Nov 30, 2018
Building a strong economy and attracting businesses to locate or expand in southeast Michigan requires a regional approach. The foundation of any successful regional approach is leadership. While many leaders offer lip service to the concept of regional economic development, it takes more than words to deliver on the promise of regional collaboration.
“For regional economic development to work, you have to adhere to the notion that what happens in my neighbor’s backyard affects my backyard and vice versa,” says Khalil Rahal, an assistant county executive and the Executive Director for Economic Development for Wayne County. “As a region, approaching business attraction as a zero-sum game between communities is a losing proposition. We’re better off packaging our assets.”
There are many benefits of regional collaboration. It provides a unified approach that can simplify the process for businesses seeking to expand in the region. It is also more efficient, helping to deter neighboring communities from competing against one another and avoiding duplication of services. By pooling their financial resources, regional stakeholders get a much bigger bang for their buck – and present a much clearer and comprehensive value proposition to prospective investors or employers.
The Disney Difference – How One Employer Affects a Region
Most important is the fact that economic development projects benefit entire regions, not just a single municipality. Take Disney World as an example. Located in Bay Lake, Florida, Disney World attracts 52 million visitors every year. It is the largest single-site employer in the country, with 74,000 cast members and an annual payroll of $1.2 billion. Clearly, Bay Lake is not the only beneficiary of Disney World being in that community. The Orlando metropolitan area, and arguably the entire state of Florida, reaps the economic benefits from Disney World’s success.
Not all examples are as expansive as Disney World, but the underlying principle is the same. “Businesses are largely agnostic when it comes to where within a specific region they locate,” explains Rob Luce, Executive Director of the Detroit Region Aerotropolis Development Corporation. “Rather, they consider regional factors like talent availability, wages, and proximity to customers.”
Michigan’s Regional Economic Development
Regional economic development is not new to Michigan. In fact, there are several regional economic development organizations across the state, including Ann Arbor SPARK, the Detroit Regional Chamber, Saginaw Future, Southwest Michigan First, and The Right Place. The Detroit Aerotropolis, though much smaller in scale, is also a regional economic development organization representing four communities and two counties around Detroit Metropolitan and Willow Run Airports.
Achieving true regional collaboration requires communication and trust among leaders at all levels of government. One of the obstacles to collaboration is the need for leaders to maintain control over what is happening in their community. In order for regional economic development to work, leaders must balance their responsibilities to their constituents with a broader focus on shared goals for the greater good. They also need to have a long-term vision that can weather the short-term setbacks.
“Leaders need to come together and have a willingness to talk about what is best for the region,” explains Gregory Dill, Washtenaw County Administrator. “That is the only way to get things done.”
The Detroit Region Aerotropolis – A Strong Region Ready for Growth
Fortunately, the Aerotropolis region is comprised of strong leaders from local municipalities, as well as Wayne and Washtenaw counties. Due to their leadership, the Aerotropolis Development Corporation has helped close $422 million in corporate expansion projects since the start of 2017. With a pipeline full of promising projects, this number will increase in the coming months.
“We want to create an environment that is flexible and inviting for our global partners,” says Dill. “We are building a region that crosses boundaries, does away with the traditional red tape, and provides infrastructure and properties that are ready to be built on.”
Both Rahal and Dill agree that a robust public transit system is necessary to grow and connect the region. The lack of public transit was cited as one of the reasons Detroit did not make the top 20 contenders for the recent Amazon headquarters bid.
“We are light years behind other regions in terms of public transit,” says Rahal. “For every $1 you invest in public transit, you get $4 back into the local economy. It is widely accepted that public transit is one of those things that benefits the entire region.”
The next wave of the future will be to connect Wayne and Washtenaw counties. “The I-94 corridor is a two-county region. The more we can operate like a region, the better it will be for businesses,” says Dill. “We are talking about mass transit and other needs in Wayne and Washtenaw counties and hopefully that will generate momentum. We want to show that leaders can come together to solve these issues.”
