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Submitted by acohill on Fri, 07/07/2006 - 08:05.
This article was sent to me by a county administrator who has long recognized the potential of small towns, good quality of life, and broadband. Forbes has selected 150 small towns and small cities and divided them into six categories, based on amenities and quality of life. It will be no surprise to many of you that the one thing Forbes has identified as a key enabler of economic growth is not water, sewer, or industrial parks.
It is affordable broadband.
If your economic developers have not yet completely overhauled their economic development strategy, print out a copy of this article and send it to them. The author talks about geographic arbitrage, meaning that a lot of white collar professionals are selling their high-priced homes located in major metropolitan areas and using the cash to buy an equivalent home for a lot less money somewhere else. How do they find work? They bring their work with them, using broadband to stay connected to clients and contacts.
A lot of these folks are working out of their homes, making neighborhoods the business districts of the 21st century. As I do periodically, I will list the four elements of my 21st century economic development plan.
- Traditional industrial recruitment -- you certainly want to try to attract the traditional manufacturing or office-based business, but it should be no more than 20% to25% of your total ED time and budget.
- Entrpreneurial recruitment -- This is attracting the professionals with portable businesses, who are making relocation decisions based on quality of life and availability of broadband in neighborhoods. Traditional ED sales pitches turn them off or don't attract their interest. To attract these folks, you have to sell the whole community, not just the 50 acre business park by the railroad tracks--they could care less about that. This should be at least 25% of your total ED time and budget.
- Existing business enhancement -- At least 80% of all new jobs created in your region next year will be created by businesses already in place. So what kinds of programs do your economic developers have to help existing businesses expand and grow? This should be at least 35% to 40% of your total ED time and budget.
- Local entrepreneurial growth -- Help people already in the region with new business concepts and ideas to get their business started. Make this at least 20% of your time and budget.
If your economic developers do not have a plan like this in place, you may want to ask them why. And of course, underlaying all this is the understanding that a community-based digital transport system (shared fiber and wireless digital roads) is the new water and sewer--it's basic and essential infrastructure needed to support economic growth. If your locality does not have a line item in its budget for regular annual expenditures to develop and expand a common digital roadway, it should. How else will you attract businesses and business professionals? Great quality of life without affordable, high performance broadband gets you nothing.