ED Now

In recent years, our economic development profession, organizations, and the communities we serve have faced seemingly unprecedented challenges and uncertainties. What makes leaders effective in turbulent times? In his book Leadership Reinvented, Hamza Khan points to four strategies: practicing empathy, exercising servitude, driving diversity, and sparking innovation. According to Khan, such leadership is the art of continuous reinvention.

EDA has published a Public Works and Economic Adjustment Assistance (PWEAA) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for FY23. The Public Works program provides resources for construction and infrastructure design to enable communities to become more economically competitive. The Economic Adjustment Assistance program supports activities such as construction and upgrading of public infrastructure, sector partnerships for workforce training, design and engineering, technical assistance, economic recovery strategies, and capitalization or recapitalization of Revolving Loan Funds (RLFs). Through this NOFO, EDA intends to pursue projects that prioritize equity, workforce development, and climate resilience. EDA supports bottom-up strategies that ...

Does your organization have what it takes to be EDO of the Year? IEDC is now accepting submissions for the 2023 Excellence in Economic Development Awards. The following EDOs received the highest honor in 2022: Greater New Orleans, Inc., Investissement Québec, the Tulsa (Okla.) Regional Chamber, the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County (Fla.), Invest Newark (N.J.), and the Greater Sacramento (Calif.) Economic Council.

Communities, developers, and real estate asset managers will continue to need to reimagine and reinvent shopping malls into mixed-use redevelopments. The availability of large amounts of land, building space, parking capacity, and typically superior access to roadway connections, provides the physical resources to transform malls from predominantly single-use spaces to a dramatically more varied mix of uses.

The Economic Recovery Corps page is now live on IEDC’s website. IEDC and partners will receive $30 million from EDA over four-and-a-half years to create the Economic Recovery Corps—65 fellows who will be embedded in distressed regions throughout the United States to help lead efforts to increase the capacity of regional economic development ecosystems and provide guidance to support local economic developers. The ERC program will help communities accelerate their economic recovery, develop and deliver effective regional strategies to promote resilience and competitiveness, and create sustainable and equitable opportunities for all. Prospective fellows and host organizations should fill out the Economic Recovery Corps Interest ...

IEDC's Accredited Economic Development Organization (AEDO) program recognizes organizational excellence in the areas of internal and external operations, structures, and procedures. This series profiles newly accredited AEDOs, putting some of economic development's highest-performing organizations in the spotlight. This edition: City of Garden Grove (Calif.) Office of Economic Development.

IEDC's Accredited Economic Development Organization (AEDO) program recognizes organizational excellence in the areas of internal and external operations, structures, and procedures. This series profiles recently accredited AEDOs, putting some of economic development's highest-performing organizations in the spotlight. This edition: McKinney (Texas) Economic Development Corporation.

The new CitiesSpeak podcast, hosted by National League of Cities CEO and executive director Clarence Anthony, gives listeners a close look at local leadership across the United States. His guest on the first episode was Mitch Landrieu, who served as the mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018 and is now a senior advisor under the Biden Administration in charge of coordinating the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The episode focused on the implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, part of the Build Back Better plan. Landrieu’s experience as mayor has assisted him in his new role. His tenure as mayor was “where the rubber meets the road” whereas federal positions often feel as if they are ...