The Market Street Report

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Seeking Integration – an Economic Development Imperative

By Jonathan Miller, Project Associate. The Wall Street Journal ran an article on January 31st (“Segregation Hits Historic Low”) that addressed a pattern of increasing black-white integration in American cities since 1970. Using a common measure called the dissimilarity index, the authors measured how evenly or unevenly dispersed African Americans and whites were distributed in a given city. The index measures the percentage of one group (e.g. African Americans) that would need to move... Read More

Posted by jmiller@marketstreetservices.com at 8:00 AM

Research and Analysis Integration

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Cost of Taking a Bite out of Crime

By Kathy Young, Director of Operations. Last month my colleague Matt Tarleton and I attended a lunch and learn event sponsored by our partners at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) and hosted by one of our clients, the Cobb Chamber of Commerce . Over the course of an hour or so, we – along with a diverse group of chamber leaders from throughout Georgia – were brought up to speed on criminal justice reform at the state level. Specifically, the guest speakers focused... Read More

Posted by KYoung@marketstreetservices.com at 4:36 PM

Crime

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Video Game Industry to Piracy: You’re a Threat?

By Evan D. Robertson, Project Associate. These last two decades have been somewhat of a conundrum for the media sector. Music publishing (read: the entire music industry), the movie business, and print media have been faced with two trends which completely undermine their value proposition: piracy and digital media. To combat piracy, the media industry has turned to the federal court system to prosecute individuals who have stolen the industry’s intellectual property and... Read More

Posted by erobertson@marketstreetservices.com at 7:41 AM | 0 comments

Technology Tourism

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Triumphant Cities

By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects. I’m about halfway through economist and Harvard professor Edward Glaeser’s new, much-buzzed-about book, Triumph of the City . Glaeser’s theory is essentially that the highest and best value cities provide is the proximity among people to enable them to communicate, innovate, create, and recreate. Entrepreneurial dynamism, competition, business “churn,” and a population chock-a-block with bright, talented, educated people is the magic stew for... Read More

Posted by apearlstein@marketstreetservices.com at 10:55 AM

Commentary Innovation Small business and entrepreneurship Urban development

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Remembering Dr. King through Service

By Ranada Robinson, Senior Project Associate. Yesterday, I celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day through a day of service along with thousands of others across the country. In Atlanta alone, over 2,500 volunteers signed up to work on projects coordinated by Hands on Atlanta , resulting in probably 10,000 hours of service in one day. How amazing collective action can be! My sorority chapter collaborated with four projects yesterday—two were in conjunction with Hands on Atlanta. Some... Read More

Posted by rrobinson@marketstreetservices.com at 10:04 AM

Commentary Philanthropy and volunteering

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Good things in Georgia

By Christa Tinsley Spaht, Project Manager We’re constantly digging through best practices and successful programs to see what communities, regions, and states are doing effectively to drive a competitive workforce, business environment, and quality of life. Sometimes I get so caught up in keeping track of what is going on across the nation and world in community and economic development that I miss the exciting things—large and small—happening in my own backyard. While... Read More

Posted by cspaht@marketstreetservices.com at 4:58 PM

Co-work space Incubators Strategies Sustainable Development Workforce development

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Tactical Urbanism

By: Evan D. Robertson, Project Associate. Let’s face it, our urban spaces are plagued by lifeless streets with a dearth of entertainment, shopping, public space, or any sort of potential for activity. Since the dawn of suburbanization, urban America has suffered from wholesale disinvestment and planning that was too auto-centric. Atlanta is a prime example of planning centered on the automobile. While the city has excellent urban environs, they exist only in nodes. This is to say that if... Read More

Posted by erobertson@marketstreetservices.com at 1:48 PM

Downtown and neighborhood development Quality of Life Urban development

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

New Year’s Thoughts

By Matt Tarleton, Project Manager. Ahhh, the New Year. Can you feel the optimism? According to a recent AP poll, 62 percent of Americans are optimistic about what 2012 will bring for the country, while 78 percent are optimistic about what the New Year will bring for their family. However, only 36 percent believe that their household’s financial situation will improve in the year to come. That pretty much sums up the current state of economic recovery; no expectation for improvement in... Read More

Posted by mtarleton@marketstreetservices.com at 8:08 AM

Commentary

Friday, December 30, 2011

2011

By J. Mac Holladay, Market Street founder and CEO. Well, it is over. What a ride it was. There is one word that typifies the economy – uncertainty. As Thomas Freidman predicted in February of 2009, this recession would be like none other we have ever experienced. While many parts of the country, including the South, are still struggling with high unemployment and lower per capita incomes, there are few signs of progress ahead. Perhaps the most notable is the rise of the Consumer... Read More

Posted by mholladay@marketstreetservices.com at 1:27 PM

Commentary

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Social Entrepreneurship as Economic Development

By Evan D. Robertson, Project Associate. The holidays can be a very stressful time for everyone involved. Anxious moments are usually centered around: what presents to get your loved one(s), fighting for said presents in the huge Black Friday crowd (apparently it is socially acceptable to throw an elbow or two), travel arrangements and resulting debacles, festivity planning, and, my most dreaded, how much do I give the Salvation Army Santa? Do I give more than once if I am making multiple... Read More

Posted by erobertson@marketstreetservices.com at 7:56 AM

Innovation Philanthropy and volunteering Small business and entrepreneurship

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Parable of Detroit

By Alex Pearlstein, Director of Projects. Like the now-iconic Chrysler ad that coined the “Imported from Detroit” tagline and celebrates the gritty yet determined spirit of Detroit, there is often more to the city’s rebirth than meets the eye. In the case of the Chrysler 300 ad, a few publications were quick to point out that the car is actually assembled in Canada . The irony of an ad famous for triumphing Detroit’s bootstrapped promise being more fantasy than reality should not be lost... Read More

Posted by apearlstein@marketstreetservices.com at 4:19 PM

Urban development

Monday, December 12, 2011

Legally Beneficial

By Jonathan Miller, Project Associate. In a November 12 opinion piece in the New York Times, William Deresiewicz, argues that my generation, the “Millenials” (a term that resonates very little with me) are “polite, pleasant, moderate, earnest, friendly,” unlike generations such as the beatniks, punks, and “slackers of the late ’80s and early ’90s.” While I believe there were, in all likelihood, pleasant beatniks and friendly slackers, Mr. Deresiewicz says that such an attitude has made my... Read More

Posted by jmiller@marketstreetservices.com at 3:05 PM

Small business and entrepreneurship Corporations

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Migrate to this Website for some Thursday Afternoon Procrastination

By Ellen Cutter, Director of Research. Last month, Forbes rolled out an interactive map allowing users to visualize in-bound and out-bound migration patterns for every county in the United States over the last five years. The data powering the map are from the IRS, which uses tax filer zip codes and the number of exemptions to approximate migration and migrant income between counties. And, let me say this: it is awesome! Of course, I have spent the last half hour (ok…maybe even a... Read More

Posted by ecutter@marketstreetservices.com at 4:05 PM

Migration

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Lessons in Economic Development During my Vacation

By Ranada Robinson, Senior Project Associate. For my birthday, I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with my mom and three dear friends for a week of relaxation and adventure. Not too long after I got there, however, I experienced firsthand what we see in many surveys and hear in many focus groups about why it’s important to feel welcome in a community. In the first restaurant we tried after arriving, our waiter ignored us. Luckily, we were with a tour guide, who wasn’t a black woman... Read More

Posted by rrobinson@marketstreetservices.com at 11:49 AM

Diversity Tourism

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Market Street CEO J. Mac Holladay receives Legacy of Leadership Award from Leadership South Carolina

By Kathy Young, Director of Operations, on behalf of the Market Street staff. Last Thursday, as our staff returned from trips to client communities, held project meetings, and put the final touches on research deliverables and strategies for our Steering Committees, Mac Holladay, our CEO, was on the road, like he is much of the time. However, this trip was a little different in that Mac did not bring any reports or make any presentations about the state of the economy or the... Read More

Posted by KYoung@marketstreetservices.com at 2:55 PM

Leadership

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Live It and Give It: Social Capital

By Ellen Cutter, Director of Research. I recently moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana for my husband’s job, and I’ve been truly taken with how easy it has been to meet friends and get involved. Neighbors stopped in with food to introduce themselves when we moved in, others often take up the invitation to sit on the porch with a beer. As we all know, not every place is this way. The notion of being an “open” community is an important concept in today’s economic development landscape in... Read More

Posted by ecutter@marketstreetservices.com at 1:52 PM

Quality of Life Social Capital

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Boomerang and Birmingham

By J. Mac Holladay, PCED, CCE; CEO Last week I had just finished reading Michael Lewis’s new book, Boomerang . Lewis, as always, has written a profound and clear book recounting on how Iceland, Ireland and Greece collapsed as meaningful economies. He then drills down on Vallejo, California, our first city to declare bankruptcy. Each of these places displays an arrogance, an outlook , and actions that can only be described as stupidity flamed by incredible greed in the public and... Read More

Posted by mholladay@marketstreetservices.com at 12:56 PM

Leadership

Thursday, November 10, 2011

November: Homage to the Entrepreneur

By Jonathan Miller, Project Associate. As many of you know, November is National Novel Writing Month, International Drum Month, and National Pomegranate Month. While the run on pomegranates is inevitably in full swing, another month-long commemoration threatens to take November prominence. On November 1, 2011, President Barack Obama officially declared “by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, [I] do hereby proclaim November 2011 as... Read More

Posted by jmiller@marketstreetservices.com at 1:26 PM

Small business and entrepreneurship

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Taste the Difference: The Madison Region

By Christa Tinsley Spaht, Project Manager. With globalization, immigration, footloose talent, and short-lived food trends getting way too much hype in the national press, it seems that as our food options diversify, the “specialness” and uniqueness of distinct food cultures gets diluted. When I was in New York City earlier this year, just about every menu we tried offered some take on Southern fried chicken and grits. (I still get irritated when my friends in New York call... Read More

Posted by cspaht@marketstreetservices.com at 5:29 PM

Client communities Food Incubators Quality of Life

Friday, November 04, 2011

Why Economic Development?

By Stephanie Allen, Project Assistant. Those of you who read this blog regularly, may have noticed that I tend sometimes to wax philosophical. Today is one of those days. I’ve been thinking about why it is we do economic development. You may remember the hoopla this spring surrounding an episode of the popular NPR show This American Life called “ How to Create a Job ”. The episode questioned the value of economic development as a profession, suggesting that economic development... Read More

Posted by sallen@marketstreetservices.com at 8:35 AM

Commentary

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Sweet tea, please. Hold the Silicon.

By Matthew Tester, Project Associate. Start-ups of the American South have been getting some good coverage the past couple weeks as The Atlantic’s special report series, Start-Up Nation , has taken a meandering tour from Virginia to Louisiana in search of “the next Silicon Valley.” The remarkable communities and businesses along the way (shout-outs to client communities Richmond and Charlotte!) proved that you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley or Research Triangle Park to compete in the... Read More

Posted by mtester@marketstreetservices.com at 5:02 PM

Small business and entrepreneurship

Friday, October 28, 2011

Waste Space to Public Space

By Matt Tarleton, Project Manager. This past weekend I traveled to New York City to visit friends and family. It was a wonderful trip. While I can’t quite picture myself living there, it is such an incredible place to explore, especially for someone that is interested in cities and food (that’s me). There are countless lessons to be learned in every borough and corner of the city and the larger metropolitan area. I wish I had more time to explore the transformation happening at ... Read More

Posted by mtarleton@marketstreetservices.com at 8:21 AM

Arts Parks and greenspace Quality of Life Sustainable Development Urban development

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Sensory Overload: Or, How to Get a Geek to Run

By Evan D. Robertson, Project Associate. It’s 8:07. I am standing on a cold, dark street with a street lamp flickering on and off at irregular intervals. The pavement beneath is soaking wet from a thunderstorm that just passed, another is on its way. On my way home I checked Doppler radar on an app and realized that I could fit in a twenty minute run before the next thunderstorm hit. Normally, I wouldn’t be so daring, however, my watch tells me that I am 1.83 miles behind my goal of 30... Read More

Posted by erobertson@marketstreetservices.com at 4:36 PM

Technology Fitness