by James A. Bacon
The Richmond region has never been an “it” Sunbelt metropolis like Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte or Raleigh-Durham, but it did plug away pretty consistently, racking up better-than-average economic growth year after year. That was fine by most of us natives who enjoyed the fruits of moderate prosperity without the hassles of super-heated growth. But the time for complacency is over. We need to get our act together.
Two new reports drive the message home.
First, the Brookings Institution’s Metro Monitor shows that Richmond ranked in the bottom quintile for economic performance among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas in the 3rd quarter of 2011.
A longer-term measure of economic potential, “Best Performing Cities of 2011,” published by the Milken Institute, measures “where America’s jobs are created and sustained.” Richmond ranked among the Top 25 losers, diving from a 79th ranking last year to 119.
What’s going on? There are many transient reasons but one enduring one: insufficient innovation. The Richmond economy has given birth to relatively few fast-growth “gazelles,” the midsized companies that create the most jobs and wealth in the U.S. economy. Why would that be? Part of the answer is that we have no dominant industry clusters that spark innovation. But the problem, I think, runs deeper. Richmond is late to the game in talking about innovation ta all. The conversation about how to breed creativity has finally begun in earnest, but we’re 10 or 20 years behind more progressive communities.
When I left Virginia Business magazine in 2002, I helped create the program and line up speakers for a conference, “Virginia 2020,” which highlighted strategies for creating economic prosperity through innovation and productivity. We had great, cutting-edge topics and an excellent line-up of speakers. And the event was a total flop. It was embarrassing — no, humiliating. There were a number of reasons for the fiasco. It didn’t help to hold the event on the first anniversary of 9/11. It didn’t help that the event organizer had credibility issues relating to a previous business failure. (Close-knit Richmonders are less forgiving of failure than inhabitants of other regions.) But I’m also convinced that a lot of people just didn’t “get” it. Innovation? Productivity? In an era before Richard Florida warmed up the audience with his brilliant thesis about the rise of the creative class, people simply didn’t understand what we were driving at.
Times have changed, and so has the conversation. Slowly — painfully slowly — but surely, we’re getting some things right. People are moving back downtown into the region’s creative core. The City of Richmond is fostering the creation of a vibrant arts district. Cool development is taking place along the downtown Canal. The Virginia Biotechnology Research Park is gaining critical mass. The region is finally coalescing around a vision for the James River as an incredible recreation and entertainment asset. We have vibrant cultural events, from the French Film Festival (the largest outside France) to the Folk Festival to the James River Writer’s Festival.
As Richmond slowly morphs into the kind of community the creative class will find attractive, the next generation of corporate leaders is emerging. Health Diagnostics Laboratory, which identifies risk factors and biomarkers for personalized health, is a phenomenal success story. So is Bostwick Laboratories, which provides world-class clinical pathology laboratory services. And so is Tridium, whose Niagara Framework has become the global-standard software platform for building automation systems. Those are my favorites; there are others. We just need a few more.
I am confident that Richmond eventually will reinvent itself. The renaissance will not come from city elites acting on recommendations reflecting conventional thinking and packaged in some highly paid consultant’s report. It won’t come from building a new baseball stadium or establishing a (semi) high-speed rail link to Washington, D.C., or trying to copy some other city’s success story. It will bubble from the ground up and the results will surprise us all.
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