By Matthew Ricchiazzi:
I hate to be that guy who points out that the Emperor has no clothes – so let’s dress up Cuomo’s photo-op style of economic development.
The objective of our regional economic development strategy should be to cultivate highly specialized industrial clusters that are bound to our region because of the structural competitive advantages that they will derive from our research infrastructure, the availability of highly specialized labor, our capacity to innovate, and our ecosystem of economic actors: leading supply chains; necessary subcontractors; relevant professionals; and an investment community that is risk tolerant within its genre of expertise.
Creating that economic ecosystem of industrial clusters that are bound to our region — like the tech industry is bound to Silicon Valley, pharmaceuticals are bound to Boston, and film is bound to Los Angeles – requires a long process of cultivation, and cannot be built overnight by landing a single lighting manufacturer or single solar components company.
I’m not going to oppose Cuomo’s unfocused, albeit ambitious, effort to build a manufacturing park at Riverbend in South Buffalo. We certainly need the jobs, and if Albany is willing to subsidize the construction of a manufacturing firm’s property, plant, and equipment – then let’s do it.
But let’s not mistake that effort for a comprehensive, strategic, deliberate, forward thinking, sustainable economic development strategy. It is not. It will not give us a sustained structural competitive advantage in either industry. And as long as we indulge our politicians and ourselves in this photo-op-driven style of economic development, we will continue to squander the next generation’s future in this city.
We continue to behave like rats scrambling for the crumbs that fall from the political table in Albany, rather than dictating the course of our own future with long term decision making, deliberate planning, and a sophisticated, well calibrated effort. There is much more that can be done to accelerate the cultivation of these industrial clusters:
And, to be fair I should say, that the State is attempting to do some of these things in a half-hearted, uninspired, and pedestrian sort of way. What we are missing now is the type of leadership that can effectively task the wild and unruly machinations of our development apparatus, mobilizing them to execute on segments of a larger regional strategy.
After years of grassroots discontent and academic critique — we are coming to the consensus that we should evolve our economic policy beyond firm specific subsidies and property tax abatements. We need to reform, retool, and retask all of our region’s industrial development agencies with clear and focused objectives.
I would be particularly impressed if Governor Cuomo would come to town and would begin directing each IDA to focus on the cultivation of a particular industry, and to manage the execution of that single strategy. These are just some of the industries that they should be tasked with cultivating — and there are many others:
Matthew Ricchiazzi holds an MBA in Finance and Private Equity, and a BS in Urban Planning, both from Cornell University. He founded Change Buffalo PAC to promote issues of new urbanism in Western New York. He can be reached at changebuffalo.org.