 30,000 acres. Over the next five years, that land will cost the city some $3 billion to maintain.

A serial entrepreneur sees an opportunity: reconnect urban consumers with a new food system. Read more.

It's an interesting idea that goes along with the emergence of new regional food systems.

The rise of urban and regional food systems provide a laboratory for both organic production and biotechnology. If you are interested in urban farming, you can find more articles collected by Planetizen.

During an election year, we see all sorts of new ideas to spur economic development. Here's an example. Earlier this week, Martin O'Malley, the Maryland governor, suggested a new way to raise risk capital in his state. He calls the initiaitve InvestMaryland.

Maryland would raise investment capital through auctioned tax credits to insurance companies in Maryland, which would purchase the breaks for redemption in 2015 or beyond. Read more.There's additional detail here.

Business leaders are cautiously optimistic.

Florida continues to make heavy investments in the life sciences in an effort to build out new clusters of economic activity.

The state has attracted the Scripts Research Institute in California to create Scripps Florida. The state also attracted the Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute to locate a facility in Orlando. Now, leaders in Collier County moving after Jackson Labs, based in Maine, to locate near Naples. Read more.

The move to establish Jackson Labs in the county represents part of a broader strategy of diversification by focusing on innovation. Ypou can get an overview of the strategy from this magazine insert. When it comes to Jackson Labs, some analysists are skeptical of the long term impact.

In as couple of weeks, I'll be heading to Maine. Not surprisingly, folks in the home of Jackson Labs have a different view. Florida's investment in the Jackson Labs expansion will total about $200 million, far more than most Mainers would be willing to invest.

Like many older industrial cities, St. Louis is facing a major transition. The city rode the wave of major industrial development taking place early in the last century. Now, the dynamic is shifted. Employment growth arises from a different kind of company: smaller more agile and innovative.

This shift underscores the importance of updating economic development strategies to focus more on startups and stage 2 companies (those with employment from 10 to 99), the businesses most likely to add employment and wealth to a regional economy.

This article underscores the challenge facing civic leaders in St. Louis, as they contemplate shifting their focus toward more  entrepreneurial companies. Read more.

The northern portion of Silicon Valley has become a mecca for startups and social networking. Meanwhile, in the southern portion of the Valley, companies continue to focus more on technology. Jack Herrick, the founder of wikiHow summarizes the  pattern:

"In my observation, startups that use hard science to solve hard problems tend to locate in southern Silicon Valley — Mountain View and south, Alternatively, startups that might need strengths in artistic creativity, social insights and Web 2.0 technologies tend to locate in northern Silicon Valley."

Read more.

In the coming years, we’ll start seeing a shift in incentives from attracting firms to attracting people. Here’s an example. Recently, the Connecticut legislature passed a  statute providing student loan forgiveness for students who obtain degrees in certain technical fields, like health information technology, life sciences and green tech.

You can read more about the impact here.

This legislation advances the recommendations of the Majority Leader's Job Growth Roundtable. I've attached a copy to this post. You can read the text of the legislation here.