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FIU's "Economic Development Implementation Plan for Miami Dade County" Recommends Significant Reforms
FIU's Metropolitant Center recently released a "Economic Development Implementation Plan for Miami Dade County" that is very comprehensive and has won the backing of the Mayor's office and the County Manager. The plan hopes to evaluate current economic development delivery systems in the County and identify/asses impediments to economic development, with particular focus on African American neighborhoods. The plan then seeks to present economic development strategies that would benefit the focus areas and County government. Key impediments in Miami Dade included:
- "Absence of a coherent & unifying economic vision and policy."
- "Insufficient access to private capital"
- "Isolation & alienation of the African American community."
- "Absence of an entrepreneurial environment"
- "Fragmented economic development delivery system"
- "Lack of public infrastructure investment"
- "Disconnect between planning & economic development"
- "Lack of public infrastructure investment"
- "Disconnect between planning & economic develoment"
- "Lack of benchmarking & performance standards"
- "No clear economic development authority"
- "Absence of formalized and tailored workfoce development programs"
1) Creating a Local Entrepreneurial Environment
- Support & develop professional competence-building at each level of the economic development delivery system. "CDC staff and boards need to be exposed to technical and leadership and management training on a continuous basis."
- Support and develop a formalized and tailored workforce development initiative
- Develop and leverage capital resources for equity and debt entrepreneurial development.
- Invest in CDC organizational needs. "A CDC support intermediary should be responsible for amassing financial resources from public, private, and charitable sectors to better target and leverage resources.....an effective and well-conceived organizational and strategic plan should earn CDCs multiple year funding so that planning is not subverted by organizational exigencies. Funding support...needs to include both operating funds and flexible resources to meet predevelopment and subsidy requirements. With the urgency to stay "alive," few CDCs can or will voluntarily carry out organizational assessments or business planning. Any effort to increase capacity among the existing CDCs has to be based on ongoing organizational assessments and strategic business plans. CDC funders shoulder much of the blame for poor management practices across the sector. They put money into CDC projects, programs and services while ignoring organizational development."
2) Developing Community Collaboration and Capacity-building
- Create and support a Sustainable Neighborhood Initiative (Citizen Participation)
- Create a CDC Support Collaborative Model. "There should be a clear commitment to CDCs as an economic development tool through a funding and capacity building intermediary with government, private sector, and philanthropy. Both the intermediary and the CDCs must base this commitment on performance. The intermediary should be responsible for training, strategic planning, organizational assessment, technical assistance, operating support, predevelopment/gap financing, and benchmarking performance services.."
3) Instituting a Comprehensive Economic Development Plan and a Coordinated/Integrated Economic Development Delivery System
- Create and support a new position of Chief Development Officer
- Coordinate and integrate Miami-Dade's planning and development functions
- Initiate a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy
- Maximize use and leveraging of Federal resources by creating a comprehensive, accountable, and collaborative business finance system.
- Coordinate and dedicate Capital Improvement Program and CDBG funding for targeted public infrastructure improvements.
4) Building Local Public/Private Lending Capacity
- Insure that regulated financial institutions are investing in all of Miami-Dade's markets and communities. "Interviewees who discussed capital issue shared the perception that Miami-Dade's financial institutions are "not doing enough". Whether it is lending to small businesses or CBOs or affordable mortgages; the perception that "CRA-related" lending is often window dressing...Miami-Dade should monitor the lending activities of area lenders more proactively."
- Create and strengthen alternative community development financial institutions.
- Create a predevelopment fund to provide for community building and predevelopment efforts.
- Create community development credit unions to address the financial literacy and basic services needs of lower income markets.
- Create a venture capital company to serve the equity needs of minority-owned small and medium size businesses.