What will be the key drivers of our regional economy? What is San Diego’s place in the global marketplace? Will prosperity be shared broadly in our community?
These questions lie at the heart of a collaborative effort that the San Diego Institute for Policy Research, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and the City of San Diego recently unveiled – the Partnership for the Global Economy. The results of the project portend an exciting future for our region, but one which we can only realize if the public sector enables the kind of entrepreneurship and innovation that has characterized past transformations in the regional economy.
The Partnership began by bringing together over 200 leaders of industry, academia, government, and the non-profit sectors and asking them two simple questions: “Where do you believe San Diego’s engines of prosperity will be in five years?” and “What will it take to get there?” The dialogue that resulted over the course of several meetings and working groups focused on three key challenges and opportunities that the region faces.
At the forefront was a consensus that San Diego’s future economic prosperity will be increasingly driven forward by firms and products that are situated at the nexus point of two or more of the region’s traditional economic sectors. This “convergence” offers the region the opportunity to build on its core strengths of economic diversity and collaborative business culture. The convergence, for example, of information technology and hospitals can enable local firms to initially develop new telemedicine applications in locally controlled hospitals and use that expertise to win contracts outside of the region. Another area of convergence that shows real promise involves a greater level of partnership and collaboration between our region’s healthcare providers and the region’s biotechnology industry. Greater collaboration to do more clinical trials locally could create new jobs and offer local residents more opportunities to benefit from breakthrough medicines and procedures.
The Partnership participants also highlighted convergence opportunities in the areas of sustainability and green technology. The promotion of sustainable industries is currently the hottest priority of economic development efforts throughout the nation. Rather than attempt to be all things to all people, or try to bootstrap industries where San Diego does not have existing strengths, the Partnership’s participants sensibly identified that a first step would need to be a regional inventory of firms doing business in this area. An initial assessment suggests that there are promising opportunities to build upon the region’s critical mass of building design and construction firms to facilitate opportunities in green construction. Another area of potential opportunity involves leveraging the development of the National Energy Center for Sustainable Communities in Chula Vista to help spark the development of entrepreneurial firms.
Non-profits can play a central role in encouraging greater convergence and collaboration. By facilitating, catalyzing, and nurturing communications and opportunities between industry leaders, non-profits can help highlight opportunities and potential partnerships that might get overlooked.
The Partnership also focused on the importance of mid-level career workforce development. One participant in the process said “San Diego has an abundance of talent and a dearth of experience.” When pressed, he explained that San Diego’s institutions of higher learning produce a large number of skilled entry-level workers but as those people begin to advance in their careers, they face obstacles that lead them to consider relocation. Chief among these are the high cost of housing in the region. In addition, the Partnership pointed to the importance of continuing education and mid-level career training and the popular notion that more could be done to shore up this part of San Diego’s workforce development portfolio. Greater investment by our region’s community colleges and university extensions in this effort were seen as important ways to ensure that as people progressed on their career path they were prepared to move from the laboratory to the private sector or were prepared to take the step from being an engineer to managing a business unit.
Finally, the Partnership identified infrastructure and infrastructure investment as crucial to the region’s future. Traffic congestion, especially the difficulty faced by commuters, remains a critical concern. Investment will also play a role in addressing the importance of housing supply and costs since, absent adequate infrastructure, communities will vehemently oppose the construction of more housing nearby. The participants in the Partnership also recognized that given the age of our region’s infrastructure and the price tag for rebuilding it, public-private partnerships will be an essential component ofthe region’s public policy toolbox if we are to stretch dollars further and meet the region’s needs.
San Diego faces many challenges. The cost of living, particularly housing costs, remains an impediment on the region’s economy. Too often our public policymakers are not innovators but followers. More needs to be done to ensure that a greater number of San Diegans share in the region’s economic prosperity. The Partnership offers a roadmap to move forward and create an even more vibrant and economically dynamic region.
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