What happened to the Lake Erie West regional branding idea that began in the early 1990s?
From the Dec 18, 2009 Blade story:
"For all the organizations that I've been in … we've never done the one thing of who are we, what are we, and who do we appeal to?" Mr. Rumpf said. "We've never been willing to ask these three questions, let alone try to find out what those answers are," he said.
From the 1990s, a list of sustainable competitive features of the Lake Erie West region:
- Time - At the crossroads of the two most heavily traveled roads in North America: I-80/90 and I-75.
- Education - 33 colleges and universities within a one-hour drive.
- Fresh Water - 18% of the world's fresh water supply. Water for Industrial use, for recreation, for survival in a world of shrinking supply.
- Transportation - Four international airports within a one-hour drive (Detroit Metropolitan, Toledo Express, Willow Run, and Windsor International), railways (4th largest center in the USA), highways, and the Great Lakes busiest port.
- Access to Consumer Markets - Lake Erie West is the center of a 1-day drive and, 12 of the Nation's 20 largest urban areas.
- Access to Industrial Markets - That same drive time gains access to 50% of the industrial businesses in both the U.S. and Canada.
- Quality of Life - Many Lake Erie West communities provide excellent quality of life, with low cost of living and housing, cultural and sports features, quick drive times and little of the crime, social problems and hectic pace of major urban areas.
From the Dec 18, 2009 Blade story
The branding effort also will be used to help Toledo establish its own identity as it recovers from the recession, said Bruce Rumpf, of Job1USA.
From the 1993 article listed above:
It's no secret that the northwest Ohio/southeastern Michigan area
needs a resurgence of economic development. High unemployment and the continuing drain of industrial and middle management jobs has eroded the earning and tax-paying capability of the communities in our region, and put businesses located here at risk.
The Lake Erie West committee seeks to identify such regional benefits and promote them to outside interests providing a marketing component that has been too often missing in the past.
In short, the Lake Erie West committee is trying to provide a necessary supplement to the economic development activities of other organizations -- inter community co-operating in marketing our region. We hope you or your organization can join us in this effort to secure the economic future of our region.
More from that 1993 article:
What does all this mean to the technical community of Toledo? This time based regional economic development strategy puts us into the big leagues! It allows us to compete effectively with Silicon Valley on the West Coast; with the Research Triangle in Raleigh/Durham; and with the Route 128 Corridor West of Boston.
It offers the attributes of those areas without the gridlock which is associated with their locations. It positions us for effective competition in the global economy by placing us at the cross roads of the North American Continent when it becomes an economic development unit competing with the European Continent and the Pacific Rim.
It allows us to pursue the biotechnological incubators like the one located adjacent to the Medical College of Ohio and other such incubators as offshoots of the University of Michigan, Bowling Green State University, the University of Toledo and others.
What are the roadblocks that will keep this time based strategy from coming to fruition? The answer to the question is you and I and every other private citizen who keeps looking to the public sector for leadership in economic development. In a capitalistic society the public sector, by definition, can implement but it cannot lead. It is straddled with all sorts of artificial roadblocks and boundaries which we recognize as city limits, county and township borers, and state lines.
More from the Dec 18, 2009 Toledo Blade story:
The Toledo Brand Initiative, which involves the University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, the Greater Toledo Urban League, the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, and others ...
November 2007 - Meta-Plan workshop spotlights regionalism
A who's who of Northwest Ohio's economic development community met Nov. 30 at the Dana Conference Center to identify opportunities for coordination and collaboration among their organizations. Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher delivered the workshop's keynote address.
Attendees at that Nov 30, 2007 workshop included :
- Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce
- Lucas County Improvement Corporation
- Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments (TMACOG)
- Regional Growth Partnership (RGP)
- UT Science and Technology Corridor
- Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority
- Ohio Department of Development
- City of Toledo Department of Development