The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 started a national conversation about levees. Suddenly, a lot of people who couldn't tell the difference between a levee and a highway berm wanted to know if these manmade barriers were high enough and strong enough to withstand the next big wave from Mother Nature. While most of the attention focused on the plight of New Orleans, levees along the flood-pr ...

Today, an article out of Arizona caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, I don't often come across economic development news stories that highlight the great plans and ideas of Native Americans. Secondly, when I do come across such news, it usually details the construction of a casino on an American Indian reservation. That's why this article about the Hopi tribe's ambitious and inspiring develo ...

Earth Day has everyone thinking "green" this week, so we thought this would be the perfect time to talk about a coal mine in Wales. No, we're not going to dig up the tired old "canary in a coal mine" analogy to underline the dire environmental condition of our planet. In this case, the coal mine is the canary, and it's singing a happy tune. The last active deep coal mine in Wales shut down recently. This ma ...

With the familiar dread of my 5pm drive home on the New Jersey Garden State Parkway hovering, I have decided to blog about the state of U.S. highway infrastructure. A gloomy topic on a sunny day. Yesterday, I received Walker Industrial's spring newsletter called "Outlook," which provides a brief, but potent picture of the traffic and roadway problems facing the nation right now. With so many relocating and ...

It was about this time last year that I blogged about Minnesota's economic development golden child—JOBZ—which was on the legislative chopping block last year--largely criticized for the wage requirement attached to tax incentives offered. The JOBZ program, which was implemented in 2004 and offers tax breaks to businesses in designated zones, survived another year. However, after a not-so-great run in 2007, ...

Do you have a tough time deciding whether to order that side of fries with lunch or put those nickels aside in case gas prices rise before your evening commute? Well, if your name was Rex Tillerson, you'd have a much wider range of choices. Rex is the chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., now the largest U.S. company based on its market capitalization of $479 billion. If Exxon Mobil were a country, it woul ...

The biggest status symbol in China isn't a Mercedes, it's a roomy, six-passenger Buick. That's right, General Motors' venerable sedan is the most sought-after vehicle for the rising middle class in the world's most populous nation. If Detroit's downtrodden automakers have their way, this will not prove to be a fluke - say, like the French having a peculiar fondness for old Jerry Lewis movies - but rather wi ...

With the U.S. economy on life support -- in the form of regular transfusions of cash from the FED -- and jobs disappearing in epidemic proportions, this may seem an odd time to talk about a red-hot employment sector. Well, it appears that there is one type of worker who is in short supply in almost every major enterprise in America: highly educated people with superior technical skills. You know the type we ...

The word recession has been emblazoned in the psyche of most Americans over the past few months. The term has become ubiquitous (although most people probably don't know the true definition), and you can't escape it these days. It seems that all this talk of recession has forced employers to cut 80,000 jobs in March, the highest job loss in five years, according to an AP article. An array of industries, inc ...

For years now—probably since after the 9/11 attacks, understandably—I've noticed the media paying a lot of attention to the troubles of the airline industry. People's fear of flying, the popularity of e-tickets, and the trimming of airline's costs (from eliminating meal service to reducing baggage limits) are just a few issues that have dominated headlines. More recently, articles discussing the soaring cos ...