Writing
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The Invisible Infrastructure of Inclusive Economic Growth
Linking inclusion and growth efforts in regions requires organizing businesses so that they can send clearer signals, but also receive stronger signals from workers and communities. This work is largely invisible, and thus underfunded. We make it visible, describing the capabilities that enable inclusive growth, and the critical role of business leadership organizations.
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Building a Regional Semiconductor Workforce Pipeline – What Regions Can Learn from Austin, Texas
The future of the U.S. semiconductor industry depends on whether a few regions can build responsive, accessible workforce pipelines. Austin, especially Austin Community College, has many lessons to offer. We describe these, and also how long it took to build the foundations of its efforts and how much remains to be done.
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The working class needs quality jobs—and regional leaders need to define what those are
We argue that despite widespread agreement that “quality jobs” matter, most regions lack a concrete, measurable definition—especially around wages. Without that clarity, efforts in workforce development, education, and economic incentives often proceed blind, missing whether they truly shift workers into better roles. We propose that leaders anchor a definition of job quality in wage thresholds,…
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Building Better: How real estate developers can create more inclusive catalytic development projects
Decisions that real estate developers make—where to build, what to build, who to partner with—have a profound impact on economic inclusion. But there are few definitions of inclusive development aimed at for-profit developers. We lay out a clearer definition and more comprehensive set of actions, informed by developers of large downtown projects.
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How local leaders can upgrade their regional economic dashboards
Civic leaders spend a lot of time creating economic development metrics, with the expectation that they will cause organizations to act and invest differently. Most dashboards fail to fulfill this function. Drawing on work with the McKnight Foundation, we show how metrics can be designed to serve as strategy development and performance management tools.