Study: Ohio has "knowledge jobs," but lags in new economy

The Cleveland/Akron metropolitan region shows some areas of strength as it adapts to the "new economy," but still has a long way to go to catch up with most other regions.

That is one of the conclusions to emerge from a new study measuring how well the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas are adapting to the needs of the emerging information and entrepreneurial based economy. The study, "The Metropolitan New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the Nation's Metropolitan Areas," is co-authored by the Progressive Policy Institute (based in Washington, D.C.) and the Center for Regional Economic Issues at CWRU's Weatherhead School of Management.

The study uses five categories-- knowledge jobs, globalization, economic dynamism, transformation to a digital economy, and technological innovation capacity -- to rank metro areas on the extent to which they have made the transformation to the new economy. The five categories are further subdivided into a total of 16 economic indicators.

"It is important to realize that a new economy has emerged in the last decade, one that is more information-based, more global and more dynamic," said Robert Atkinson, vice president and director of PPI's Technology and New Economy Project, and a co-author of the report.

"Beyond the rise and fall of the stock market or the success of any dot-com, this new economy is here to stay and our metropolitan areas need to understand and adjust to these new challenges. Our report shows how well our metros are doing within this new economy and explains why some are making the transformation and others are lagging behind," Atkinson added.

"Other recent reports that rank U.S. cities on their technology status focus entirely on high-tech employment or provide technology-oriented business climate information to a largely private sector audience," said Paul Gottlieb, REI's associate director of and the report's other co-author. "This is the first benchmarking report to develop a comprehensive theory of the new economy that includes not only technology jobs, but also key development factors like digital infrastructure and entrepreneurial culture."

Overall, the Cleveland/Akron metropolitan region ranks 34th, ahead of Cincinnati, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, but behind regions such as St. Louis, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Chicago. The San Francisco region scores highest on the index, while Grand Rapids, Michigan, scores the lowest.

One area of strength for northeast Ohio is "knowledge jobs" -- the percentage of the workforce employed in professional and managerial positions and the education level of the workforce -- where the region ranks 19th. In digital economy indicators -- such as percentage of adults online, percentage of children using computers in the classroom, and number of broadband providers -- the Cleveland/Akron region ranks 29th.

Along with the rankings, the report recommends a public policy framework that metros should follow to succeed in the new economy. In particular, the report argues that it's time to replace the old-economy goal of simply getting bigger with the new-economy goal of becoming more prosperous. To do this, the metropolitan areas need to shift their focus from providing businesses tax breaks and other subsides to investing in the skills of the workforce, a vibrant infrastructure for technological innovation, and suburban quality of life.

Specifically, the report advises metropolitan regions to:

• Know your region's economic function in the global economy. Metropolitan areas should carefully analyze their economy to identify and assess the competitive position of the key industry clusters in order to craft a metropolitan-wide economic strategy for the new economy.
• Create a skilled workforce. Metropolitan-area governments need to adopt policies the ensure that American companies have the skilled workers they need to be productive, while simultaneously ensuring that American workers have the skills they need to adapt and prosper in the new economy.
• Invest in infrastructure for innovation. Metropolitan areas should support research university and technology commercialization programs, encourage modern telecommunications infrastructure, and expand access to the Internet to foster technological innovation.
• Create a great quality of life. To make a region more attractive to knowledge workers, metropolitan areas should boost forward-looking amenities like outdoor recreation facilities and new urbanism, improve public safety, and reduce road congestion by among other things expanding road capacity and deploying new intelligent transportation systems.
• Foster an innovative business climate. Government should recognize and celebrate public and private innovation and support the formation of high-tech business councils to encourage networking and learning.
• Reinvent -- and digitalize -- government. Governments that succeed in the new economy will be entrepreneurial and innovative, relying heavily on information technology, performance standards, and accountability, and encouraging public and private partnerships.
• Take regional governance seriously. Metropolitan areas are now the fundamental competitive units in the new economy, and governments should form strategic visioning and managing partnerships across local government boundaries, including all the key players in a region.

The full text of the report is online at http://www.ppionline.org.

Return to the online edition of the 4-26-01 Campus News.

cwru-news@po.cwru.edu -- About this server -- Copyright 1994-2001 CWRU -- Unauthorized use prohibited