Attracting Young Professionals

[downtownjag]

I see your point; and I think it's a chicken or egg scenario. Arguments can be made for both cases, but I believe you can most directly influence the end result we all desire by offering incentives to the companies that attract the talent. Most of my college friends left after school not because they didn't like Jax; but because the entry level, young professional jobs weren't available here. Many didn't want to leave, but couldn't find work.

^But every city plays the incentives game.  Jax can't really get any cheaper than it already is.  Plus, many companies don't go where there isn't already a critical mass of workers with the type of skills they need. At some point, we've got to start factoring in the roll quality of life plays.

Yes, but we can make it an easier decision with company execs. I personally haven't had an experience where quality of life was cited. Sure, we can be more progressive. I think we have enough evidence in many sectors to substantiate the claim that we have the talent pool for many industries. Again, I agree that there are quality of life issues that can be improved that would make us more desirable to "talent" but I don't believe said talent moves to town before he/she is offered a job.

[Cheshire Cat]

Ennis does make a good point about incentives.  Other cities are doing the same thing and some are in the position to offer more than we can.  So what would the "package" be that would create interest, ie, some financial incentives along with ______?

[thelakelander]

I see your point; and I think it's a chicken or egg scenario. Arguments can be made for both cases, but I believe you can most directly influence the end result we all desire by offering incentives to the companies that attract the talent. Most of my college friends left after school not because they didn't like Jax; but because the entry level, young professional jobs weren't available here. Many didn't want to leave, but couldn't find work.

^But every city plays the incentives game.  Jax can't really get any cheaper than it already is.  Plus, many companies don't go where there isn't already a critical mass of workers with the type of skills they need. At some point, we've got to start factoring in the roll quality of life plays.

Yes, but we can make it an easier decision with company execs. I personally haven't had an experience where quality of life was cited. Sure, we can be more progressive. I think we have enough evidence in many sectors to substantiate the claim that we have the talent pool for many industries. Again, I agree that there are quality of life issues that can be improved that would make us more desirable to "talent" but I don't believe said talent moves to town before he/she is offered a job.

I've come across several.  Over the last couple of years, I've even had two in my extended family do it.  Their choices were Savannah and Raleigh.  Another cousin moved to Norfolk for a few years because she liked the atmosphere of some of the urban waterfront neighborhoods but relocated to Dallas about a year later.  I considered DC and New Orleans back in 2008 but decided to stick around in Jax.

[thelakelander]

^Btw, Oklahoma City started investing in itself after United Airlines selected Indianapolis over them in the 1990s. The airline told Oklahoma City officials that Indianapolis won because it offered a superior quality of life and that they couldn't see employees living in Oklahoma City.

[downtownjag]

I see your point; and I think it's a chicken or egg scenario. Arguments can be made for both cases, but I believe you can most directly influence the end result we all desire by offering incentives to the companies that attract the talent. Most of my college friends left after school not because they didn't like Jax; but because the entry level, young professional jobs weren't available here. Many didn't want to leave, but couldn't find work.

^But every city plays the incentives game.  Jax can't really get any cheaper than it already is.  Plus, many companies don't go where there isn't already a critical mass of workers with the type of skills they need. At some point, we've got to start factoring in the roll quality of life plays.

Yes, but we can make it an easier decision with company execs. I personally haven't had an experience where quality of life was cited. Sure, we can be more progressive. I think we have enough evidence in many sectors to substantiate the claim that we have the talent pool for many industries. Again, I agree that there are quality of life issues that can be improved that would make us more desirable to "talent" but I don't believe said talent moves to town before he/she is offered a job.

I've come across several.  Over the last couple of years, I've even had two in my extended family do it.  Their choices were Savannah and Raleigh.  Another cousin moved to Norfolk for a few years because she liked the atmosphere of some of the urban waterfront neighborhoods but relocated to Dallas about a year later.  I considered DC and New Orleans back in 2008 but decided to stick around in Jax.

Ok Lake, are the people you cited "young" professionals? If so, please define young. I'm referring to the recent college graduate who can't afford to pick cities but needs a job.

[JFman00]

Ennis does make a good point about incentives.  Other cities are doing the same thing and some are in the position to offer more than we can.  So what would the "package" be that would create interest, ie, some financial incentives along with ______?

The Uselessness of Economic Development Incentives

Our biggest takeaway: there is virtually no association between economic development incentives and any measure of economic performance. We found no statistically significant association between economic development incentives per capita and average wages or incomes; none between incentives and college grads or knowledge workers; and none between incentives and the state unemployment rate. The scatter-graph above illustrates the lack of any relationship between incentives per capita and wages.

The only statistically significant association we find is between incentives and the poverty rate. This is in line with other research by Robert Greenbaum and Daniele Bondonio, which finds economic development incentives to be more likely in poorer, more economically disadvantaged communities, especially those that have faced recent economic decline.

Our findings are consistent with the broad body of research on incentives. A detailed 2002 study, published in the Journal of Regional Science [PDF] of more than 350 companies that received incentives, found incentives had a negative effect on these companies's ability to create jobs. Using detailed statistical models to control for a wide variety of factors, the study found that companies that received incentives expanded more slowly than others, and worse yet that overall effect of incentives was a reduction of 10.5 jobs per establishment. Incentives had their biggest effect by far not on actual jobs, but on "announced growth," finding that the average business receiving incentives overestimated its future employment by 28.5 jobs.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/12/uselessness-economic-development-incentives/4081/

[Cheshire Cat]

Interesting JFmann.  What is your take on this information?  I guess I am hoping that between several minds we can define a road to head down in Jacksonville that might actually speak to positive growth.  Poverty here is an issue, but I also see the continued poverty here intertwined with two things which are education level and politics.   Politicians in this community who won office on pledges of improving their community (especially in depressed areas) have improved their personal standing and wealth over those they were elected to represent, that in turn goes back to education or lack there of. 

[thelakelander]

Ok Lake, are the people you cited "young" professionals? If so, please define young. I'm referring to the recent college graduate who can't afford to pick cities but needs a job.

Most define the age of young professionals with a pretty wide range (20-45). In my case and my examples, we're all over 30.

[Cheshire Cat]

I will do it Stephen.  Thanks for the heads up. 

[simms3]

Jacksonville should strive to be a category killer in one area.  Riskier in terms of cycles, but will make the city more competitive and in a way more stable.  I see Jacksonville having the potential to be a real leader in the Southeast and maybe nationally in terms of defense contract work, insurance since we still have a foothold there, and maybe media/telecom since the only other city in the SE with a major media/telecom industry is Atlanta and often there is room for more (maybe not with that industry, who knows).

Just by observation, outside of the largest and most regionally dominant cities in America such as NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver, and Dallas, most cities dominate 1-2, maybe 3 industries depending on size.

Even Houston is really just a 2 industry town: energy (arguably the capital of the universe in that regard) and healthcare (also arguably the capital of the universe in that regard with TMC).

Los Angeles is a big city with many industries, but the economy there seems dominated by two in particular: entertainment and distribution.

Within the south just by itself, most industries are already focused in 1-2-3 cities and have little presence in the others.  There are very few industry "holes" if you will, and so limited growth potential.

As I see it, any company that's currently in Jax can up and leave at any moment without a blink of an eye.  Aside from incentives and cost of doing business, and the fact that there are 1 million people in the area that need to be served, there's no other reason for being in Jax.  What keeps companies in the city now only goes so far.

Defense contract work: I believe if you exclude DC and Norfolk, Charleston and Hunstville are Jacksonville's only real potential competitors here.  Jacksonville already has the infrastructure in place: port, naval base, one of the largest naval air stations, and a history of serving as HQ or base of operations for major defense contractors.  Of course Charleston has bases and Boeing, and Huntsville has space program and Redding, but both are much smaller.

Insurance...sure the insurance arms of the major banks are all regionally based in Atlanta, along with regional HQ of most domestic banks, but where else is there an insurance presence in the south?  Jacksonville's a back office shell of what it was, but it is still a large part of the economy.

Media/telecom...I think Atlanta is the only city in the south with a major presence (Turner, other affiliates of Time Warner and NBC, associated support), but perhaps there is room to sprout a media/telecom industry in Jax.

Jax will never be a major hub for healthcare.  Forget major national players such as Houston, NYC, Boston, and LA, even within the South Jacksonville is left in the dust by Atlanta (Emory network, CDC), Nashville (Vanderbilt network), Raleigh-Durham (Duke and Chapel Hill networks), South FL (Miami network, Cleveland Clinic), Tampa (very highly ranked hospitals), etc etc  Too much strong competition to be major medical research hub or top 20 hospital hub.

Tech/biotech/research...follows the money trail, the big time research universities, and goes for concentration.  Tech won't expand in major doses in the south outside of the Triangle (RTP, universities), Atlanta (VC money, universities), and Austin (university and lead presence).  Jax can work on getting its fair share, but will never be a leader in this area.

Jax will never be a banking hub.  Birmingham lost out in much the same way Jax did.  Atlanta and Charlotte for domestic banks and Miami for international banks.

Jax will never be a huge hub for conglomerates and F500s.  Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas and Richmond fulfill that role.

Law firms...these only tend to go to the biggest cities where there is a lot of business going on.  You'll find the HQ of Big 50 and the presence of many Big 100 firms in Miami, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas.  Then there is DC.

Marketing/PR...follow the big business trail.  Not enough local business in most <2,000,000 person cities to sustain big PR/marketing firms.  Firms based in Atlanta also cover the rest of the south, essentially.

Entertainment...Atlanta, Miami and Nashville.  I wouldn't expect this loud and crazy industry to infiltrate Jacksonville anytime soon.

Logistics...I think Jacksonville is losing this battle.  It will never be a rail hub like the centrally located distribution hubs of Atlanta, Dallas and Nashville (even Spartanburg), and Jaxport is losing out to many other southern ports for new business.  It needs to find its identity and a niche, but will never be as large as close to 10 other ports in the south and in FL.

Distribution...Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville.  Centrality, rail connectivity, and access to major port is key.  Jacksonville seemingly has the ingredients, but not on a large enough scale to be a "hub".  Plus, this industry has nothing to do with the "young professionals" we are talking about.

I could go on...my limited 30,000 foot view of industry knowledge tells me that there is a lot of potential for Jax to be a hub for defense and government contract work, and maybe insurance and media/telecom.  City leaders should target these industries specifically.

Maybe I'm way off base on where the potential lies, but I do know that most cities do a better job of maximizing their strengths and targeting specific industries.  Very few cities have the benefit of serving as a dominant regional capital like Atlanta has, so they are left to their own unique devices.  Jax just seems to be all over the place just throwing incentive money at whatever it can get.

A discussion about attracting young professionals is in my opinion a discussion about jobs.  City leaders/Chamber folk should study where grads of all the top schools in the SE are finding jobs.  I bet you there are some majors where the grads are mostly moving to other regions of the country, and so maybe there is an opportunity there to grow that sort of industry in the SE by growing it in Jax.

[JFman00]

Interesting JFmann.  What is your take on this information?  I guess I am hoping that between several minds we can define a road to head down in Jacksonville that might actually speak to positive growth.  Poverty here is an issue, but I also see the continued poverty here intertwined with two things which are education level and politics.   Politicians in this community who won office on pledges of improving their community (especially in depressed areas) have improved their personal standing and wealth over those they were elected to represent, that in turn goes back to education or lack there of.

I'm of the mindset that incentives are shortcuts communities try to take to spur development when they haven't invested in foundations of growth (both K-12 and higher education, infrastructure, ease of doing business, etc.). While they may be effective on the surface (x company relocated here and brought y jobs), the money would be much better off spent remediating what was keeping companies and jobs away in the first place. Pretty much all the incentives in the world wouldn't get a major tech company to expand in Jacksonville with its middling universities, while Boeing/Airbus are building factories across the South just because unions are weaker, with incentives as a side benefit.

Plus, there's nothing stopping companies from threatening relocation every time incentives expire (Motorola threatened to do just that in lllinois very recently, or pretty much every sports stadium out there).

Another great read on the decidedly mixed bag that are incentives: Why Have So Many Cities and Towns Given Away So Much Money to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's?

[JFman00]

Jacksonville should strive to be a category killer in one area.  Riskier in terms of cycles, but will make the city more competitive and in a way more stable.  I see Jacksonville having the potential to be a real leader in the Southeast and maybe nationally in terms of defense contract work, insurance since we still have a foothold there, and maybe media/telecom since the only other city in the SE with a major media/telecom industry is Atlanta and often there is room for more (maybe not with that industry, who knows).

Jax is *wayyy* behind New Orleans when it comes to media, film making in particular.

[Cheshire Cat]

You make many interesting points simms.  I especially like your closing comments about seeing where grads in the SE are going.  That would be quite informative and eye opening.  We have heard much in the past about the defense industry and our port as places to focus attention but then we see situations here like the top dog at the port moving to another city saying that the personality of local government makes working here difficult. (His words were something to that effect.)  With this we see further evidence of what is wrong with our local system.  You are also correct about Jax's efforts being "all over the place" which in my mind goes back to politics here and development ideas being embraced depending upon who knows who and who is gonna get paid.  I am feeling more and more that if Jacksonville is going to see improvement in all areas we need to give out current stagnant political landscape a good solid kick in the pants.  I am talking a major effort to change the status quo with some deep thought given to who should replace some of the old players and what needs to change policy wise here to make Jacksonville desirable to those industries and businesses that will help us not only grow, but do so excitingly.

[Cheshire Cat]

Great points JFMann.  There is much in the way of insight and fact in this discussion that will take some time to think about and digest.  I do know that the mind power to take Jacksonville forward is out there and most of the really creative thought and sound answers are not going to be found in the minds of those elected to office.  I don't mean that as an insult, but rather a nod to the reality that politics especially in city hall is a culture removed from what most experience on a daily basis and rather a world unto itself.   

[Captain Zissou]

Many people talk about the great climate and natural assets of Jacksonville, but I don't know if that applies so much to the young professionals as the young families in the 35-45 range. (I consider the Young Professional range to go from 23-35). Most people my age aren't fishing the flats of the intracoastal or kayaking Guana.  The only ones who are are doing it on their parents' boats because they're from here.

The recession really cut some job prospects for people who have graduated in the last 5 years.  That said, many couldn't be too picky about where they chose to work.  For young and talented people, they go where the best job is, and then they figure out the rest.  If I got a much better job in OKC, Charlotte, or Atlanta I would be packing my bags.  What I would like to do professionally has very limited options here, so a move may be inevitable.  QOL is a factor, but younger people manage to find a good time wherever they end up. 

Most of my friends in Jax are only here about 60% of the time on weekends.  Most go to Atlanta, DC, NYC, Miami, Vegas, Denver, or anywhere they feel like for the weekend just as a way to see friends and experience new things.  I don't travel as much as they do, but I have been to Atlanta twice, Savannah twice, NYC, DC, Raleigh, Palm beach twice, Tally and Gainesville 3 times a piece, and a few more places that I'm sure I'm forgetting all within the last year.  I don't know if this is similar to the generations prior, but there is only about 1 weekend a month where all of my friends are in town, if that.