How Do we Fix our City - Part II - "The Growth Factors"

How Do we Fix our City - Part II - "The Growth Factors"






Socio-Economic Growth

From Being A Southern City
Into
A World Connected City within The Southern States

Embracing & Improving

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

In some blog comments to stories about communicating issues, and other blogs post, I mentioned, options which could be improved and modified. I'm sure there can be a 100 different thoughts about it : but anyone is certainly free to write out their thoughts and ideas - as I'm taking the time to write out some thoughts upon matters of city and progress of which I think are of interest in regard to our growth and progress

We not only need to look at other Municipalities, but those as well of other countries’ who face similar challenges in their City performance and growth matters. We face a changed nations- We face a work force that have invested many years in performance capacity, we have a massive volume of young people 18-30, people in their mid 30's and older people beyond 50, both skilled, some with college education, tech educated and with large volume of people with a variety of work experience development , as well as we have the unskilled, un trained, and under educated. What we must face is a truth, that may appear unkind, yet very realistic - We will not have a complete city of all degree based people, it will be 30 years before that cycle evolves to have such a high volume of saturation in that spectrum, Therefore we have to build for all people in a host of levels and capacity for all people to have opportunity to engage employment. Therefore we cannot afford to disrespect any nature of work, nor the people who do that work. All are members of the community which makes up a city- and our growth must embrace all these elements of the citizenry status.



LET'S LOOK AT A VARIETY OF THINGS

Growing Our Systems to meet the 21st Century Challenges



On Report of CAO- Based from a Canadian Executive Summary - offers some very interesting information:
After reading some info from some report data - about CAO's and the expanding role - one items stood out: Which is: Training - Financial functions - Seminars, and other Resource enhancing tools being engaged by other research methods in a variety of Metro's - as I think such things are very intricately connected to "Economic Development"


Some key items I would think are relevant to consider and address include:

* Escalation in Responsibilities - One I noted was the need for the CAO to be critical in communicating with the Council.
* Building a network of communication with other CAO's - to improve and enhance skill set and acquire additional information and brainstorming feedback.
* Increased learning as it relates to Budget and other areas where Strategic Planning is critical.
* Planning and developing initiative and cooperative investment into economic development, real estate and other matters that can help improve the growth planning.
* Round Table discussions with all non elected Department Heads- with a frequency- Monthly, and Quarterly - Semi -Annual and Annual meeting.
* Better Human Resource methods to acquire talent and to retain talent and how best to get the best of the talent it currently has, learning to recognize learned skill, acquired ability, and embracing the often neglected , creative aspect of pursing capabilities to support and function within the resource pools.
* Developing a Living Business Plan
* Learning how to apply for Grants for the improvement of Administrative function - efficiency equals dollars saved both on time, and costly delayed activity due to manpower shortages. Intimately costing the system of City and its Administration to be functioning with a built in loss factor.

Thus again
All of such.. being closely tied to the nature of Economic Development and its expansive role
in
all benefit gains of cities growth.,



Let's Look at a broad and dimensionally expansive perspective over-view of many connecting components -
Within being a City, and Growing as a City.



Learning how to take on debt within a process of growth - It's more crucial in the world today- Because not only have we suffered economic erosion as a nation, but, it has devastated cities in a multitude of ways; we have a diminished tax base, we have a despaired population, and we have an continually eroding civic and economic base, which reverberates within our process of even education and social interactivity..

We have to learn what it means to accept debt, and how best to engage pursuing the debt needed to build back our city and poise it for growth. We nor any locality can regain its stability, nor prosper its growth, without constructive debt acquisition. We need to know what are our infrastructure needs, not only in transportation routing, but in economic modeling and growth and the flow from community to community in a connecting enterprise know best as "A City". Our work is far more massive than we have envision, and more practical to attain, that we choose to believe.
We have missed the main theme of our core responsibility- and that is learning how to bring the young and the old together- to be a city. We have a age segregated city- and it cannot stand as a divided house, nor can it grow as a broken connection point. Hard Truths, and Solid Realities - When they are embraced, then Change is understood, and within the understanding of Change and its necessity- We then began to move ahead as a city, and we began to connect the vital element of "what is civic pride".

1. Knowing what is the expanded role of the Council Members, as it relates to their District and how they can be supported with both resources and city department connectivity and a cohesive inter-relationship.
2. Looking to develop- District relative matters, so each district can progress as part of the over-all city growth plan.

Two very critical and key important division of city operation performance is: Community Development and Economic Development: If these two are disjointed, then we are working with opposing entities or maybe simply disjointed entities rather than conjoining entities.

The Age of Information - The Age of New Growth - The Time of Rebuilding -
Not Just A City but a cultural explosion of Change and Progress -
A leader in the 21st Century -
as
A Southern Metro of the New Age

Shreveport
Is the third-largest city and the principal city of the third largest metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Louisiana,
as well as being
The 108th-largest city in the United States.




Other matters we have failed to engaged. “Our University Resources' - We have halls of education, we have failed to task with, research and funding for research to make use of student knowledge to provide collected and gained data and knowledge - to feed our brain trust for the positive growth not only as a city, but as a regional metro.

We have become to fear debt for the wrong reasons, mostly because we look at is as expenditure rather than investment. We fail to look at the reality- of what it takes for the rebirth and re-structure for progress, and we detest the thought to invest for its gain and to support its benefit. Therefore we miss the nature of what is "Federal Support".

Models: We Can Learn From:

* San Antonio, Texas - A cultural jewel - transformed into a city that has an enriched cultural landscape and growth model in many varied categories - a rich source for learning and modeling our growth elements
* Atlanta, Georgia - a metro that has continually grown and shown to produce some of the 20th century great economic achievements - we can learn a great deal about corporate presence- what it takes, what benefits to offer and how to connect and provide the framework to build to attract.
* Minneapolis, Minnesota : contended with some of the same elements which Shreveport has faced, from racial issue, to desegregation, and other movements - it has continued to grow and find ways for its

Now let's look to the West Coast- We can learn not only what we need to attract to enhance and improve our region as a media capital of the South.
We also can learn how to improve our city sectors, to enhance cultural and civic connectivity between the residents and the commerce and cultural development.
We can learn how best to blend communities to embrace the diversity interactively and in a mutual growth network.


Seattle: is a prime example - not only to learn about improvements in becoming a technical center, but about artist and other Youth to Mid 30's growth support - we can learn from their short falls and their exceptional enhancements. .

International learning:

Bangkok : Is one of the greatest shopping Mecca’s that can teach a great deal about ' how commerce can function with many competing entities
Japan: Can show us what and how marketing is engaged, how advertising become a catalysis of growth and innovation.
Hong Kong : We can learn about the massive impact and performance of International Trade and Import and Export
.
Latin America: We can re-learn how to make use of our land, for Agricultural prominence- this is more critical and a more valued element of the future than many economist or development strategist have given credible weight unto.

Europe: We can learn about - the benefits of high speed transportation, and how to monitor cities and make use of electronic monitoring system

Viet Nam: We can learn about the basic of growth process- the improvement of transitional population education in development and enhancement, and how to blend the two, with the emerging industrial and commercial growth.



The 21st Century has brought us many things. but of the greatest things it has brought us, is the urging to engage a mass of relearning and reformulating our process, and expanding our procedural methods of engaging entities for the benefit of progress and growth potential. We have to embark on how to understand talent, and what elements that can be gained from the common sense perspective- which is the critical element of which society functions. It is does not fit the relevancy of common sense, then it become far too colluded to be progressively engaged by the mass of citizenry perspectives.