Regional Innovation Clusters Begin to Add Up

One frequent criticism of the Obama administration’s welcome conviction on economic regionalism–epitomized by its programs to stimulate regional industry clusters with small matching grants usually in the $1 million to $2 million range–is that it remains small bore.

It’s true that the enormity of the nation’s economic problems calls for large-scale interventions that transcend the marginal. After all, as we at the Metro Program keep stressing, the nation has a lot of work to do to reorient a drifting U.S. economy beyond consumption and more toward innovation, production, and exports. So no wonder we and others have hankered for more heft in Washington’s economic responses. Surely, for that matter, the desire for more weighty action explains part of the interest that has been generated by the administration’s $1 billion proposal (talked up in the State of the Union address) to create a network of 15 institutes for manufacturing innovation around the nation.

The inescapable conclusion: Proliferating under the radar, the Obama administration’s "small bore" regional initiatives in economic development are beginning to add up to something meaningful.

Mark Muro

Full Story: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/02/27-regional-innovation-clusters-muro?rssid=LatestFromBrookings&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrookingsRSS%2Ftopfeeds%2FLatestFromBrookings+%28Latest+From+Brookings%29

(Many thanks to Rod Brown and John Dean for sharing this.)