Posted Jan. 11, 2008
PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island Economic Policy Council today unveiled a new “Rhode Island Economic Strategy: Growing the Top, Holding the Middle and Moving the Bottom Up,” that charts a path to prosperity in the innovation economy.
The heart of the new strategic plan – unveiled during the Policy Council’s 8 a.m. meeting at the State House – is a call for the development of “whole places … that are dense, mixed-use and walkable; full of life, distinctive and diverse in their built form, natural environment and social networks; empowering of their people; water and energy efficient; transit and digitally connected; and disaster resilient.” Such whole places will serve as platforms for upward mobility and magnets for young workers, the Policy Council contends.
Its 34-page document also lays out 10 key strategic initiatives in three broad categories:
Adapt education and work force systems for the innovation age.
• Expand experiential learning and problem-solving opportunities in high school and college, to give local students the skills to succeed in the new economy.
“The education strategy that worked for an industrial economy does not work for the economy today.” Compared with three decades ago, there are far fewer middle-wage jobs available to high school graduates, while there are more high-wage and very-low-wage positions. More education, and a different kind of education, will be required to keep our state competitive.
• Fully integrate adult education, skills training and innovation “as part of a holistic approach to upward mobility.”
“Build Rhode Island” to make whole places and ensure wage growth.
• Create partnerships to promote whole-place development.
• Revise the tax structure to better align state and local development interests.
For instance, the growth of nonprofit colleges and hospitals benefits the state, but it burdens cities and towns that lose property from their tax base. So the council suggests sharing with communities some of the income-tax benefits the state derives from the knowledge economy.
• Expand Rhode Island’s capacity for water-supply and -demand management.
“We need to exercise the authority to maintain our infrastructure so that we can continue to enjoy a secure water supply at a manageable cost, rather than hitting water users with unpredictable future price spikes or supply disruptions,” the council declares. And the state’s aging infrastructure, “is due for some significant maintenance and replacement.”
• Construct a “seamless transit system, from the sidewalk to the mega-region.”
A “reinvented” local transit system, tied into the regional commuter rail and high-speed rail, would have numerous advantages, the Policy Council notes: It “would reduce carbon emissions, insulate us from rising oil costs, expand the reach of face-to-face innovation networks across the Northeast, and strengthen our own city, town and village centers.”
What’s more, Rhode Island’s high-density communities grew up around the trains and trolley systems of the past, so “it will be much easier for us to reinvent a public transit system here than … to invent a public transit system for the first time” in low-density areas that grew up around the automobile.
“Thus, transit could be a source of competitive advantage for Rhode Island, particularly if it is connected to the evolving Northeast Corridor high-speed rail network.”
• Make the state a leader in energy-demand management and alternative energy development.
Rhode Island has a head-start in this field: It has with the nation’s most efficient state economy, in terms of gross state product per BTU, and a local utility company – National Grid – that is already experimenting with a conservation-focused business model. And to be competitive in the emerging global economy, the Policy Council says, “We need our investments to be targeted in areas where Rhode Island can build world-class competencies.”
Accelerate the value-creating processes of discovery, collaboration, commercialization and entrepreneurship.
• Create a robust Research Alliance among the local hospitals, universities and technology industry, to increase both basic and applied research and to promote entrepreneurship.
• Leverage the quasi-public Slater Technology Fund to help accelerate the commercialization of technology and the establishment of start-up companies.
• Make the state the best in the nation in recruiting and retaining businesses, by leveraging Rhode Island’s unique strengths in innovation.
“Rhode Island must sell what it intends to become, not just what it is – and if we do so effectively, those who share our vision will join us and help us achieve it. This is not so much ‘build it and they will come’ but rather ‘imagine it and they will come and help us build it,’” the Policy Council writes.
But, it adds, ”Not all development is good. Not all prospects are appropriate. Economic development must be made to reinforce and enhance the state’s basic identity as a place.”
The Rhode Island Economic Policy Council is a network of leaders from government, business, labor and education communities that aims to “seize key economic opportunities,” and mobilize public and private resources in support of its economic development initiatives. A nonprofit corporation, it is equally funded by the private sector and the State of Rhode Island. To learn more, visit www.ripolicy.org.
