ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
With a foundation built on public-private collaboration, the Partnership is ideally suited to host discussions on economic development policies, and identifying collective responses that would allow the region to make its own development decisions.

This is particularly important activity for the Partnership as the economy is engaged in a massive shift from an industrial base to an economy founded on information and knowledge.  The Arc of Innovation’s growing economic strength directly results from this shift to an information based marketplace, where knowledge embodied by people has become the new raw material and a key source of competitive advantage. 

As epitomized by the region’s range of successful employers, this new economy is characterized not by a focus on a particular industry, but instead by an emphasis on innovation within technologies, practices, and approaches.  With this new emphasis came the rise of the network as the predominant organizational approach.  Networking represents a radical rethinking of the nature and functioning of an enterprise and the relationship among organizations.  Networks enable small firms to overcome the advantages of larger firms such as economies of scale and access capital.  At the same time, large firms benefit from smaller firms in terms of outsourcing, joint venture partnerships and strategic alliances that put the firm in touch with markets it may otherwise miss.  As a result, the very diversity of the Arc of Innovation’s top employers provides them with a strategic tool and resource that also greatly benefits smaller regional companies and the economy. 

This emphasis by the business community on using networks to build collective strengths parallels the Partnership’s aim to bring constituencies together to develop collaborative responses to regional challenges and development.  Economic development strategies must recognize these new sources of competitive advantage in today’s new economy.  Just as industry used to settle in places where the raw material of the industrial age was located, firms in the new economy must locate in regions where knowledge workers choose to live. 

Thus, for the Arc of Innovation to continue prospering in the new economy, it must diversify its approach to economic development by complementing incentive programs with broader, long-term strategies that foster growth and address constraints such as transportation, water resources, workforce development, permitting, housing, and the legislative and regulatory environment.