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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND JOBS
Latest economic reports indicate that Guilford County’s
unemployment rate has risen to 11.1%. A year ago we were at
10.8%. These are high numbers and indicate that Greensboro needs
to be more proactive to promote business development, expansion,
and hiring.
Prosperity follows jobs and jobs follow successful businesses. Our
city government cannot create jobs, but we can and must provide an
environment in which business can grow and prosper Therefore, we
must take advantage of our assets, adopt good practices, and do
everything possible to get the word out that Greensboro is a great
place to live, raise a family and grow a successful business.
For this reason, I propose the following steps which business
people say will encourage growth and therefore contribute to
reducing unemployment in our city
RECOGNIZE OUR ASSETS – THE THINGS THAT EMPLOYERS NEED
Greensboro is the Gate City. We have a unique location on the
eastern seaboard where highways come together with railroads and
an underutilized airport. We also have several institutions of
higher learning and an aggressive community college network all of
which are willing and able to help business with training their
employees. We have a pleasant climate and many beautiful
neighborhoods. We have a good stock of affordable housing in all
price ranges, available office, commercial, and industrial space
These are the things businesses need.
ADOPTING GOOD PRACTICES
The city must provide basic dependable and affordable services.
This includes water, sewer, and solid waste disposal services,
public safety (fire and police protection), and street
maintenance. Other standard of living type services such as parks,
recreation, and libraries should be provided as our economic
situation allows. We must constantly review our land use
restrictions, ordinances and regulations to be sure that we are
not unnecessarily interfering with the ability of businesses to
grow and prosper while still protecting the citizenry. It is
imperative that the city provide these services at the most
competitive cost to the taxpayers as possible. This means, we need
to continue to keep taxes and fees where they are (or less), and
commit to this as a city so that employers can depend on
Greensboro's environment to encourage growth.
GETTING THE WORD OUT
The city has a business development office which needs to be used
in a more productive way. We should direct our scarce monetary
assets allocated to business recruitment to this office in order
to create a first-class, long term promotional effort for
Greensboro.
A LAST WORD
Let’s
Gather
our
Assets
To
Excel.
We take pride in Greensboro, as the Gate City.
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