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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...