Tag Archives: economic development

Political Bites : Business Friendly East Valley

What should be done to make the Southeast Valley more “business friendly?”
It is imperative that we attract, retain and cultivate the talent necessary to start new businesses.  In order to do this, municipalities need to invest in cultural infrastructure and [...]

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All-America City Celebration

The City of Chandler was awarded the National Civic League All-America City Award, the award recognizes communities whose citizens work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges and achieve uncommon results.  Chandler was selected because of it’s work [...]

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Creating Vibrant City Environments for a Thriving State Economy

I recently sat on a panel at the League of Arizona Cities and Towns Annual Conference.  The topic was Creating Vibrant City Environments for a Thriving State Economy.  I opened with the following.
The truth is that we are seeing a [...]

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Building Arizona’s Future: Jobs, Innovation and Competitiveness

This past April I attended the 96th Arizona Town Hall in Tucson Arizona.  The New Economy: A Guide For Arizona serves as background information on the event.  The result of the Town Hall was a set of recommendations (pdf).  Recently [...]

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SBR: Linchpin by Seth Godin

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Seth is back. He really gets it right on this one. This is an excellent book to pair with Richard Florida’s Reset. The world and they [...]

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The World is Changing and so is our Economy

We might be in the midst of a recession, but I don’t think we have seen anything yet.  Most of America is not willing to acknowledge a few key concepts.
1. Things won’t bounce back to where they were, expect recovery [...]

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Sunday Book Review: The Great Reset by Richard Florida

The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Richard Florida returns to form in this book. He is spot on in his assessments of our current [...]

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Political Bites: Cubs Spring Training Subsidy

What do you think of Mesa’s decision to fund the Chicago Cubs’ spring training facilities?
Apparently Mesa failed to do it’s homework.  Lake Forest College studied 30 cities over 30 years and found that 27 experienced no significant impact from new [...]

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Phoenix Urbanites Cry Sprawl Foul, but Remain Most Guilty

A few times recently I have seen/heard Phoenix Urbanites disparage outside cities in derogatory terms using “sprawl” as their verbal assault of choice.  Oddly the facts, don’t line up with their dogma.
Let’s look at total population, population density (people per [...]

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Do We Want It Badly Enough?

Richard Florida a leading economist talks answers the question “Will Phoenix rise from the ashes?“.

I am a firm believer that in fact we do need to build on our assets.  I say this every chance I get.  I often wonder [...]

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