What Should Economic Development in Caledonia Look Like?

I thought it would be interesting to start a public discussion around a phrase you hear a lot of in government these days – economic development.

We often talk about increasing our tax base and call it growing our local economy. We give tax breaks and use tax incremental finance districts to finance infrastructure projects to lure businesses to our area. The idea is, if we create jobs, then we’ll all be employed and be able to put food on the table.

When I think of economic development, I think of a story I wrote for the Kenosha News about Abbott Labs in 2009. I quoted a village administrator saying they were “setting the table” for development to happen, but it hasn’t happened and the state is now looking at the possibility of having an empty table. So state officials are now looking to change the rules on how TIF districts are used. They are also funding marketing plans and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, and working with County economic development corporations to court potential business suitors.  

But the other day I was listening to NPR’s This American Life the other day and the show focused on job creation. The show focused on several aspects of job creation, from policy, to law, and how companies use economic development tools.

Here are some points that I took away from the program:

That we need to really understand what true job creation is and what it is not.

Stealing businesses from other communities is not job creation

Handing out tax credits to businesses that were going to hire anyway may not be an effective use of our tax credits.

We need to scrutinize how our economic investment dollars are used.

If we want to create higher paying jobs, we need to invest in education to create an educated workforce.

We need to value the relationship between healthy economies and healthy communities.

So I’d really like to know what our public officials, business leaders and citizens think about this. Take a look at the research I’ve done, feel free to post links to other sources you might have found. I’m really not looking for an argument, I’m looking for good discussion on this.

So, here are a few questions, I have for you:

When you think of economic development, what comes to mind?

Is there a difference between economic development and community development?

Are we using our economic development resources wisely?

What kinds of jobs should we be creating and how do you think we should create them?