Every town has a great economic development office that talks up a town and sells itself as having a bright future. Examples of passionate people like the folks of Plano will excite you about the future and may cause you to rush off and buy real estate (I have no Idea if Plano is a good place to invest...watching their video inspired me to write).
The problem is: Every city has an economic development office and it's hard to tell if their actions will have an impact.
One key that David A Wolfe, professor of Economic Development at my Alma Mater University of Toronto, uses for measuring the effectiveness of a town's economic development office is the ability to mobilize local resources to tap into national and provincial/state funding.
Why? According to Professor Wolfe, it gives the city the "organizational institutional infrastructure for collaborative action." Examples of such type of infrastructure includes:
- a world class University (like University of Waterloo)
- research a technology "parks" (the MaRS discovery district in Toronto)
- a world class facility (like the Saskatoon Synchrotron)
- Transportation improvements (TTC transit City plan)
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