New York State Statistical Databook

Recently I ran across an interesting online resource produced by Rockefeller Institute on NY state. It is called the State Statistical Databook. This is a useful resource that more states should develop. Click here to learn more.

Curbing Sprawl in Maine

Curbing sprawl in Maine will require hard decisions, such as ending state subsidies for school transportation and sending more aid to cities with high tax rates, former Maine governor Angus King said during a recent statewide summit.

Sprawl poses the biggest threat to Maine's future economic development, King said. But the state is fueling the problem with government subsidies - such as the $85 million that state and local governments spend each year to bus children to school, he said. Such subsidies enable people to abandon cities and villages, move out to more rural areas and pass on the cost to taxpayers.

More here.

Who Graduates?

According to an earlier 2004 report by The Urban Institite, the national graduation rate is 68 percent, with nearly one-third of all public high school students failing to graduate.

Tremendous racial gaps are found for graduation rates.

Students from historically disadvantaged minority groups (American Indian, Hispanic, Black) have little more than a fifty-fifty chance of finishing high school with a diploma. By comparison, graduation rates for Whites and Asians are 75 and 77 percent nationally.

Males graduate from high school at a rate 8 percent lower than female students. Graduation rates for students who attend school in high poverty, racially segregated, and urban school districts lag from 15 to 18 percent behind their peers.

A great deal of variation in graduation rates and gaps among student groups is found across regions of the country as well as the states.

More here.

Rural Smart Growth Strategies

Many of the rural places where I am working are looking for answers on how to grow "smarter," or in a more efficient and environmentally sound manner. Click here to download a useful guide to rural smart growth strategies by the NE-MW Institute.

Hope

Economic developers are in so many cases "dealers in hope."

While we aim to manifest realistic expectations about what is possible, we are also charged with inspiring people to do and be all they can.

Hope is often the starting point for action. We should never forget our role in creating hope for others.

Daily Quote

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

--John Wooden

Do Publicly-Funded Stadia Pay Off?

Publicly funded stadium projects rarely deliver the millions of dollars in economic development promised by professional sports teams, according to research by a national economist considered an expert in stadium financing.

Most of the 21 stadiums or ballparks built within the last nine years haven’t produced significant gains to justify the average $223 million in tax money each community used to build them, said Robert Baade, chairman of economics and business for Lake Forest College in Illinois.

More here.

CfED Releases New State Development Report Card

The 18th annual Development Report Card for the States finds a resurgence in entrepreneurial activity within the states. However, this resurgence isn't yet mature or widespread enough to provide a sufficient number of quality jobs to make up for the losses in recent years.

Specifically, the 2004 DRC finds that: research and development spending is on the rise, both in the private sector and in the nation's universities; government funding to boost domestic business ideas with potential for commercialization is up; entrepreneurial capital is flowing faster, from both private and government resources; and the number of new companies is growing, as is the number of jobs created by new businesses.

Here for the full report.

Northern Colorado Charts Aggressive Course

The Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp. announced a plan to create more than 9,000 new jobs and 170 new business in the region by 2010. More here. Just one thing to say" 9,000 jobs, especially quality jobs is a lot.

Daily Quote

This one was passed along to me, but I do not have the source. Nevertheless, it is good reading:

Tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians is passed on from generation to generation. One heard often is this one: "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government, education and the corporate world, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

-Buying a stronger whip.
-Changing riders.
-Giving horse and rider a good bollocking.
-Re-structuring the dead horse's reward scale to contain a performance-related element.
-Suspending the horse's access to the executive grassy meadow until performance targets are met.
-Making the horse work late shifts and weekends.
-Scrutizg and clawing back a percentage of the horse's past 12 months expenses payments.
-ppointing a committee to study the horse.
-Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.
-Convening a dead horse productivity improvement workshop.
-Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
-Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
-Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
-Outsourcing the management of the dead horse.
-Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
-Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
-Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
-Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
-Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. And the highly effective...
-Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

U.S. GDP by NAICS Industries

You may find this a useful research resource. These new GDP estimates for 1987-97 and the previously published estimates for 1998-2000 provide the first economywide, NAICS-based view of historical industry performance and contributions to GDP growth.

These estimates offer new insights into the recent changes in the structure of the economy because NAICS more clearly identifies high-tech industries, such as information and communications technology, and provides more details for the services sector.

Download PDF version of the report here.

U.S. Economy Overview

All of us wrestle with how to best keep track of the key economic trends that impact our ability to achieve our economic development goals. Click here to keep track on how the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) sees things.

ED Strategies for Maine

Click here to read an interesting discussion of export promotion versus import substitution ED strategies for Maine. Some interesting insights. Both in my assessment of grown harder as a consequence of globalization.

Beauty

Some days are far too perfect to ruin with usual thoughts and deeds. For that reason, no traditional business-like posts to ED Futures today.

As I behold the beauty of the two Christmas trees we decorated in our home yesterday, it leads me to wonder why economic development does not give greater attention to beauty.

Is there a reason why economic developers should not perserve and contribute to beauty in our shared world? My guess is that many already do! Take a moment on this busy Monday and honor the beauty in your world.

Daily Quote

"All of us need a snow day in our busy lives...a day when our usual schedule is halted, and we allow Mother Nature to cover us in her beauty and smother us in her love."

--Don Iannone

Daily Quote

"The greatest pleasure in life is being able to do what someone else told you you'd fail at. I'm a strong enough person to accept failure, but I'm not strong enough to handle not trying."

--Author Unknown

Youth Employment Trends

What do you know about youth and young adult employment trends in your community? It is an important issue.

I have a new article coming out on youth and young adult employment. It will be published by the US Dept. of Labor, perhaps this month.

In the meantime, here is an earlier DOL report on youth employment that is based upon the Current Population Survey. Click here to download it.

Business Employment Dynamics Report

From December 2003 to March 2004, the number of job gains from opening and expanding business establishments was 7.7 million, and the number of job losses from closing and contracting establishments was 7.3 million, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the first quarter of 2004, gross job gains exceeded gross job losses in both the goods-producing and service-providing sectors.

Read more here.

Alternative Energy for Rural Areas

Here is a useful source of information on alternative energy development in rural areas, especially on farms. Click here.

Native American ED Summit Coming Up

The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development will hold its 19th annual eocnomic development and trade conference in Las Vegas this coming February. This is a good place to find out what tribes are doing to promote economic development on their reservations. Click here to lean more.