Prepared for Cook County by its Council of Economic Advisors, Metropolis Strategies and RW Ventures, this Action Agenda begins by addressing Cook County’s role in the regional economy, in light of dramatic changes taking place in the global economy. It then outlines a framework for understanding the County’s opportunities to influence economic growth, identifying the intersection of regional economic growth opportunities, the County’s unique assets and challenges, and Cook County government’s capacities. Applying this framework, the Action Agenda analyzes Cook County’s economic assets, challenges and opportunities in the context of the region. Based on this analysis, the Action Agenda recommends nine economic growth strategies for Cook County to adopt in order to promote regional economic growth, and outlines next steps for implementing the strategies.

The Milwaukee 7 (M7) released a draft of its Framework for Economic Growth at the November meeting of its Regional Economic Development Advisory Council.  M7 engaged public, private and civic stakeholders from around the seven-county region to create a market-based plan for growing the regional economy.  The plan – developed using the Metropolitan Business Planning framework co-developed by RW Ventures and The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program – derives nine strategies to “set a new course for regional prosperity.”  M7 and its partners are currently exploring next steps toward implementation.

The plan was developed at the request of Mayor Rahm Emanuel by World Business Chicago and a team of consultants, including RW Ventures. It begins with an overview of the necessary foundations for growth in the “next economy,” followed by an assessment of the region’s economy along five market levers that drive regional growth and a set of ten transformative growth strategies informed by this rigorous analysis. The report ends by considering potential impacts of and risks to implementation and outlining the next steps in implementation.

This report, written jointly by RW Ventures and Innovation Network for Communities, explores opportunities for Chicago-area firms arising from the increasing market demand for energy- and resource-efficient products and services. The first part of the report describes the project’s cluster approach, outlining the theory behind cluster-driven economic growth and identifying the particular criteria used to select promising clusters for the project. Using these criteria, the report narrows from many green sectors of opportunity to the one–energy efficient lighting–ultimately chosen to illustrate green cluster development. The second part of the report digs deeper into the energy efficient (EE) lighting sector, providing an overview of the industry and its current trends and dynamics. The report ends with recommendations for development of Chicago’s EE Lighting sector as well as strategies for regional green economic development more broadly. Also available for download are an executive summary of the report produced by Metropolis Strategies and a copy of Bob Weissbourd’s presentation based on the report.

MyHomeEQ, a joint venture of RW Ventures and CNT Energy, officially debuted in the Chicagoland market as part of Energy Impact Illinois (EI2), a CMAP-led initiative for more energy-efficient buildings.  As the online energy tool component of EI2, MyHomeEQ makes it easy for homeowners to learn about and improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, DuPage County Chairman Dan Cronin and the Chief Executives of Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will Counties convened on September 29, 2014 to announce the launch of an unprecedented regional collaboration to improve Chicagoland’s economic competitiveness through exports. The culmination of collaboration among county, city, regional and national partners, Metro Chicago Exports will expand exports by the region’s small and medium-sized businesses by engaging high-potential firms with export opportunity, and providing “concierge” services to link them to appropriate service providers and funding.  RW Ventures is a principal partner and advisor in design and implementation of the initiative.

Prepared in partnership with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program for “Global Metro Summit 2010: Delivering the Next Economy,” this policy brief formally introduces the concept of metropolitan business planning, and describes three pilot projects, in Northeast Ohio, Minneapolis-Saint Paul and the Puget Sound (Seattle) region. Offering a new “metro-economic” policy to complement national macroeconomic policy with a new “metro-economic” policy, the paper lays out the characteristics and drivers of regional economies, how they lend themselves to the discipline of business planning, and the implications for regional economic growth policy as well as a “new federalism.”

This report explores how the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s GO TO 2040 plan will influence the performance of the regional economy. The report offers a framework for understanding regional economies and evaluates the impact that implementation of CMAP’s GO TO 2040 plan will likely have through five key leverage points: innovation, business clusters, spatial efficiency, human capital and effective governance.

This concept paper, reporting on a project collaboratively developed by RW Ventures and O-H Community Partners, offers recommendations for catalyzing the emergence of a large-scale market in building energy efficiency retrofits in the Chicago area. Reflecting input from a diverse group of national experts and market stakeholders, the paper offers a preliminary look at potential market development strategies, including new information and other products and services to reduce transaction costs and enable the market to value the retrofits; institutional models and strategies for implementation; and complementary activities from the civic community and government.

This report, prepared for the Mayor’s Advisory Council on Bridging the Digital Divide, outlines a comprehensive plan for achieving universal digital excellence, as vital to the future of a global city.

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