This is the last in my two-part mini-series on good economic development in Indianapolis. As I said, there's a reason that Indy is the fastest growing large metro area in the Midwest and is one of the best performing economically. It's not all just good luck. This one focuses on Indy's internet marketing cluster. This is a group of nearly 70 companies locally that are focused on the marketing space, totaling over 1,000 employees. This includes companies that are both profitable and rapidly growing such as Exact Target (which recently raised … [Read more...]
Cleveland: What’s Wrong?
Along with Detroit, Cleveland is the poster child for major Midwestern urban decline and a favorite punching bag for the national and international media. But Detroit's travails are easy to understand. Anyone can look at and attribute them to the auto industry and poor race relations. The reality is more complex, but at least Detroit lends itself to a narrative. Cleveland is a different story. What happened in Cleveland to cause this? Even I cannot come up with a "grand unified theory" of Cleveland, which those of you who read this blog know is … [Read more...]
Chicago: Reconnecting the Hinterland, Part 2B – On Innovation
"When I am weak, then I am strong." - II Corinthians 12:10"A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." - Mark 6:4 The is the last in my series on reconnecting Chicago with its natural city-region in the greater Midwest. But it really has nothing to do specifically with Chicago, or even the Midwest. It deals, rather, with innovation generally. I discussed how companies were outsourcing offshore, with a big driver being labor arbitrage. But as with all trends, labor arbitrage … [Read more...]
Chicago: Reconnecting the Hinterland 2A – Onshore Outsourcing
This the third installment of my four part series about ideas to create competitive advantage through reconnecting Chicago with its traditional greater Midwestern city-region. (Essential background reading is in Chicago: A Declaration of Independence. Part 1a is on Metropolitan Connections. Part 1b is on High Speed Rail). To refresh, in my kickoff of the year of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan in Chicago, I argued that while Chicago was performing well in a globalized world, it was only riding the wave of globalization … [Read more...]
Chicago: Reconnecting the Hinterland, Part 1B – High Speed Rail
The first installment in my series on ideas for reconnecting Chicago with its natural expanded region in the Midwest focused on what could be enabled by linking Milwaukee and Indianapolis to Chicago via high speed rail. This makes it a good time to talk about Midwest high speed rail generally. There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the idea of creating a Midwest high speed rail network. The federal government has already designated a system of Midwest rail corridors. There's a lobbying organization pushing it called the Midwest … [Read more...]
Chicago: Reconnecting the Hinterland, Part 1A – Metropolitan Linkages
In my kickoff of the year of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan in Chicago, I argued that while Chicago was performing well in a globalized world, it was only riding the wave of globalization and wasn't defining its own uniquely successful future, one where it first and most fully grasped the implications of our new world. I also promised ideas on where to look to do that, starting with re-embracing its own unique culture and identity, resisting homogenization. Today I start a four part mini-series looking at another … [Read more...]
Chicago: A Declaration of Independence
"One might fear the degree to which the city had declared its independence from nature, but at the same time one could hardly help feeling wonder at its audacity.""Other cities soon had railroads and elevators and refrigerator cars as well, but it was Chicago that first revealed the importance of such things to the West." - William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis As promised, I commence my year of looking back at the Burnham Plan of Chicago on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. To set the stage, let us first take a look at Chicago - its … [Read more...]
“Our Product is Better Than Our Brand”
Beyond the obvious of climate and such, why is it that so few people choose to move to the Midwest, which continues to see very high levels of out-migration with comparatively little in-migration in most cases? You see, I've always been struck by an interesting point: when people move to Midwestern cities, they fall in love with them. I know a lot of people who have left Indianapolis for various reasons, but don't know anyone who left cursing its name and saying how much they hated it. In fact, just the opposite is more likely. People are … [Read more...]
Pride of Place
How do you know a city that takes pride in itself? It's often the littlest things. Consider this stop sign from the city of Chicago. At first, this looks like any ordinary stop sign. But take a closer look at the bottom and look at what we see. The people who make street signs in the Chicago care enough, put enough pride into their work and their city, to sign the city's name at the bottom of every sign. This tells us something very powerful about the that place. Think it is an accident of geography, luck, or history that made … [Read more...]
Detroit: Do the Collapse
I enjoy swapping "war stories" about work as much as the next guy. I've heard a lot, but some of the most incredulous came from a college buddy who used to work for General Motors. He was a manager level employee in field operations, but was often called in to work auto shows and the like. What was his job at the auto show you might ask? Well, at one Chicago Auto Show, his first responsibility was to make sure the hotel room for the executive was prepped correctly. This exec had very specific detailed requirements as to the brands of soft … [Read more...]