Shakeup sought for economic agency
09:07 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 22, 2009
PROVIDENCE –– A panel reviewing the state’s economic development agency issued a blistering report Tuesday, criticizing its performance as “fragmented, disjointed and without focus.”
http://www.projo.com/news/content/BZ_EDC_REORGANIZATION_04-22-09_UTE41U3_v188.39431fc.html
My take on the subject:
I am a RI native-born who left the area after college and spent 20 years plus living outside the region and working nationally and internationally. When I came back here 20 years later, I realized just how much potential there is here. I am still waiting for the folks who I left behind when I left to see that potential.
EDC was created shortly before I came back.There have been a number of initiatives, plans, reorganizations, leaders, and development philosophies. The comments in the article are, from my perspective, soft compared to what might have been said.
I share the feelings of many natives who have returned to RI after time away, and the newcomers who see the beauty and potential of the Ocean State.
Many want to roll up their sleeves and do something.
Back in the early to mid 1990s, I was part of group -- Vision Rhode Island -- that evolved out a series of public meetings initiated by citizens and professional planners. Our goal was to stir things up and shake the power that be out of their narrow, boxed in short term thinking. We want to promote a We survived for about four years until the energy ran out. We ran into a lot of inertia and passive aggression from the powers that be.
There are some very dedicated people working at EDC but they are handicapped by the lack of leadership and consistency from the top and political interference of an incompetent legislature. All the talk about economic development turns out to be code for short term survival. (My opinion).
There is a definite need for a grass roots effort to bring change and to bring together a coalition of interests that are willing to take the long view and commit to it. Whether that is possible, I am getting to an age where I still hope but expect not in my lifetime.
The very strength of RI -- its strong sense of individualism and minimalism (39 cities and towns in what anywhere else would be an average size county) is also its greatest weakness.
