By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.     Last month I mentioned the City of Baltimore’s Virtual Supermarket Program , where residents of neighborhoods without local grocery stores can pick up fresh groceries at their public library branch. In Baltimore and throughout the country, libraries are expanding the resources they collect and services they offer for citizens. Increasingly, the essential function of a library to connect the public to information and...

  By Matthew Tester, Project Associate.   We talk a lot about the virtues of innovation here at Market Street, and recognize – along with most economic analysts – that entrepreneurs and small businesses will drive the bulk of employment growth as America fights to recover from the Great Recession. As typically applied in our world, “innovation” refers to science and technology arenas and is to be nurtured via robust academic research and high-tech incubation space. The importance of...

By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects.    In an interesting confluence of events, the 2010 World Cup began the same day the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the United States will soon be a “minority majority” country, with non-whites comprising over 50 percent of our population. Many of these minorities are represented by ethnic groups originating from all countries of the globe. It’s trite to say that the U.S. is a “nation of immigrants,” but it’s true nonetheless. My family emigrated...

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...

By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate.    Many feel that innovation and technology transfer are the keys to future economic growth.  With the decline in manufacturing jobs, math, science, and engineering fields have become increasingly important.  In a report recently published by Newsweek , attitudes about innovation and global competitiveness were compared across nationalities.   As I’ve become more acclimated to the consulting world, I’ve...

By William Teasley, Project Manager. In many of our projects around the country, our clients are interested in seeing best practices from other communities.  Our experience and years in this business in a variety of communities has provided us with a wealth of examples to draw from, though there is often a challenge of finding programs and efforts that are "relatable."  What works in one place may seem far-fetched for another, particularly if there are significant differences in regional...

By J. Mac Holladay, Founder and CEO. This recession has been devastating in terms of job losses. 2008 was the worst year since 1945 and 2009 may eclipse that. Only one sector had a net gain of jobs in 2008 and that was healthcare. All the other sectors lost jobs by the thousands and even millions. An amazing 7 million jobs have disappeared since this recession started in late 2007 and nearly 26 million are unemployed or underemployed (many now working part-time). Weekly hours are near...

By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.  This Monday marked the launch of President Obama’s summer service program and its accompanying website, Serve.gov . The campaign runs from June 22 to September 11, with education, health, community renewal, and energy and environment identified as priority areas. Americans are encouraged to search for a service project on the site or submit one of their own. Some might wonder why the White House is encouraging people to volunteer – essentially work...