Input Requested
- Image via Wikipedia
As we said in the November 3rd event, The Path to Regional Excellence, there are many aspects to regional development: economic, infrastructure, educational, cultural, marketing, political, human service, etc. The Corridor Business Alliance is focusing on the economic development aspects for the region in Eastern Iowa surrounding Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.
As we try to organize the best system for regional development, your answers to a few questions will be helpful.
The questions are:
1. What are our region’s three greatest strengths?
2. What are our three greatest challenges facing us in the next five years?
3. What are the three actions that we could take, together, that would unite all areas of the region toward a more effective and productive approach to economic development?
Thanks for your comments!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b42bfaf2-8e44-4107-bb9e-d0b68ff7613a)
December 16th, 2009 at 10:02 am
1. Post Secondary Educational opportunities beginning with Kirkwood CC, and including Coe, Mt. Mercy, Cornell, and bookended by the expansive opportunities with the University of Iowa (Southern end of the Corridor) and Northern Iowa (extreme Northern end). 2. Work ethic – having worked in several communities though out the US, I continue to be impressed with the diligent and honest work ethic an intelligence of Iowa’s work force. 3. Hunger – it is clear from this discussion (and others) that our Corridor is hungry for growth and expansion. That hunger and determination will help us not to take opportunities for granted and instead, capitalize on our strengths to grow our professional communities.
Three Challenges… While there are many people who find Iowa to be a beautiful place for business and to raise a family, we are challenged to garner similar enthusiasm from folks in other locations (New York, Chicago, Dallas, California, Texas, Florida)… Iowa is not an appealing geographic prospect for many. We are challenged so shed that geographic stigma of being a Farming state with nothing else to offer. Second challenge is for our state legislature to re-evaluate our tax code to be more in-line with other, more competitive states and regions — to encourage businesses to locate/relocate here. Third challenge is to continue progress creating a welcoming corridor business community that is open-minded to a variety of business and research opportunities that are seemingly non-traditional for the area (non-agricultural, non-manufacturing?)
Three actions: One, create a unified Priority One effort that cooperatively extends the length of the Corridor business community … and provide extreme customer service to businesses interested in locating/relocating here… A new business in the corridor is a win for the corridor even if it’s not in our immediate geographic community. Two, continue to aggressively pursue Grant funding for business incubation and relocation, but do so with the a cooperative strategic corridor vision, not just localized community vision. Three… continue the corridor dialog and meetings with stakeholders and evangelists… capture and harness the momentum one business/community leader at a time.
December 16th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Alex hit great points, so I’ll try some different ones
1. What are our region’s three greatest strengths?
A. This is a great place to raise a family, or even not raise a family.
B. The cost of living here is competitive with other parts of the country.
C. Our location in the center of the country and easy access to transportation and electronic infrastructure.
2. What are our three greatest challenges facing us in the next five years?
A. Finding a way to join together as a region, while respecting the individuality of each community and at the same time allow the economies of scale work their way for the larger communities.
B. True intergovernmental cooperation that reflects both the assets and the opportunities of the region.
C. Flood recovery and infrastructure development and redevelopment that looks 50+ years into the future. One of the problems, as I see it in the Cedar Rapids area, is that either the value statements are not being clearly articulated or are being ignored by the general public. For some reason, the greater populace don’t understand the need to build and rebuild sustainable and for the long term.
3. What are the three actions that we could take, together, that would unite all areas of the region toward a more effective and productive approach to economic development?
Back to my point, though, we need “homers” for our efforts.
A. Draw up (or if there already is one, make it available to all) a regional goal for infrastructure development that allows all communities who desire to to participate.
B. Get true buy in from all of the communities understanding that a new business in Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha, Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty and others is actually a win for everyone else. It’s tough to say that as a native Cedar Rapidian, but we can benefit from others growth.
C. The average resident feels the economic development “business” is so far removed from them. How can we make everyone “evangelists,” as Alex says? BTW, Alex really hit a home run with his post.
D. I’ll throw in another one for you…there are so many people, like Christian Fong, who are young and want to lead. A huge problem is the divisions in our communities lead to many of them being chewed up and spit out. Sometimes the divisions are fomented by the media, other times by smaller interest groups. How can we find a way to get past the smaller issues and on to the idea that we all have a common goal, and finding a consensus manner to get there?
December 17th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Doug and Alex – Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
I am hopeful that there will be several engagement opportunities shortly, and that visible progress will occur!
December 17th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
It is great to see positive posts.
Strengths
1. High quality higher education that drives economic development in many localities.
2. Food and fiber will always be critical needs.
3. Easy access to Chicago, St.Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Omaha.
Challenges
1. Tough getting people and businesses to take a longer view and to create change where it is beneficial.
2. Money and interest groups dominate politics.
3. Too few young people settle in Iowa.
Actions to take.
1. Collaborate to recruit international students and scholars to increase Iowa’s global understanding and generate revenue for education. Increase outreach to college students. We attract 30% more than our population warrants, but we fail to retain them.
2. Reduce the number of school governance districts to 50, county governance to 25, and state legislators by one third.
3. Improve educational outcomes at pre-K through 12th grade. With our demographics, Iowa should easily be among the top ten states in the nation.
December 17th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Our greatest strengths are:
1) Our soil
2) Our farmers
3) Our resilience and fortitude in the face of adversity
Our greatest challenges are:
1) Improving our educational system
2) Improving our local food system
3) Reducing our environmental impact
The 3 actions we should take:
1) Set a goal of having all municipal and county gov’ts in the corridor purchasing a minimum of 10% of its food from within the corridor (something Woodbury County has already accomplished)
2) Seek funding, design and build full time, year-round farmers markets in IC, CR, and WCF. complete with licensed community kitchens for farmers to use for value-added products
3) Improve the food in our public schools, beginning with an end to peddling junk food to our children under the false guise of “choice”
January 4th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Our greatest strengths:
*Quality education system (K-college)
*Work ethic
*Hawkeye Pride- this is a great place to live, work and play.
Challenges:
*flood protection
*transportation options between CR and IC (besides the much needed Nascar driving school training in order to drive on 380 during the week)
*Having a regional convention center large enough to attract large venues to take advantage of our central location (concerts, trade shows, large national conferences). Why give Des Moines and the Quad Cities all the opportunities?
Three actions:
*consolidations with representation from multiple locations & groups (chambers,convention and visitors bureau, ED organizations)
*common meetings/accountability across ED organizations
*Establish and communicate a vision for the region