I think the evolving commentary — around the grant writer, AIDA, URA, the Council — misses the key point. (Story here)

While the attention gets focused on the process and funding for grant writing, what about the overall objective of bringing growth to the community? Who owns that?

I might be wrong with this but my impression is that the ownership of economic growth is muddy at best.  Even worse we have no objective way to gauge whether we are succeeding or failing as we have no metrics for the process.  So this back-and-forth on the grant writer is a sideshow rather than a core issue of bringing growth to the community. Sure, grants are important but what is the overall economic strategy?

Now when you pose the question of strategy, you naturally get into the question of vision and here’s where it gets troubling for me. If you were to deduct a strategy from the names of the entities AIDA and URA, you would literally end up with “Industrial Development” and “Urban Renewal”, respectively, as the strategies or perhaps the missions of the organizations. Now let me create a bit of a strawman here and let’s admit the strawman would say something like “Come on Flippin, just because it’s part of the name it does not mean that is the strategy!”. I beg to differ.

You don’t have to look too far back in the public record to see the desire and aim to revisit widescale demolition as a strategy for driving development in the city, you know, urban renewal. Nor do you have to look too far back to find the champions of an industrial development strategy as a way to bring growth back to the city. And for those believing the path ahead lies in reviving urban renewal or industrial development, the agencies literally become vehicles for said strategies. This should not stand. It’s akin to embracing the view that the Earth is flat.

What should stand is a way to repurpose these entities for a viable strategy forward from 2010, not from 1910. That should be the focus of the conversations and efforts to drive economic growth, not the attendant sideshow of whether a 7 figure return justifies a 5 figure expense.

Let me be clear: I recognize that not all stakeholders in the agencies or even all members of the community share the above views so I’m not trying to paint with too broad a brush. At the same time, a sizable swath of the community and political leadership does indeed embrace urban renewal and industrial development as viable, perhaps even the only strategies in their eyes. The brush may not be broad, but it’s not that fine either.

Let me pile on a bit more: where is the local business community in the process? Do they not have a stake in whatever strategy evolves? Are they in the flat-Earth society too?

Developing strategy is tough work; building consensus amongst multiple stakeholders is even tougher work; holding on to anachronisms for our alphabet soup of economic development agencies, well, that requires no work at all.