While it is often overlooked, placemaking has emerged as an essential factor in building successful innovation ecosystems. Erica Colston’s latest post explores two innovation hubs—North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park and Pegasus Park in Dallas, Texas—to illustrate how placemaking strategies have adapted to succeed in today’s innovation environment.
The process of placemaking is a means to bridge gaps across racial and socioeconomic lines, expand access to economic opportunity, and foster social inclusion within communities. These outcomes, however, require intentional efforts and a commitment to tackle unintentional practices that lead to division, creating unequal access to amenities, public spaces, and prosperity.
Rural America faces disparities in access to essential services and opportunities compared to urban areas. While the percentage of households without vehicles is similar across rural and urban regions, the income gap is substantial, highlighting the need for affordable and equitable mobility solutions. Could microtransit offer a promising solution to address this challenge?
Rising office vacancy rates following the COVID-19 pandemic have renewed conversations about the role of adaptive reuse. Jenn Todd-Goynes highlights notable examples of communities that have brought together public and private interests to transform vacant sites and underutilized assets into quality places that generate positive impacts and provide preferred destinations for people, businesses, and visitors.
Creating Place-Based Economic Impacts Through Adaptive Reuse Read More
Last month, John Karras attended the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) 2024 Leadership Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to speaking on a panel about high-performing regions and attending a plenary session on clean energy featuring TIP managing partner Jon Roberts, he took away observations about the importance of cross-jurisdictional collaboration which he shares in his latest post.
Open streets policies put in place by some communities to ease the burden of restrictions on gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic have been extended from temporary solutions to permanent programs. The success of these policies in cities like Houston, Seattle, and Ann Arbor has demonstrated the value of intentionally shaping the built environment to promote social interaction and create vibrant public spaces.
The super-heated housing market that dominated headlines and led to sky-high housing prices during the COVID-19 pandemic has cooled. Yet, higher home prices relative to pre-pandemic levels and reduced affordability have lingered, pointing to a continued housing shortage. The implications for talent and business recruitment and retention make this topic a central concern for economic development practitioners.
Policy Tools to Increase Housing Supply and Improve Affordability Read More
Sustainability is increasingly understood as both an economic and an environmental imperative. In our latest Triptychs post, Rachel Wise looks at three collaborations aimed at raising awareness of sustainability issues such as climate change, creating resilient places and people, and helping leaders make informed decisions about the future.
Triptychs: Meeting Sustainability Needs Through Hubs Read More
In the final installment of our series examining the comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS), Elizabeth Scott discusses how the East Michigan Council of Governments used elements of the CEDS planning process to respond to both economic and climate-related upheavals in its 14-county region.
In October 2023, Tom Stellman and Alexis Angelo were part of a panel on the intersection of economic development and philanthropy at Philanthropy Southwest’s 75th Annual Conference, held in the Lost Pines region outside of Austin. In her latest post, Alexis summarizes the panel, which featured our work for the City of Muskogee Foundation, and shares her takeaways from the event.
