A sum of all parts
This is a tale of many cities. At once it is called a renaissance city, a Florentine Festival, filled with the visual and performing arts, a city in which rivers were moved to make way for a water park that visitors and residents alike see as central to the so-called renaissance. It is a city with new hotels, a glittering new mall.
This is also a city where within a few blocks of the so-called renaissance are empty storefronts and decaying historic buildings desperately needing attention.
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And there is the city of the neighborhoods and its residents, struggling to see where they might fit into the renaissance, where their job, training, educational and housing opportunities are less than satisfactory.
Then, there’s the city of corruption – Plunderdome as it is sometimes referred to now. Four officials indicted, all the way up to the city tax collector. How far does it go? Rumors abound. Nasty rumors abound.
And it seems each of these levels operates oblivious to the others, believing that the parts are more important than the whole. Ignore the allegations of corruption, neighborhood neglect, and weather-beaten downtown, and celebrate a renaissance.
Will Providence still be a renaissance city? We think so. The business community is well invested into this renaissance, emotionally and financially and has assumed much of the leadership role.
The renaissance will continue, in spite of what may happen with Plunderdome. We only hope that it is a renaissance that now spreads throughout the city, providing revitalization for other parts of downtown, and opportunities for the city’s neighborhoods and its residents.
New economy
They call it the new economy, a knowledge-based economy grounded on a technological revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since the industrial revolution.
And we are told by our chief politicians and economists that Rhode Island is part of that new economy, with a blossoming software industry, new laws that are luring financial services institutions to our state, and poised to participate in a regional economic awakening where all of the New England states benefit from one another, working cooperatively.
But wait a minute.
This latest CorpTech survey says we’re near the bottom of the country in the number of new economy computer technology related jobs that we can expect to gain over the next year. CorpTech surveys emerging technology firms with less than 1,000 employees in the 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
Rhode Island, with a projected 2.9 percent job growth finished ahead of only Alaska, North Dakota and West Virginia.
And while we trumpet the value of a regional economy, we’re on an advertising kick to lure businesses away from Massachusetts, certainly endearing ourselves to the gurus in Massachusetts who we hope will cooperate in this regional economy.
And in financial services, only Citizens Bank – the one that’s owned by a Scottish company – calls Rhode Island its home, among the larger banks. Gone is Fleet and Hospital Trust, and on the horizon is Sovereign, which is clear that its New England home will be in Massachusetts.
We have ridden the coattails of a national recovery that has made it appear that our economy is moving along swimmingly. We have done some things in the legislature and tried to change a negative business climate here, but we haven’t done enough.
With autumn upon us we are not far from our next legislative session. With it comes the continued projections of an economic slowdown, sparked in part by fears of another increase in interest rates by the fed, a weakened dollar, and a U.S. trade balance that keeps getting further out of balance.
While we have put some piecemeal legislation together to attract and promote new and expanded business, we haven’t done enough to set ourselves apart, to give us some unique advantage. We need bold and innovative steps.
We need to understand from the companies that have left, or that chose not to come to Rhode Island, why. What was it that made the Ocean State less attractive? Then we need to develop legislative initiatives to address the objections.
This is not just a matter of making the fat cats in the corporate towers happy. It is a matter of creating jobs. We are among the very few states that have yet to recover all the jobs lost in the last recession.
If we wait much longer to take bold action to help create jobs, we may never recover those that were lost.
