A digital toolkit for Ec Dev 2.0 | Number 13 | Circ: 5011

These are not articles

Canada Goes Headhunting for World-Leading Innovation, While U.S. Efforts Stall in Congress

Canada has made a major move to boost world-leading innovation by recruiting 19 of the planet’s key researchers and thinkers in the fields of environment, energy, life sciences and information technologies. Each of the new Canada Excellence Research Chairs is eligible for up to $10,000,000 in research funding over the next seven years. Lured away from research facilities around the world, these key innovators will develop new technologies and conduct high-level research and development to benefit Canadian industry, while training a new generation of academic and research leaders. Working from universities in seven provinces, these individuals are the first wave of a much larger program designed to push Canada’s innovation agenda forward. The CERC program is a part of Canada’s larger Science and Technology Strategy Advantage Canada, released in November of 2006. The move comes at a time when efforts in the United States to drive innovation have run into political roadblocks, as Congress has stalled reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act. The Washington-based International Economic Development Council has issued a call for members to lobby congress for the passage of the bill; for details on this effort contact Talib Hudson.

New U.S. Reports Show Green Industry, Bioscience Sectors Growing

For those looking to boost their activities in the Green and Bioscience sectors, two new reports out of the U.S. may help make the case. The first, a U.S. Department of Commerce report entitled “Measuring the Green Economy” may be downloaded here. It suggests that environmental industry already makes up as much as 2% of the U.S. economy, and accounts for as many as 2.4 million jobs. This activity contributes as much as $516 billion to the U.S. economy, and is growing under President Obama’s vision of a “Green Collar Economy”. At the same time, a report from the Battelle Memorial Institute and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) suggests that employment in the sector has been growing throughout the recession. While overall U.S. employment fell by 0.7% in 2008, for example, bioscience employment increased by 1.4%. Between 2001 and 2008, employment in the sector grew by more than 15.8%, about four and a half times more than the economy as a whole. The full report can be downloaded here.

The Living Cities Initiative Develops Tools to Make Neighbourhoods “Dynamic”

The Living Cities-sponsored Dynamic Neighborhood Taxonomy Project (DNT), led by RW Ventures was launched in 2006 to begin developing a new generation of tools to help those involved in community development to target and tailor investments and interventions in neighbourhoods. Completed in late 2009, the project studied Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, and Seattle between 1990 and 2005 to identify key drivers of neighbourhood change. Mobility of residents proved to be the primary driver, suggesting that the understanding of different neighbourhood amenities in retaining and attracting specific types of residents was key to creating dynamic neighbourhoods. Amenities like housing prices, parks, access to public transit and downtown jobs/amenities, income diversity, retail diversity, and public and social services were cited as “Big Picture” drivers of change. However, there was no “silver bullet”, or common mix of these amenities that was associated with neighbourhood improvement, so more specialized tools were needed for deeper analysis. Chapter nine of the report identifies specialized tools, either developed by the DNT or tailored from an existing technique in another field that can be used to analyze neighbourhood change, measure impact of interventions, and segment neighbourhoods into comparable units. The report describes each tool, provides an overview and example of its applications, and in some cases, an overview of the technical specifications and data requirements. The DNT report is a good resource for community developers investigating new ways to analyze the changes in their local communities and decide on the best course of action for producing positive results. As an added resource, RW Ventures LLC produced the online DNT Data Catalogue, which identified the datasets used in the analysis and can provide direction on data that should be acquired for your analysis.    

Introducing iHastings, Canada's First Municipal Economic Development iPhone App

On May 6, 2010, Hastings County announced the first ever municipal economic development iPhone Application in Canada. Named “iHastings”, the new Application will offer a unique and modern way to connect with creative entrepreneurs and young adults. Communities across the country and around the world are recognizing that they are in competition for talent. Increasingly, social media tools are becoming the way to connect with not only youth, but creative entrepreneurs from all age demographics. In the case of Hastings County, the iHastings app provides easy access to news and events, and through integrated use of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter it’s possible to view videos and receive up to date postings on what’s happening in the County. Hastings County understands that traditional marketing approaches alone will not attract their target audience. Social media generates opportunities for creative entrepreneurs to learn and get excited about Hastings County. To download the app simply search ‘Hastings County’ in the app store or visit www.investinhastings.ca.

Is Your Community One of Canada's Best Places to Live?

Quality of life is often an important consideration for economic developers, but what exactly makes a community an attractive place to live? MoneySense magazine’s annual Canada’s Best Places to Live list provides some insight into why people might choose to live where they do. MoneySense ranks communities based issues that have an impact on people’s happiness, such as climate, affordable housing, prosperity, ease of travel, and good health care (for more on the methodology, click here or for a map of the ranked cities click here). This year, Ottawa-Gatineau tops the list of 179 communities. The rest of the top five include Kingston, Burlington, Fredericton, and Moncton. On the other end of the spectrum, Port Alberni, Quesnel, New Glasgow, Williams Lake, and Bay Roberts make up the bottom of the list. While you probably can't do much about the climate in your community, this ranking provides useful insight into what it takes to be one of Canada's best places to live.

Salad: The Next "Big" Economic Indicator?

It seems like every week there is a new important number in the news when it comes to the economy. Everything from manufacturing orders to house prices, consumer spending, unemployment rates, and stock prices are examined for clues about which way the economy is moving. For some of us, though, these seemingly abstract numbers fly a little too high over our heads. This is where more unconventional economic indicators, such as the sale of “manties” or the height of hemlines, can help provide further insight into the state of the economy right now. Forbes recently published a list of fifteen “uncommonly clever” economic indicators that do just that. Some of them, like the sale of champagne, might seem intuitive, but what on earth could hairstyles or electronic waste recycling reveal about the economy? At the very least, skimming this article will give you some smart tidbits to drop over dinner (including how your salad greens can predict whether or not the economy is recovering).

The Ec Dev 2.0 Digital Tools

If you found this email update useful join us on Facebook and Twitter for peer group discussions and further updates about news and resources.

FacebookTwitter