A New Take on Clusters

A growing number of areas are working at developing clusters. Here is an interesting take on clusters. Here's what Stephen Dunphy from the Seattle Times has to say about clusters in the Puget Sound region.

Developing World Help Network

If you combined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its billions of dollars with such organizations as World Vision, the University of Washington's Marc Lindenberg Center for Humanitarian Action, International Development and Global Citizenship and Portland-based Mercy Corps, you have an emerging cluster in trying to help the developing world.

Add to the mix people like Bill Clapp, chairman and CEO of Global Partnerships, a Seattle-based nonprofit agency that is working to eliminate world poverty, and you have a growing cluster. Clapp, for example, is a respected authority on the role of microlending in developing countries.

But it's a cluster with growth potential. The Gates Foundation alone with its billions could change the region in a fundamental way — it is already attracting some great minds and workers.

Arts Cluster

Most of the time we link the arts to culture, rightly so. But why not think of the arts as a tool for economic development? The arts are like biotech — an "industry" ripe for further development.

The cluster here spans the art world — theater, museums, orchestras, ballet, opera, writers. There's a strong music community here from a vibrant jazz scene to innovative rock bands. The city has been used to try out productions before they went to New York. We now have world-class venues for orchestras and operas.

These can be developed and attract more of those highly valued "knowledge workers." Groups such as the Corporate Council for the Arts have done a good job in raising awareness and needed funds. But to make the arts industry work as economic development, it must begin to be considered an integral part of any economic plan.

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