Challenge West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley region, anchored by the Charleston metropolitan area, faces long-standing economic challenges including troubling population loss, below-average employment growth, lagging unemployment rates, and low levels of workforce participation. At the same time, new leadership and promising opportunities sparked a renewed sense of agency, urgency, and optimism
Challenge Following the successful execution of their 2022–2025 workforce initiatives, the Pearland Economic Development Corporation (PEDC) and the Pearland Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) sought to enhance their ongoing collaborative momentum and align local talent efforts with the broader 2024 Pearland Prosperity community vision. As a fast-growing suburb in the Houston
Challenge Invest Puerto Rico (IPR) has faced a pivotal transition marked by leadership shifts, evolving stakeholder expectations, and an unclear organizational mandate. While the agency achieved transactional wins, tension remained between its role as a marketing entity and its core function as an investment attraction engine. This ambiguity was compounded
Challenge The Greater Brownsville economy is undergoing a generational transformation, moving from low wages and a net outflow of talent to becoming a formidable competitor in the national economy. The region has boasted large capital investments from mega-projects like SpaceX, Rio Grande LNG, and Saronic. Yet economic successes of this
Challenge Since it was created by the General Assembly in 2017, the Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP) has established itself as a first-rate statewide economic development organization. The public-private partnership (P3) has generated an impressive return—helping to locate 56 projects totaling $1.52 billion in capital investment—and has built trust and credibility
Challenge The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma saw unprecedented growth and business success leading up to 2018. However, low educational attainment, aging infrastructure, and slow job growth continued to threaten many of the tribe’s surrounding communities in southeast Oklahoma. To channel the regional momentum and address specific challenges, the Choctaw Business
Challenge Oakland County has been an economic leader in Michigan, often outpacing state and national averages in educational attainment, median household income, and labor force participation. Thanks in large part to its concentration of jobs in the professional services and healthcare sectors, the county managed to rebound from the job
Challenge Incorporated in 1914 in what is now the heart of the Dallas metroplex, Irving, Texas, has experienced remarkable growth over the last five decades. From Las Colinas, which pioneered the master-planned community model, to the bustling Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Irving’s forward-thinking development and successful attraction of global
Challenge Following three decades of strong population growth, Kittitas County, Washington, experienced even higher levels of in-migration in the years leading up to the 2020 Census. Anecdotal evidence suggested this trend was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as those who had flexible work arrangements, or who could afford to move
Challenge The Rio South Texas region stands at a critical juncture of binational opportunity and ecosystem evolution. As partner organizations working in tandem, the Council for South Texas Economic Progress (COSTEP) and the Rio-South Texas Education and Community Development Foundation (RSTEF) share a unified mission: ensuring residents acquire the skills
