By Matt Tarleton, Project Associate. Last week I attended IEDC annual Federal Forum in our nation’s capital. Over the course of two days, we heard from representatives from a number of federal agencies, providing updates on recent initiatives and new tools that they are providing to encourage community, economic, and workforce development at the local, regional, and state level. The opening plenary on Monday morning featured Fred Hochberg, Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United...

By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate.   More communities are actively giving attention to attracting young professionals, including one of the communities in which we’ve worked, Waco, Texas . This involves making quality of place a priority and insuring that communities have amenities and atmospheres that are appealing. Richard Florida helped to draw attention to quality of place and its connection to attracting and retaining educated, skilled workers in book Rise of the Creative Class,...

By J. Mac Holladay, Market Street founder and CEO. The Merriam-Webster definition of perception begins with observation, concept, and consciousness. Last week we all watched as another horrible mine disaster engulfed the State of West Virginia. Twenty-nine men lost their lives and the state was once again cast in the national limelight based on “perception.” While mining has been a part of West Virginia’s economy for decades, today the sector employs ONLY 4% of the private sector...

By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects.   Today’s rant/vent is economic development related, I swear.  Health care is the Energizer Bunny of the U.S. economy; it just keeps growing and growing.  Ensuring this growth continues will be a question of capacity, and capacity will be a question of access to health careers, which is a question of available training slots and barriers-to-entry, and so on.  With the recent passage of sweeping new legislation that...

 By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.   Recently the Working Poor Families Project released a policy brief, “Strengthening State Economic Development Systems: A Framework for Change” by John Quinterno. The study examines how state incentives policies have contributed significantly to rapid growth and expansion in states throughout the southeast and southwest, but have done little to widen opportunity and increase prosperity for low-income residents and communities....

By Stephanie Allen, Project Assistant.    The first-time homebuyer tax credit is set to expire this summer; houses must be under contract by the end of the month and sales must be finalized by June 30th to qualify for the credit. By all accounts the credit has been successful in its goal to spur sales and stabilize the plummeting values of American homes. The original tax credit was sent to expire in November of 2009 and was renewed last fall (with some added tax credits for homeowners who...

By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.   For decades, the United States has attracted the best and brightest engineers and researchers from around the world. Our nation’s corporations, universities, and foundations heavily invest in R&D. It propels innovation, and innovation creates jobs and wealth. According to the National Science Foundation , in 2007 global R&D totaled an estimated $1.107 trillion with United States (accounting for 33 percent of this total), Japan (13...