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Thursday, March 11, 2010
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.
Today I participated in a webinar hosted by the Southern
Growth Policies Board called “The Role of Chambers of Commerce in the Green
Economy.” We heard from three chamber leaders in the green business field who
highlighted a number of best practices and new efforts that maximize the
economic opportunities of emerging green clusters while promoting business
growth and community quality.
Mick...
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Kathy Young, Director of Operations.
Last night I attended an interesting event sponsored by Georgia Tech’s City and Regional Planning Department, a conversation between three former City of Atlanta Planning Commissioners. Billed as “Dear Mayor Reed” the event organizers asked the former Commissioners to share with the audience the ideas, suggestions and warnings they would offer to Kasim Reed , Atlanta’s new Mayor, if they were to write a "Dear Mayor Reed" letter.
The three...
Thursday, March 04, 2010
By: Matthew Tester, Project Associate.
Top economists from Moody’s Economy.com recently stopped in Atlanta to discuss the Economic Recession of 2007-2009 in all its glory. Speakers Steven Cochrane and Gus Faucher covered a lot of ground in the four-hour session, from the Recession’s magnitude, to policymakers’ mitigation efforts, to forecast conditions. Faucher, director of macroeconomics for Moody’s Economy.com, covered the national indicators and outlook while Cochrane, managing...
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate.
In previous blog postings, we have discussed the importance of entrepreneurship and small businesses, especially in light of the current economic recession. Here are three long-term ways that communities can strengthen their entrepreneurial base.
Encourage entrepreneurial education at the K-12 level. It’s never too early to start teaching a community’s future workforce about leadership and starting and maintaining businesses....
Thursday, February 25, 2010
By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.
A March 2008 article in The Atlantic entitled “The Next Slum?” explored some of the potential impacts of the housing market fallout on city/suburb dynamics. It describes how vandals and drug users moved into a half-built suburban subdivision outside of Charlotte, North Carolina when 81 of its 132 homes were in foreclosure. “Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively...
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By Matt Tarleton.
Two weeks ago, Mac Holladay wrote a piece covering recent changes in federal support for small business financing and the need for chambers and economic development organizations to focus on the role of small businesses in their regions’ economic recoveries. We continue to hear from many of our client communities that access to capital remains a critical concern for small businesses in their region. This was true at the onset of the recession and even more so today. So...
Friday, February 19, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate.
“The Dismal Decade,” “The Lost Decade,” “The Decade from Hell,” “The Worst Decade Ever.” American writers and scholars have used all of these phrases to describe the first ten years of this new millennium. Just two months ago, Americans stepped gingerly into a new decade, with fragile hopes that a more prosperous and successful future lay ahead.
The 2000s were flanked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the beginning, and the largest...
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
By William Teasley, Project Manager.
I have previously written about the significance of broadband communications as a critical component of a community’s infrastructure. A community’s broadband access is an equalizer and asset, equal to interstate highway and rail access, and those that do not stress its importance are handicapping their communities to the slow lane. Today’s companies and communities no longer operate in isolation or within geographic boundaries, they are statewide,...
Thursday, February 11, 2010
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.
Many of the more rural communities and regions we work with are
underserved in retail. Often they complain of having to drive to the next city
or county when they want to eat out at a restaurant that does not serve fast
food, or when they need to shop for school supplies or professional clothing. In
many cases, the community lacks the income levels to attract a national
retailer, so residents must pay sales tax to support the...
Monday, February 08, 2010
By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects.
Anyone who follows urban revitalization trends is aware that, in addition to artists, the “first wave” of central-city pioneers is often comprised by gay residents. They move into disinvested neighborhoods, refurbish homes and either sell them or plant stakes in the community. I hazard to use the term “gentrifier,” because I never quite understood how turning around dilapidated neighborhoods was a pejorative act. Isn’t the improvement of...
Thursday, February 04, 2010
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
This recession has had a devastating effect on small businesses across the country. In fact, 41% of all the jobs lost in this recession have come from firms with fewer than 50 employers. That is FIVE TIMES the small business job losses than the 2001 recession.
Two important things have happened recently that make this the right time to focus programs on starting and assisting small firms.
First, two weeks...
Monday, February 01, 2010
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate.
My alma mater, Tougaloo College, which is a private college located right outside of Jackson, Mississippi, offers an early admission program for high school juniors who meet certain criteria, like GPA and ACT scores. A participant in that program, I bypassed my senior year of high school to start college with a full scholarship. In my 15-year-old thoughts, I could not rationalize staying in high school for an extra year when I was planning to go to...
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
By William Teasley, Project Manager.
High quality public education is one of the greatest assets in economic development. The ability to generate a high quality workforce is paramount to the success of existing a future businesses in any community. It is often one of the top three questions asked by business looking to relocate in a community and telling the prospect that you have really good private schools does not address their questions.
In numerous districts across the...
Friday, January 22, 2010
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate
The U.S. Department of Labor awarded $100 million in green
jobs training grants to 25 communities earlier this month. Austin, Texas received $4.8 million of this money to train for and create 1,000 green energy
jobs. A thousand jobs is a boost for a local workforce of any size, but $4.8
million is a pretty steep price. The real payoff occurs not when those initial
thousand jobs are created but when that employment spurs a...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
By Matt Tarleton, Project Associate.
I recently wrote a piece about the migration patterns of the
college educated ,
identifying some of the metropolitan areas that have been successful in
attracting new residents with average educational attainment levels that exceed
the educational attainment levels of their existing resident population.
A new paper by Chad Moutray, Chief Economist and Director of Economic Research at
the Office of Advocacy of the...
Friday, January 15, 2010
By Alex Pearlstein, Senior Project Manager.
The provision of incentives is one of the most controversial issues in economic development today and likely will be for a number of years to come. As the competition for relocation prospects intensifies so will the resources applied to influence companies’ decision-making. While much research exists decrying the awarding of significant incentives to large employers, still more will tout the economic benefits of a major recruitment win such...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.
As the U.S. Census Bureau rolls out each new year of American Community Survey (ACS) implementation, the survey offers a greater variety of data to a broader reach of geographies. The 2008 ACS includes data on property taxes for counties with populations of at least 65,000 residents, marking the first publicly available data set of its kind in terms of scope and accuracy that will be reliably updated on a regular basis. The Census Bureau defines...
Friday, January 08, 2010
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
This week in Atlanta the American Economic Association held its annual meeting. There were PhDs everywhere, nearly 1000 of them. Finally on the last day of the meeting they asked the only relevant question covered at the meeting. To paraphrase, the question is, “How did they blow it so badly?” Virtually none of these theorists came close to predicting what we have been through in the past two years.
What is interesting is to consider is...
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate. Everyone who knows me knows that one of my least favorite pastimes is driving in traffic. Any time I have to drive from one area of Atlanta to another, especially if it’s any time between 4:00 pm and 6:30 pm, I’m frustrated and tense by the time I get to my destination. And that’s before I start thinking of what I could have been doing if I had not needed to leave extra early to ensure I get there on time. Luckily, I am able to use public...
Thursday, December 31, 2009
By William Teasley, Project Manager.
At Market Street , we often talk about change and growth of communities and the people within them. As an outside observer it is sometimes easier to see what impedes communities moving forward than those from within which have become accustomed to what they know and see. During numerous input sessions in 2009, people have shared frustrations, positions, hopes, and dreams about their communities. There is one story shared by one...
Monday, December 28, 2009
By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO.
It is hard to believe that we are headed to a new year and a new decade in a few days. Time Magazine called the last 10 years “The Decade from Hell”. The pace of change has continued to accelerate and certainly some of the changes are unprecedented. Two recessions, a cascading number of corporate scandals too numerous to list, natural disasters led by Katrina and Rita, and two ongoing wars. Then the last two years of “The Great Recession” (as...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representative passed its $154 billion jobs bill, called the Jobs for Main Street Act of 2010 . Among other things, the expansive legislation hopes to increase infrastructure projects that would provide construction jobs, as well as enable communities to retain and hire teachers, firefighters, and other public servants. The Senate will not look at the bill until the new year so elements of the bill may...
Friday, December 18, 2009
By Matt Tarleton, Project Associate.
“ Change is debilitating when done to us, but exhilarating when done by us .” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter
This quote is one of Mac Holladay’s favorites, and it has quickly become one of mine as well. When looking back on 2009, many of us entered this year hopeful amidst tremendous economic uncertainty. We had elected a new president that inundated us with his messages of hope and change. But when I look back at what have likely been the two...
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
By Ellen Anderson, Research Manager.
While there are many varied strategies that can be employed in the name of economic development, the goal is wealth creation for local families. Per capita income(PCI) is one of the most common and reliable gauges for economic development progress because it measures community wealth per resident. Increasing per capita income can take years and require far-reaching economic diversification, quality of life, and workforce strategies. Exploring which...