International Students and Entrepreneurship...

On Monday I rattled on so long about the cultural value that international students, faculty and business people contribute to the Kent lifestyle that I ran out of gas before I got a chance to throw in my two cents on the economic value of those foreign born folks that call Kent home.  So I’d like to return to the topic of the current wave of immigration and the rather significant role it plays in our economic recovery.

The Kent State strategic planning summit focused more on the higher morale purpose of engaging international students in education and life long learning so we didn’t really dig too deeply into the economics but as much as I like group hugs, at the end of the day we still have to pay the bills and that leads us into a more practical discussion of what’s in it for us economically?  It turns out quite a lot actually.

I didn’t necessarily know all this heading into the Kent State meeting but I figured if I’m going to speak to a room full of academics I better do my homework and that’s when I discovered what an economic engine our foreign born neighbors have turned out to be.  Let’s look at the numbers.

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1.  Economists predict that in the next decade 70% of our economic growth will come from small business entrepreneurs.

2.  The rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants living in the US is double the rate of native born entrepreneurship — 5 out of 1,000 vs. 2 out of 1,000.

3.  Economists predict that as manufacturing and labor intensive industries move off-shore the US economy will increasingly depend on high tech and scientific discovery.

4.  Immigrants represent only 10% of the total US workforce but they represent 25% of scientists and engineers, and 50% of the PhD’s in the US workforce.

5.  A reported 50% of the Silicon Valley Tech companies were founded by someone born outside of the US — by comparison 14% of Ohio companies were founded by an immigrant.

6.  The rate of patent filings from foreign born is double the rate of patents filed by native born in the US.

7.  Every year since 1980 immigrants have been more likely to be self employed entrepreneurs than native born US residents. 

8.  Since 1995 1 out of 4 US venture-backed start up company was founded by an immigrant.

9.  Researchers report that the annual economic impact that international students bring to the US each year is greater than $15 billion — they list Kent State international students as injecting $17 million to our region’s economy. 

10.  The greatest immigrant economic contributors are reported to come from Syria, Iran, Greece, Korea, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey. 

11.  Approximately 5% of the population in Northeast Ohio has advanced degrees.

12.  A reported 62% of foreign students that obtain their PhD’s here stay here to begin their business careers — 9 out of 10 Chinese doctoral students stay in the US, 8 out of 10 Indian students and 7.7 out of 10 Russian born students also stay in the US.

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With shining stars like Alpha Micron and Kent Displays in our backyard we’ve touted high tech entrepreneurship as the economic niche that is in Kent’s wheelhouse and a walk through each of these companies is like a walk through Kent State’s international student hall of fame.   These small companies are growing fast and they’re full of foreign born graduates of Kent State from all over the world that now call Kent home. 

So the formula works — grab an emerging technology, hire a bunch of smart people from around the globe, think big, start small, test your business plan, commercialize, and then scale like crazy.  That life cycle usually takes a good 10 to 15 years and we know that Kent — thanks to our close proximity to the University and the cultural mix that comes with it — is ideally suited to serve that business niche.  And if that business niche is predicted to be the centerpiece of economic recovery we’re more than happy to be help fulfill that promise. 

City Council Update on Downtown...

Last Friday I provided City Council with a short synopsis on the status of the various elements of our downtown redevelopment efforts and given all the interest that the $20 million stimulus award generated throughout the community I thought it would be good to share it as a blog post as well. 

 1. PARTA Multi Modal Project – Following the $20 million award announcement from last week, a meeting has been set up for the engineers from all the respective agencies to begin to work through the $21 million grant application to figure out what aspects of the original request need to be cut out in order to stay within the $20 million budget.   A meeting has also been set up for next month (March) for the engineers to meet with the grant administrators/engineers from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to begin to discussions on the grant terms and agreement.  PARTA reports that their real estate representatives continue to work through the federal process for the land acquisition required for this project.  Kent State has set up a web link for the grant award at http://www.kent.edu/news/announcements/success/mulitmodaltransportationcenter.cfm, the City is updating our capital projects page to include PARTA project information, and PARTA is also planning to add a web information source for the project on their web site as well.

 2.  Downtown Redevelop Blueprint – With the recent progress made on agreeing to the esplanade extension with Kent State, receiving the Multi-Modal Center grant award, finalizing of the Collective Intent Agreements with the private developers, and the completion of the Phoenix Project, we felt it was a good time to go back to the downtown redevelopment blueprint and update it accordingly.  We have met a number of the existing business owners along Main Street to discuss their plans for expansion and we have offered the services of our planning consultant to reflect those plans on the revised downtown blueprint.  As part of this effort we plan to re-convene the public stakeholders committee in the next month (March-April) to provide an update and receive feedback.  The members of the former Kent State University Citizens Advisory Transportation Committee will also be invited to the stakeholder meeting since they were active in the multi-modal project design and advocacy.  

3.  Development Agreements – I believe we will be in a position to have the Collective Intent Agreement signed in the next week so we have engaged the legal staff to prepare the Development Agreements that will serve as the legal documents for the downtown projects.  To that end we have also had a couple of meetings with the School District to begin to discuss the use of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for the project.  Our tentative target dates for the Development Agreements and TIF Agreements are the Summer of 2010.   We have advised the private developers to plan to attend the March Planning Commission meeting for a conceptual presentation of the various elements of the project.  We would expect the developers to submit their site plans for formal Planning Commission review in May 2010.  

4.  City Property in the Development Block – We are working to set a March closing date to purchase the last remaining parcels of private property from Mr. Arthur.  In addition, we have contacted Dominion Gas to begin outlining a plan to get their gas sub-station relocated out of the block.  Dan Smith has talked with the tenants of the currently rented properties in the block and advised them that we they need to begin to make preparations to find new business locations this summer so that we can proceed with our plans to initiate more building demolition perhaps as early as Fall 2010.  We are currently having the buildings evaluated for any special environmental handling in preparation for demolition.  The City and the University have drafted terms for a land exchange agreement and we have employed an appraiser to prepare the necessary land transaction documents. 

$20 Million Awarded for Downtown Kent Project...

It’s not everyday that the Federal Government hands out checks but in this new age of federal stimulus funds being used to spark the economy, the Feds knocked on Kent’s door last week, saying they were here to help, and with a pocket full of $20 million with PARTA, Kent State’s and the City’s name on it we opened the door and let’em in.  By now you’ve probably heard all the details of how Congressman Ryan’s Office and the entire Washington delegation went to bat for Kent and in this case hit the ball out of the park in Babe Ruth fashion.  It was one of those once in a hundred years legacy moments that you can tell your grandchildren you were here to see. 

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Here’s the reaction in the room when Congressman Ryan announced the Kent award:

This money will be a game changer.  All the project aspirations for downtown Kent just got catapulted forward and should now be within reach over the next 2 years.   

We knew we had a great project in the downtown multi-modal facility; we knew we met all the criteria for the funds but we also knew that the competition for Federal funds was going to be fierce.  Seriously fierce.  In Ohio alone over $550 million in funding requests were submitted and at the end of the day only $50 million was awarded in Ohio — $20 million of which was the Kent project.  For that matter only 51 projects were funded nationwide and Kent is one of them.

How did it happen?  It happened because of the power of partnerships.  When we thanked Senator Brown’s Office for their support and they said that they were happy to help but they added candidly that the Kent project didn’t need much help, it stood on its own merits — it was that good.  It happened because it linked education, research and economic development with transit and green technology and bike trials and sustainable planning all wrapped up in a public private package  that promised new jobs, new stores, and new cultural opportunities not just for Kent but for all of northeast Ohio. 

Here’s a panoramic view of all the partners:

We told the Feds that we wanted to put Kent’s assets to work not just for Kent but for all of Ohio.  Apparently they liked the sound of that as much as we did.  Here’s some great sources of information to learn more about these funds.

Federal News Announcement and List

Tiger Grant Awards

KSU Multi-Media Project Page

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For your information, previous news coverage on the downtown Kent revitalization projects:

Akron Beacon Journal:  http://www.ohio.com/news/83843837.html

Clevelan Plain Dealer:  http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/downtown_kent_ohio_rising_phoe.html

Cleveland Plain Dealer:  http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/can_kent_ohio_become_the_next.html

Akron Beacon Journal:  http://www.ohio.com/news/64701597.html

Crains Business Magazine:  http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20091102/FREE/311029963

Crains Business Magazine:  http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20091102/FREE/311029955

Record Courier Newspaper:  http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4698205

Record Courier Newspaper: http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4773843

Record Courier Newspaper:  http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4772064

Record Courier Newspaper:  http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4772141

Record Courier Newspaper:  http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4698205

A Graduate of the City Business Incubator Opens Sh...

I am pleased to report that Michelle Cobbin owner of the Christian Edwards Hair Salon has found a new home in space at the New Era Building located at 184 Currie Hall Parkway in Kent’s south end of town just north of SR 261, between Franklin Avenue and SR 43. 

 Michelle is a proud Kent business owner and now that she has opened up her new shop she is officially a graduate of the City’s Summit Street Business Incubator.

Seeing Straight...

In these tough economic times it’s more important than ever to stay on course.  Resources are too shallow and people are spread too thin to make up for lost time.  Staying on course assumes you have charted a course to follow in the first place and in the City’s case that course is our strategic plans. 

Trust me, we are not for want of strategic plans.  I’m talking file cabinets full of planning studies, visioning exercises, charrettes, vignettes, SWOT analysis, market assessments, priority lists, and action plans all in the name of strategic planning.  About a year ago I uploaded many of them on to this web site so that anyone interested could get a better handle on where the City is heading based on where we’ve been by reading through the body of planning work that this community has been engaged in for the last 20 years.  You can check the plans out by clicking here. 

Our focus over the last couple of years has been to translate those plans into a community to do list and actually get results from all the good planning work.  That’s why you see so much focus on things like new bike trails, the multi-modal project and downtown revitalization — those are things that have been on the to do list for literally 20 years which we figured was more than a long enough gestation, now it was the time to put the plans to work. 

I bring up the strategic plans because I think it’s important to understand the background behind the flurry of activity going on around the priority items these days.  We’re not out there acting in isolation — we’re busy implementing the items that this community has said are top priorities for 20 years.  

I understand that not everyone is going to read all of the source documents of the strategic plans so we’ve worked hard to distill the main issues down to critical strategic themes that we manage and measure progress towards.  For practical purposes we’ve created a strategic framework which we use to make sure we stay on track in our activities and accomplishments.  That’s the purpose of the Council Activity Reports and our Annual Strategic Report Card. 

These are good summary documents that provide a snapshot of what’s been going on at the ground level to achieve the communities goals.  It’s one thing for the staff to know how we’re doing but we think it’s just as important for members of the community to see how we’re doing which is why we’ve updated these information pieces that I’ve shared below. 

 2009 Strategic Update

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To help make it easier for everyone to have a sense of what we’re working on and what we’re trying to achieve we’ve put together a new Strategic Objectives Summary for 2010, here it is:  Click Here for the PDF or scroll down below to see page by page. 

Business Savvy...

Not for profits are often not very business like in their management – which on the one hand is understandable given the unprofitability of their missions yet on the other it’s unfortunate because when times are tough people need them more than ever yet during those times their lack of financial savvy can make them their own worst enemy.  That being said there are a couple of outstanding examples of business minded non-profits in our area that think and strategize like a business but serve unmet community needs like a non profit. 

These guys are the best I’ve seen when it comes to blending the best of the business sector with the best of the public/non profit service sector:  Coleman Professional Services and Family and Community Services.   Under the leadership of Nelson Burns and Mark Frisone these agencies have defied conventional non profit thought and redefined how not for profits serve their customers.   

I admire not just what these agencies do but how they do it.  They are a credit to the public sector and they’re living examples of why you should never underestimate the power of a non profit engine fueled by market based tactics.  As a public manager myself I have spent much of my career studying how progressive cities have learned from folks like Nelson and Mark, to reinvent themselves by applying business principles to manage communities. 

Here in Kent we have taken steps to improve our market position, think strategically, strengthen our brand, and cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit.  We have established cost and performance metrics to calculate rate of return and optimize return on investment through sound valuation and capitalization strategies.  Employees are expected to demonstrate critical thinking to manage cash flow, expand operating margins, drive productivity and inspire innovation.

As our resources have been stretched, we’ve adopted on-demand, just-in-time production concepts to service delivery.  We have improved R&D capabilities – learning how to push and scale good ideas through the pipeline – overcoming barriers to entry and sustaining a competitive advantage. 

The business model has taught Kent how to think and act like a business – but business has but one mission:  to make a profit.  The City’s mission is a bit more complicated.  Businesses choose which markets to compete in and which customers to keep – while cities serve all equally.

The business doctrine proclaims the market king and reduces performance to a bottom line – but communities are more than profit and loss statements.  Business methods are great for evaluating means to ends but offer little for determining what ends – and communities are ends, not means.  We risk knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing when we live solely by the numbers. 

Community building is not an exercise in mathematics; it’s the story of people.  Kent may have a new business attitude but it will always act with the heart of a city.  The market is great at distribution of private goods but where does that leave the public good?  In the good hands of Kent city employees.

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Here’s a good example of tracking progress towards strategic goals that the National Main Street organization requires of each of it’s affiliates, including Main Street Kent, to submit quarterly summaries of business activities. 

Main Street Kent 4th Quarter Report

The Kent Stage, A Kent Destination...

I’ve posted before about how great it is to have a traditional stage in the heart of downtown Kent.  It’s a great cultural and entertainment asset that really does separate Kent from most of the small downtowns in our area — and it’s when you have something that others don’t that gives you a great chance to be a destination.  And destinations are places where people from outside Kent bring money into our economy which is the holy grail of economic development. 

I’ve got another post based on some interesting data about how much business the Kent Stage actually helps drive in our economy.  In an act of shameless self promotion, the data came from the Kent Stage. 

Report from the Kent Stage

Economic, Cultural, and Quality of Life impact of The Kent Stage on Northeast Ohio from 2002 – 2009

The Beginning
The March 22, 2002 opening of a renovated movie theater, now called The Kent Stage, marked a revival of activity and live music in downtown Kent.  The Kent Stage has been a harbinger of success and leadership in the redevelopment of Downtown Kent.  Following the development of The Kent Stage were the West River Medical Center, West River Place, the Black Squirrel Gallery, the Phoenix Project and most recently, Acorn Alley.

Constructed as the Flannigan and Steele Theater in 1927, The Kent Stage is the only remaining downtown theater of its kind in Portage County. The building opened as a movie theater and has entertained audiences in Kent and the region for 80 plus years.

The leadership of the Western Reserve Folk Arts Association took an ailing Kent Cinema and built up a clientèle of music aficionados from literally around the world. The building has seen a renovated theater, entryway, and bar. The HVAC and electrical systems have been updated as well.

Hal Walker of Kent, Ohio was the first person to perform in what has become a landmark for live entertainment in Northeast Ohio.  Walker opened for Red House Records artist and winner of the Association For Independent Music’s award for best pop album of the year; Lucy Kaplansky.

Results:

Since it’s opening, The Kent Stage has injected over $3.1 million dollars into the local economy of Kent and surrounding communities. Area hotels, restaurants, bars and retail stores have seen their business markedly increase on evenings of concerts at The Kent Stage.

The Kent Stage provides an intimate setting to enjoy locally, nationally and internationally recognized performers in a small city in northeast Ohio. The Kent Stage now presents an average of 90 concerts per year, as well as four theatrical performances, and four film festivals/movie premieres. Additionally, The Kent Stage is the home of the internationally acclaimed Kent State Folk Festival, the Up From The River Music Festival, which features local musicians and the Kent Blues Festival.

Destination Downtown Kent:

These performances have been attracting fans from all 88 counties of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and 31 other states as well as Canada, England and Japan. 

Over 120,000 music fans have attended events at The Kent Stage.  82% of whom do not live in Kent. There are 226 you-tube videos online from The Kent Stage.  WKSU’s FolkAlley.com carries live recording of Kent Stage artists into 130 countries across the globe.  Additionally, there are hundreds of live recordings on the internet. 

Alex Bevan recorded a live CD’s at The Kent Stage and WAPS’s Just Plain Folk occasionally airs entire concerts from The Kent Stage.  Kent’s music legends, The Numbers Band celebrated their 35th Anniversary at The Kent Stage in 2005. Numerous bands and artists have had CD release parties at The Kent Stage. The Kent Stage website; www.kentstage.org averages 20,000 visitors per month.

 Other facts of note:

Don’t Worry, Be Happy...

A big part of my job is to be the official worrier for all things Kent.  I worry about crime, fires, potholes in the streets, water line breaks, snow fall, flooding, jobs – you name it and I probably worry about it.  But I figure that the right amount of worry is a good thing — it keeps you motivated to prepare, anticipate and be progressive in your thinking.  

I have to say that I’ve been worrying about the budget challenges for some time but maybe not for the reasons you might suspect.  Sure I worry about how we keep providing the services residents expect from their City but I also worry about how we keep the long view in mind because the only thing worse than coming up short in the short term is coming up short in the short and long term. 

We know that we have to change the way we do business to stay afloat in the short term but I worry about whether we are making the right changes.  My goal is to make changes that not only help us survive the short term but position us to come out stronger for the long term.  Those are tough objectives to fulfill which is why I worry so much. 

I saw a news article last week that gave me more reasons to worry.  The article gave me heartburn because as we are wrapping up our proposed 2010 City Budget we’ve been talking a lot about whether we can afford to sustain some of the program areas that have more to do with City amenities than core services.  When I say amenities I am referring to a lot of the beautification types of programs, i.e., flower beds, downtown hanging plants, landscape maintenance, etc. 

We think amenity programs are important parts of who we are as a community but at this point every program area that gets City funding has come under the knife, it’s just a matter of how deep do you cut, and amenities have been no exception.  We know that we could make some amenity cuts in the short term but the harder question to answer is what effect those amenity cuts will have in the long term. 

Usually we find ways to rationalize short term losses on the belief that it hurts to lose them but when things turn around we can restore them.  Traditionally amenity cuts have fallen into the category of short-lived impacts that are temporarily evident but in small doses  can be tolerated and brought back up to speed once things turn around.   But the article that I read seemed to suggest that amenities may actually have as much long term impact as our core services. 

In an age where more and more people can choose to work wherever they want thanks to the internet, more and more location decisions are being made based on how good a place looks.   Beautification of a city may actually be a much higher priority than ever before, and if that’s the case, that just made our budget decisions that much harder.  Great, something else to worry about.

Here’s the article:

From the December 7th edition of Spacing Montreal
Posted by Alanah Haffez

Urban economics guru Richard Florida recently set out to discover just how important physical aesthetics are when people choose a place to live, Florida insists, as well as social networking and services. But how much of our satisfaction with our neighbourhood can simply be attributed to living in a place we consider beautiful?

Apparently a lot. Florida’s team concluded that a beautiful setting is one of the most important predictors of people’s satisfaction with their community. The only stronger link identified in the study was current economic conditions. Good schools and the ability to meet people and make friends were also important indicators of community satisfaction, but not as positively correlated as residents’ perception that they lived in a beautiful place.

But isn’t beauty fleeting, changeable, and above all in the eye of the beholder?When I studied environmental science we learned that, once upon a time, mountains were considered ugly. People traveling through Europe centuries ago would draw the curtains of their carriages when they approached mountainous terrain. The mountains were uncivilised and harboured unseen threats, from bandits to wild animals. Only later were untamed landscapes romanticized (for instance in Emerson and Thoreau’s writing).

Today if you seach for beautiful Canada half the images Google turns up are of rocky, snow-capped peaks. And one photo is of Montreal’s illuminated skyline at dusk.

Through cluster analysis, Florida’s study found that people who described their community as a beautiful place also rated their neighbourhoods positively in terms of outdoor activities (like parks, playgrounds and trails) which suggests that the participants perceived naturey places as more beautiful.

But is there an innate attraction to living near nature? (Note that access to outdoor activities ranked 6th and physical beauty ranked 2nd  terms of importance). Can we build places that satisfy our desire for beauty? Or perhaps a better question would be: can we define a kind of beauty that fits our desire for urban living?

My neighbourhood (NDG around Sherbrooke street) wouldn’t exactly win any beauty contests but I love the unique, shoulder-to-shoulder triplexes, the old trees, the laundry-crossed alleyways and the eclectic, colourful store-fronts. If someone called me up to survey me about NDG’s “beauty and physical setting” I would likely give it a thumbs up.

Which makes we wonder: are Florida’s respondents rating their communities against some “objective” or culturally-created standard of beauty? Or is the correlation so high because people simply have a knack for finding beauty in the places that they love?

As more people world-wide make our homes in cities, I believe that there is a growing sense of urban aesthetics in popular culture (I recently noticed huge black-and-white prints of iron fire escapes for sale at Ikea).

Now that the majority of urbanites no longer work gruelling factory jobs nor live directly beneath smoke-stacks, even industrial landscapes have acquired a certain majesty. Red-brick factories, with their high arched windows, and greystone triplexes that were once merely functional have become coveted real estate.

Of course it isn’t just a matter of learning to appreciate what we’ve got. We can surely add beauty to the city by insisting on quality architecture, creating green spaces, preserving views (for instance of the river and mountain), planting flower

Florida’s study may not offer much advice for urban planers, but it does confirm that people’s relationship with their community is based on attraction as well as utility.

Looking for Kent Jobs...

I was reminded last week that the new 5 Guys Hamburger and Fries restaurant is aiming to get their new Kent store on E. Main Street (the old Susan’s location) opened by the end of January 2010.  I understand that’s still a soft start date but I noticed that they have put a fresh coat of paint on the building in their corporate colors (red and white) so they are clearly making progress which is great.  

The franchise owners of the Kent store own a number of successful 5 Guys stores in our region so these folks are experienced restaurant owners who know how to run the business — of course its not going to hurt that they happen to offer a great product and they are sitting at the front door of campus and its 24,000 hungry students.  I can see why they consider the Kent store such a goldmine.   

Every goldmine needs miners so I’m figuring we should shortly be seeing advertisements to hire the new staff at the Kent 5 Guys store.  I haven’t heard how many full and part time folks they’ll be hiring but we’re excited about every new job in town because jobs makes the local economy go round and a healthy economy makes it possible for the community to keep moving forward towards our goals.  

That got me thinking about jobs and despite all the doom and gloom of the economy I found that there are a fair number of jobs being advertised in Kent right now.  According to Indeed.com here’s the list of jobs open in Kent right now:

If you’re willing to have a 5 mile commute the list of available jobs grows even more:

Good luck to all the job hunters out there!

West River Neighborhood Success Story...

The West River Neighborhood Revitalization project is closing out its 18^th year.  With almost 2 decades of pushing and pulling the neighborhood forward there’s a lot to be proud of – new jobs, significant private investment, great new businesses and a traffic corridor that is increasingly pleasant to drive through.  There’s still work to be done, and the Fairchild Avenue bridge has a big part to play in that, but it seemed that the West River neighborhood had a story that needed to be told so that the lessons learned could be shared as the City wrestles with economic development challenges in other parts of the Kent community.

Here’s the staff report — (click here to download a pdf version)