These are not articles

Could You Live On $1000 A Month?

Spent, an online game launched in February by the Urban Ministries of Durham and advertising agency McKinney, helps players to understand the challenges faced by low income Americans in the wake of the “Great Recession” (like the 46.2 million people in the US who now live below the poverty line). The game, which has now been played more than a million times, sets up a scenario in which players must make difficult choices about work, housing, medical care, education, food, clothing and other expenses with their last $1,000 and a low income. The game is intended to educate players about the realities of poverty and homelessness, and the situations that come up are based on real world experiences as well as other research. It’s also generated quite a bit of support of the Urban Ministries of Durham, including more than $30,000 in donations. While not a conventional tool for economic developers, it’s certainly an interesting example of a new way to reach out to the public and policy makers about complex issues. Spent, for example, includes several opportunities to share information about the game on your Facebook profile, and McKinney has challenged every member of Congress to play Spent. Take the challenge yourself and see how you do.

Measuring and Improving Aesthetic Capital

It’s no secret that we make quick judgements about the places we visit. Those judgements, whether correct or not, can have significant implications on where we travel, shop, work, and live. Urban areas that quickly instill a welcoming, safe, and unique feeling will undoubtedly have a competitive edge in attracting talent at the metropolitan level or in revitalizing and sustaining neighbourhoods. In an attempt to utilize empirical and scientific processes to measure the “fuzzy” things related to aesthetic capital – how safe, affluent, or unique our urban areas look – the Macro Connections Group at MIT recently developed an online tool called Place Pulse.

Place Pulse uses readily available geotagged images of urban areas (presently only Vienna, Linz, Austria, Boston, and New York) and crowdsourced ratings to determine which areas are safer, more unique, or more upper-class in a photo vs. photo comparison. A few details have already emerged from these comparisons: the 10 safest images are all from Austrian cities, while the 10 “least safe” images were from US cities.

Place Pulse’s strength is its scalability and adaptability. Beyond adding additional cities, the model allows for the digital modification of photos to undertake certain controlled experiments.  For example, graffiti could be removed from or added to a photo to determine whether the change has an influence on safety or uniqueness of a place. For cities that constantly lose the place vs. place comparison, Forbes’ list of America’s most transformed neighbourhoods offers examples of cities that are successfully addressing their aesthetic capital issues.

Near? Far? Where Are You Best Positioned?

While the concept of “nearshoring” is relatively new, the concept of “offshoring” has been increasingly popular in international business circles since the 1960s. However, an Oregon-based outsourcing consultancy Ventoro published the results of a survey that suggests that outsourcing has not, in fact, generated significant costs savings for most companies involved in the practice, in fact some suggested that offshoring actually increased their costs. The discussion of offshoring’s potential downfalls, such as negative economic development impacts or increased costs, has led to the development of the nearshoring concept. Examples can be found globally including Japan nearshoring to China and closer to home, Microsoft choosing Canada as its nearshoring destination. Nearshoring explores ways in which the relocation of specific operations (often in areas like business processes or software development) can be positioned to support and strengthen the firms and communities involved.

How Are We Doing When It Comes to Innovation?

Knowledge and innovation are understood to be key drivers of today’s global economy. For years the OECD has recognized innovation as key to job growth, making it important to know where you stand in terms of fostering innovation. A recent article in The Atlantic by Richard Florida highlights findings from the Global Creativity Index (a useful summary can be found here) that make up the Global Technology Index. Canada stands in 11th place on the Global Technology Index, significantly behind our neighbours to the south coming in at 3rd place.

So how do we improve in both Canada and the USA? While the USA ranks fairly well, this time of economic uncertainty underscores the importance of continuing to invest in innovation to create jobs. A recent interactive map looking at start-up vitality in American cities highlights some of the factors necessary to foster entrepreneurship and innovation. Back in Canada, an expert panel has made six key recommendations on how the federal government can better support Canada’s competitiveness in technology and innovation.

The Role of Elected Officials in Economic Development

The National League of Cities’ Center for Research and Innovation provides a helpful resource on economic development for elected officials. The Role of Local Elected Officials in Economic Development: 10 Things You Should Know identifies 10 fundamental ways elected officials can become informed decision-makers who can understand the linkages between municipal policies and take a leadership role among economic development stakeholders. Although the examples presented are from American cities, valuable lessons can be gained and applied to Canadian communities. For example, one of the most important things elected officials should know in order to be effective leaders is to forge strong relationships with economic development staff. A key conclusion presented in this report is that elected officials should use this resource to initiate conversation with economic development staff. Whether you're an elected official or an economic developer, this report is a useful tool. You can download the complete report here.