There’s more than one way to measure city’s prosperity

Clearly, the Arlington City Council continues to take a hard look at its $700,000 annual investment in the local chamber of commerce as an engine of economic development. The question is whether the council is looking in the right place and in fact really has a handle on what really matters in economic development.

No doubt any worthy economist could put together the most complex of dissertations related to Arlington’s economic development over the past half-century, but we all like things simple. Suffice it to say that the Arlington today resulted from a combination of market forces and governmental decisions.

And yes, a mid-Metroplex location definitely influences that "market forces" equation.

That’s simple enough, but does it leave anything out? Anything big anyway?

By O.K. Carter

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/13250429.htm

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This idea is not original here, but it was expressed succinctly a couple of years ago in a Brookings Institution paper written by Paul Gottlieb, a professor at Western Reserve University. The paper is titled "Growth Without Growth: An Alternative Economic Goal for Metropolitan Areas." http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/gottlieb.pdf

Gottlieb defines effective economic development as occurring when the average person or family is growing more prosperous.

The "Growth Without Growth" paper provides substantial evidence indicating that ratcheting populations jack up costs of cops, schools, road maintenance and on and on.

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Winners and losers
Economic development ‘wins’ can be tough to quantify

By James Fink
Business First of Buffalo

What do Lindy Ruff, Mike Mularkey and Tom Kucharski have in common?

They all talk regularly about wins.
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The difference is that the wins Ruff and Mularkey refer to are easier to track than those in Kucharski’s portfolio.

For coaches Ruff and Mularkey, wins and losses are documented every time the Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bills play.

For Kucharski and a host of others in the world of Western New York economic development, wins are harder to define and, often, much less visible.

"Do people really understand what it means when we talk about wins?" asks Kucharski, Buffalo Niagara Enterprise president. "Absolutely not."

In economic development circles, a "win" can refer to a company making a multi-million-dollar investment in a community that will translate into job creation. The win can be even sweeter if the company considered making the investment someplace other than the Buffalo Niagara region.

Full Story: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10136661/