Cleveland, Ohio
Once known as 'the mistake on the lake', Cleveland faced seemingly insurmountable odds in the early 1980s. When 75,000 manufacturing jobs vanished in 1983, unemployment shot up to 11.3%. The City of Cleveland became the first major city since the Great Depression legally to default on its fiscal obligations. To top it off, the political systems were failing with deep divisions growing even deeper between traditional sectors of the community.
Out of the chaos emerged a dedicated group of business leaders who recognized that the status quo was unacceptable and that dramatic change had to occur. The group worked hard to engage as many new and non-traditional community leaders as possible. Together, a coalition of several hundred business and community leaders tackled the issues facing their region. The results are impressive: transformed labor relations, reoriented education institutions, massive upgrades in physical infrastructure, a rejuvenated advanced manufacturing economic base, improved race relationships, and an economically vital downtown.
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Austin, Texas
Up until the early 1980s, Austin was just a sleepy government and university town. Per capita income in the region hovered below the state average, and there was no community interest in diversifying from its traditional, commodity-based, cyclical oil and gas industry. Within just eight years, the region leapt onto the national information technology stage by landing not one, but two of the most prized research consortia, the Microelectronics Computer Technology Consortium and the semiconductor consortium, SEMATECH. By 1990, Austin's per capita income out-nosed the state average, and in 2001 the region's per capita income level exceed the state average by nearly 11%.
The Austin transformation was led by a group of hundreds of civic-minded entrepreneurs who focused, not just on selling the region better, but on making the region a better product that would sell itself. The group focused on improving schools, transportation, leadership development, downtown, and collaboration between environmental and business interests.
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Wichita, Kansas
A region heavily reliant on aerospace, Wichita experienced a heavy blow with an industry downturn in the early 1980s. Unemployment rates spiked to 2 1/2 times their normal levels through the mid-1980s. A group of traditional and non-traditional business leaders assembled themselves to address the region's challenges. Their first task: bringing all segments of the community together to do economic development rather than the usual fragmented, single-interest efforts. Business, political, and education interests aligned behind a common agenda, which included education, technology, finance, biomedical research, downtown development, and transportation. By 1990, all major objectives of the partnership had been achieved and unemployment rates were at a near-twenty year low.
*Excerpt from "Grassroots Leaders for a New Economy,"
Jossey-Bass, Inc, 1997. |
