The “Implementing Regionalism” project, supported by the Surdna Foundation, begins to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of regional economic development through a comprehensive review of existing research and expert input across five key areas of regional economies: deployment of human capital, economic clusters, innovation and entrepreneurship, spatial efficiency and the institutional environment. The paper draws preliminary conclusions that both suggest initial lessons for practice, and identify key areas where further applied research and product development would be most productive in order to further advance the practice of economic development.

This short slide deck was created in response to a presentation by Joe Cortright at CEOs for Cities Fall 2011 Meeting concerning metrics of city vitality. Highlighting the importance of determining the right information resources for the particular purpose, the presentation compares the City Vitals framework with the Metropolitan Business Planning framework, and recommends factors of the regional economy for practitioners to think about.

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.

This presentation, delivered by Bob Weissbourd to the Economic Development Foundations Working Group of Cook County, provides an overview of how the different pieces of the economy fit together and how to understand them in the regional context. The bulk of the presentation specifically examines the Chicago region’s economy and suggests ways in which Cook County might support economic development through actions in its own businesses, in its economic development programming and through new initiatives and partnerships.

The Metropolitan Business Planning initiative, co-developed by The Brookings Institution and RW Ventures, continues to generate great interest at the local, state and federal levels. Bob Weissbourd has been presenting the concept and framework to audiences of public policy decision makers, as well as non-profit, civic and private-sector leaders both in the U.S. and abroad. Among the more recent presentations are the two below, prepared for the London School of Economics’ City Reformers Group Workshop and the Brookings-hosted event, “Metropolitan Business Plans: A New Approach to Economic Growth.”

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 speech and accompanying PowerPoint were delivered by Bob Weissbourd as part of the Portland Plan — Inspiring Community Series. The speech begins to tie together the various pieces of economic development — from neighborhoods to regions, equity to prosperity, human capital to clusters — into a comprehensive, integrated, practical approach to metropolitan economic growth.

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 paper, published in the Williams Review, presents selected results from the first phase of the Dynamic Neighborhood Taxonomy Project. In particular, the paper investigates two key questions relating to the dynamics of neighborhood change: the extent to which change in housing prices at the neighborhood level is driven by change in the region, and the extent to which neighborhoods tend to converge over time.

This speech was delivered by Robert Weissbourd as part of a plenary session on Innovation at the 2007 UMI Forum.  The speech addresses the barriers and opportunities for innovation in the economic development field.

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