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Wednesday, July 28, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate.
During my semester of graduate study abroad in Newcastle, England, I decided to visit a friend of mine who was also studying abroad. My friend was taking classes at the London School of Economics, which is located, of course, in London. This presented a minor issue, because Newcastle is about 300 miles north of London. At an average driving speed of 70mph, it should take a little over four hours from start to finish. Accounting for traffic...
Monday, July 26, 2010
By Matthew Tarleton, Project Associate
This past week I had the pleasure of visiting with Mike
Gaymon and the entire staff at the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce. During
my visit, I tagged along with Mike to his weekly radio appearances. We’ve heard
so much recently about the struggles of traditional media and the rise of new
media. I could digress for pages, but I’ll spare you (just this one time). Suffice
it to say, traditional media isn’t dead. And it shouldn’t be ignored...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
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,...
Thursday, July 15, 2010
By J. Mac Holladay, founder and CEO.
Diversity.
Webster says it means – “the condition of being diverse.” Diverse is defined as “differing from one another – distinct or unlike elements or qualities.” Diversity comes in many forms and descriptions. It is about age, race, ethnicity, lifestyle choice, family makeup, and many more things.
There is no question that our world becomes more diverse every day – in almost every way. Some are frightened by it, while others embrace it. In...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects.
Today’s blog could easily be a novel; I won’t deny that this subject is done short shrift by a cursory examination of why some cities succeed while others fail. Indeed, there is probably no “magic formula” to illuminate this topic just as the reasons why some people succeed and others don’t cannot be explained away by one or two key moments or traits. However, what has become clear in the two dozen or so communities I’ve worked with...
Thursday, July 08, 2010
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate. When I was in junior high and high school, my mom sent me to various summer camps at Pineywoods Country Life School, Jackson State University, and Alcorn State University. Each of the programs I attended was focused on academic enrichment in STEM subjects: math, chemistry, computer programming, and the like. It was through these programs that I was exposed to how I could use the math I loved so much in practical ways. By the time I got to college, I already...
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate.
If you are familiar with me or have read my previous blogs, then you know that I am a big proponent of public-private partnerships, especially when it comes to economic and community development. I believe that one of the government’s main responsibilities is to help ensure the social and economic well-being of its citizens. At the same time, however, this task should not fall solely upon the government. In my March 25, 2010 blog post, Governments...
Thursday, July 01, 2010
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate
Earlier this year, I wrote a post
on a few initiatives and incentives programs aimed at attracting fresher,
healthier grocery options into neighborhoods and areas known as “food deserts.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food deserts as “areas with limited
access to affordable and nutritious food.” Since February, we have seen a
number of new financing and analysis efforts emerge in identifying and
eliminating food...
Friday, June 25, 2010
By Kathy Young, Director of Operations.
Though it seems like summer only just began, Market Street is already looking ahead to an exciting end-of-summer event, the American Association of Chamber Executives (ACCE) annual convention . This year the convention will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and already has hundreds of Chamber professionals from around the country – and world – registered for the four days of peer-to-peer meetings and engaging seminars.
As the national...
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
By Matt Tester, Project Associate.
…is increasingly called a bicycle.
American cities are warming to the idea that bike-sharing systems are a valuable means of generating downtown activity, providing viable alternative transportation, and encouraging healthy living. And this, despite their European roots! Several major cities debuted or announced major downtown systems in 2010, and some recent federal policy changes could continue building bike-sharing momentum.
...
Thursday, June 17, 2010
By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.
University of Phoenix. Argosy. DeVry. Kaplan. You see their commercials on television and likely see their buildings alongside interstates. These universities and others like them represent the growing market of for-profit colleges. Earlier this year The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the sector’s remarkable growth:
Enrollment in the country's nearly 3,000 career colleges has grown far faster than in the rest of higher...
Monday, June 14, 2010
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...
Thursday, June 10, 2010
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate. One of the long-term effects of successful economic development is decreased poverty rates. We know that poverty is the state of having insufficient means to attain necessities such as housing, nutrition, transportation, clothing, etc. Market Street uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau to compute poverty rates for our client communities. Poverty rates help us to ascertain how well a community is doing socioeconomically. They also help to inform new...
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate.
I recently read a very interesting article (see footnote 1) regarding the association between numeracy (the ability to reason with numbers and mathematical concepts) and people who fell behind on their mortgage payments during the recent housing meltdown in the United States. According to a working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (see footnote 2) , even when accounting for differences in income levels, credit scores, and attitudes towards...
Friday, June 04, 2010
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate
Last week I dined on shrimp étouffée in southern Louisiana
and fried flounder on the Alabama coast. I enjoyed a Mobile-style gumbo full of
oysters and shrimp and caught blue crabs off of Perdido Bay. These seafood
meals were bittersweet with the anticipation that the expansive oil spill
contaminating the Gulf of Mexico would probably wipe out much of the varied
wildlife that contributes to one of the most delicious and treasured...
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
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...
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
By Ellen Anderson, Director of Research.
The Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER, formerly ACCRA) celebrated its 50th anniversary last week at its annual conference held this year in our nation’s capital. The theme of this year’s conference was “Sustaining Economic Recovery: Preparing for Tomorrow’s Opportunities Today” and focused on exploring issues surrounding the green economy, industry transformations, and tools for measuring innovation and growth. Because it continues...
Friday, May 21, 2010
By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects.
It’s funny how things work. About a week ago, I was scheduled to fly from
Des Moines to Nashville via Minneapolis when my old nemesis, Delta Airlines,
reared its ugly head and delayed my outbound flight due to “flight attendant
illness.” Must admit, that was a new
one. I would miss my MSP connection,
which was the last flight to Nashville that day. Delta could get me to Nashville the following
day around...
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
By Ranada Robinson, Project Associate.
In October, I wrote a post
highlighting dropout factories and how prevalent they have become. The issue of high school
dropouts is one near and dear to my heart since I tutor students in math and
see firsthand how life circumstances, lack of guidance and vision, and poor
self-confidence in their own abilities and talents can have a major impact on
students and their academic success. The Alliance for Excellent...
Friday, May 14, 2010
By Will Corbin, Project Associate. Microfinance is a very interesting and important concept in the world of economic development. Its usage has grown increasingly over the last quarter century - most notably by nations in the emerging world that have large proportions of poor residents, such as India.
Essentially, microfinance is the lending of small sums of money to poor or low-income individuals who otherwise may not be able to get a larger, more traditional loan from a mainstream...
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
By Christa Tinsley, Project Associate.
Incentives in Georiga have triggered another “race to the bottom.” While
communities still clamor to be awarded the labels of Main Street community, Certified
Work Ready, Certified Green Community, Entrepreneur Friendly, All-American City, and other designations, many Georgia
cities are willfully adopting a new label – slum.
A recent story
in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution discussed municipalities in...
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
By Matthew Tester, Project Associate. It should come as no surprise that our nation’s cities are in trouble; the Great Recession has cut a wide swath. My colleague Will Corbin blogged in March about the Recession’s constrictive effects on municipal finances, which are confirmed in a report by the National League of Cities from December 2009. In 2009, municipal budget shortfalls averaged about three percent, which, alongside increased demands for municipal services, severely inhibits city...
Friday, April 30, 2010
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...
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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,...