Just like an investment portfolio should be diversified, the region’s economic development strategy needs multiple components. We should encourage businesses from other regions to locate here. We should assist our existing businesses to grow. And we should facilitate entrepreneurs to commercialize new technologies and services here. In the long run, the last of these three likely will have the biggest impact, just as it did at the beginning of the last century.
You can’t create jobs without companies, and most of the jobs that are here today were created by companies that started here. So creating companies should be as important a goal for the region as creating jobs.
And you can’t create companies without ideas, which is why maintaining and expanding the region’s research & development capacity is so important.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Economic Development Strategy
I've been remiss in my blog reading. Check out Harold Miller's excellent post from April 13, on ED Strategy for the region:
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1 comment:
I don't disagree with Harold, but I do find it a bit frustrating that "the region" only tends to define "new ideas" as those related to the technology or healthcare industries. Or robots--when can we stop holding our breath on that one?
Research and development could easily be facilitated in other industries, particularly those that serve a high-end consumer market. CMU also has a great industrial design program. Why not incubate new ideas for residential or commercial lighting? Or furniture? Or the greatest charcoal grill ever designed? We certainly have the manufacturing space available...at least until all of the robot-builders arrive on the scene.
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