Regionalism can spur job growth
Commercial real estate brokers like Larry Jensen, president and CEO of Commercial Advisors, LLC, like to emphasize that when dealing with clients, they tout Greater Memphis’ regional assets.
The Brookings Institution is helping Memphis and Shelby County put the regionalism strategy into a more tangible action plan, which was announced Tuesday by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell.
If the plan does what is expected, it could mitigate the competitive tactics used to lure jobs to area localities. Brookings is saying that the quest to lure jobs to the area would be more effective if the industrial recruitment effort was conducted with a regional frame of mind.
Local leaders have been working for months with researchers at Brookings, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank, on the best way to way to grow jobs in the Memphis area.
The Brookings plan restructures the existing Memphis Shelby County Growth Alliance and packages it with the institution’s Metropolitan Business Plan, versions of which are now at work in Cleveland, Minneapolis and Seattle.
The Metropolitan Business Plan emphasizes private-sector business planning as a way to sharpen a regional-jobs recruitment strategy, while also finding innovative ways to address the economic wallop the Great Recession has had on private-sector profits and government budgets.
That approach to jobs growth, according to Brookings researchers, can be more effective than the “programmatic” tactics local governments normally employ to attract jobs.
What should not be lost in all the talk about jobs recruitment strategies and tactics is that the program could be the catalyst needed to get area government and business leaders, at least, to realize that Greater Memphis’ chances to really prosper improve in a climate of regional cooperation.
The coalition of Greater Memphis mayors that came together to push for more flights and lower airfares at Memphis International Airport is an example of a regional approach in tackling an issue that affects area residents and businesses.
The St. Louis, Kansas City, Charlotte and Louisville metropolitan areas are examples of how a regional approach to economic development can attract jobs. There is no reason why a similar approach cannot work here.
Despite the walls some citizens and elected leaders want to erect around their cities and counties, the citizens of Greater Memphis win when local governments work together.