By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.    A large part of what we do at Market Street is present research to tell stories about communities and translate those stories into real-world economic development strategies that leverage assets and opportunities and address factors that challenge the community’s short and long-term competitiveness. To do this, we examine an exhaustive inventory of community dynamics including demographic trends, economic structure, business climate,...

By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate.    Around this time last year, I was sitting in a rocking chair at the Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, looking down at what had become a pathetic excuse for technology in this day and age: my four year old cell phone. My father and stepmother were sharing all the new conveniences in their life born from their recent iPhone purchases. I had seen the commercials and heard the testimonials, but once I started exploring the Apple store...

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...

William Teasley, Project Manager.   Although the news media has focused on the challenges of politics, both locally and nationally, some very good things are coming out of Washington, D.C. these days that will have a dramatic impact on community and economic development. And oddly enough, it seems the reason these things are not making the news is that there is broad and even some bi-partisan consensus that these are very good actions for the nation and the economy. First, the...

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,...

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 Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.   This summer has seen the rapid adoption of citizen-friendly technology by many U.S. cities. The big tech news today is the City of San Francisco’s launch of DataSF.org , a data clearinghouse site. In its current beta form, the site has over 100 sets of city-level data including restaurant health scores, crime maps and reports, building permits, and streets and highways. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the publicly available data has...

By William Teasley, Project Manager.  Communities traditionally viewed infrastructure (including roads, rail, water and sewer, and electricity) as keys to their competitiveness. However, to survive in the 21st century, infrastructure must include high-speed broadband communications. A community’s information technology (IT) and broadband access has become a greater equalizer and asset than interstate highway access. Communities across the South felt the impacts of globalization in...