Regional Economic Development

Boomers exceed the next generation of workers by about 10 million and more than half of the new generation are techno-peasants who lack the education and skills needed to step into the positions being vacated.

Portland — a city where T-shirts on college campuses are more likely to sport Firefox than Che — is now seeing venture capitalists descending upon it, proof that all the heavyweight open-source talent here may indeed power the local economy.

While bringing new employers to the region will be a goal – such as it did with Iowa-based Pella Corp. – TREO’s plan this year revolves more around "blocking and tackling" for companies already operating in the region, Snell said.

The "Growth Without Growth" paper provides substantial evidence indicating that ratcheting populations jack up costs of cops, schools, road maintenance and on and on.

The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. may be a great opportunity for companies to further their business development in Canada.

The WIRED initiative will fund eight-to-ten sites where universities, companies, government, and workforce and economic development organizations partner to transform and rebuild their regional economy. Applications are due by January 5, 2006.

The hard-fought ballot initiative allows the state to keep an expected $3.7 billion in taxes it normally would have refunded to voters in the next five years. Supporters said the initiative "tweaks" the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), allowing the state to recover from a devastating economic slump and re-invest in its infrastructure and schools.

In addition to Boise, Karlgaard’s travels took him to places like Green Bay, Wis., Bozeman, Mont., and Lake Placid, New York, where he interviewed white-collar professionals who have left "the rat race" behind for locations where they assign "equal value to their quality of life as to the size of their paychecks."

"Google’s support will strengthen the leadership role of our universities in fostering the next generation of open source technologies, projects and experts in Oregon and enhance our aggressive efforts to bring jobs and investment to Oregon’s burgeoning open technology cluster."

Go to http://www.sba.gov/region8/index.html