The New Republic

For three years now the Mountain Monitor—Brookings Mountain West’s Mountain Zone variant of Brookings’ MetroMonitor—has been tracking the region’s protracted, in-most-places anemic, economic recovery. Quarter-to-quarter, the Monitor has reported on a slow healing of the region’s metropolitan economies that has differed starkly from the region’s past boom-bust cycles. READ MORE >>

States and localities have long regarded corporate tax incentives as handy tools for economic development. Experts, meanwhile, have equally long found occasion for criticism in their implementation.   Now, steadily accumulating evidence suggests that states are getting smarter in their design of incentive packages and that the practice is changing, gradually, for the better. READ MORE >>

Two of the country’s best-known urban thinkers have a discussion underway at Atlantic Cities and New Geography about changes in the urban hierarchy brought along by globalization. It paints a picture of globalization as a zero-sum game in which one city’s growth comes at the expense—at least relatively—of another’s. They suggest that peaks—concentrated centers of population and prosper READ MORE >>

The G.O.P. primary struggle is finally beginning to wind down (though nobody seems to have told the candidates!) and predictably the commentariat is moving on toward big-picture macro predictions about the national election. READ MORE >>

Out of the recessionary rubble the “German model” stands tall in economic and policy circles for its resiliency and productivity. The Eurozone may be cracking but the German export machine keeps turning out world-beating manufactured goods with characteristic efficiency. READ MORE >>

The media didn’t take notice. President Obama didn’t mention it in his State of the Union. Nor did he emphasize it on his post-address swing-state tour stop in Nevada. But the outlook for job creation in some of the country’s hardest hit metropolitan areas turned sunnier earlier this month when President Obama issued an executive order that contained several shrewd and long-overdue measures to promote travel and tourism in the United States.   READ MORE >>

It was good to hear strong shout-outs for clean and renewable energy sourcing as part of the balanced energy stance promoted in President Obama’s State of the Union speech this week.   We’ve long agreed that the “all of the above” energy approach Obama championed last night could be desirable so long as it is just that--oriented to the balanced development of all sources including American renewable and clean energy as well as fossil fuel resources. READ MORE >>

Here at the Metro Program we have long advocated a “bottom-up” approach to economic development.  READ MORE >>

High technology and advanced manufacturing centers are recovering strongly from the recession, reports Brookings’ latest quarterly Metro Monitor regional economic tracker, and the landscape of the Intermountain West reflects the trend perfectly.  READ MORE >>

Yesterday the U.S. Economic Development Administration announced the winners of its i6 Green Challenge grant, awarding $12 million to six regions to accelerate clean technology commercialization.   Of particular note is an energy efficiency gambit being developed in the Puget Sound region. READ MORE >>