Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook - Flipbook - Page 66
Create a Culture of New Ideas and Innovation
Community culture can foster fresh ideas and promote innovation in business and cultural practices that result in new projects
and business activity. Many communities’ success depends on a culture that fosters grassroots energy and a startup-style
culture that supports creative business activity, celebrations of local history and identity, and the arrival of newcomers with
new ideas and capabilities. By cultivating and empowering diverse stakeholders and new voices, resilient communities invite
innovation for economic development activities, investment, and service delivery. Instead of prescribing economic activity,
these communities provide resources, support and assistance, and a level playing field for innovative community and business
ideas.
The State of California supports this culture of
new ideas in a number of ways. California provides
grant resources for entrepreneurs through the
Social Entrepreneurs for Economic Development
(SEED) Initiative, which supports entrepreneurship
within the immigrant and limited English-speaking
communities.79 The Ofice of the Small Business
Advocate within GO-Biz has also developed a
regional entrepreneurship accelerator program
to help support emerging businesses while
encouraging regions to build upon existing
support infrastructure. The program aims to
help “technology and science-based firms in
underserved regions and communities, including
women and people of color."80
The City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, supported
creation of an urban innovation district that sought
to partner with community-based organizations
Empowering diverse communities and new voices lays
serving underrepresented groups in the city.81
the groundwork for innovation.
The district plan targets diversity and inclusion,
a challenge facing the region given historic
disinvestment in minority groups and exclusion of these groups from economic opportunity in the city. The innovation district
is built around the region’s utility and an “innovation center” that supports business services, coworking, private ofices, and
community programming. (Development in the district-built environment incorporated digital inclusion projects and broadband
access.) District partners and community intermediaries tracked women- and minority-owned businesses as part of ongoing
evaluation metrics, and business ownership among these groups improved following the district development.
Economic Development Takeaway
By cultivating and empowering diverse stakeholders and new voices,
resilient communities invite innovation for economic development activities,
investment, and service delivery.
79
https://www.grants.ca.gov/grants/social-entrepreneurs-for-economic-development-seed-grant-2-0/
https://calosba.ca.gov/calosba-releases-request-for-proposals-to-designate-10-inclusive-innovation-hubs/
81
Storring, Nate, and Charlotte Benz, “Opportunities for Transformative Placemaking: Chattanooga Innovation District, Tennessee,” Project for Public Spaces,
November 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018.11_Bass-Center_Chattanooga_case-study.pdf
80
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CALED | Economic Development Recovery and Resiliency Playbook
