Policy Innovations

• San Diego - CONNECT: Since 1985, CONNECT has helped to launch roughly 1,300 startups in hi-tech and biotech by linking entrepreneurs to money, markets, new technology, management, partners, and other resources.
  
  
• Northeast Ohio - Fund for Our Economic Future: The fund brings together over 100 foundations, organizations, and philanthropists to advance innovation-driven regional economic devleopment. It has deployed over $23 million in grants from 2004–2007 to support cuting-edge technology, such as fuel cells and biotech, and it is expected to grant another $28 million between 2007 and 2010.
  
  
• Detroit - Automation Alley: With over 850 business, government, university, and research members, Automation Alley strives to promote a technology cluster in Southeast Michigan through regional marketing, branding, and networking. Its focus on cross-sector synergies links the region’s automotive sector to emerging IT and communications enterprises.
  
  
• Chicago - Employer-Assisted Housing (Metropolitan Planning Council): To help workers afford homes closer to their jobs, MPC and its partners help regional employers offer homeownership education and provide down payment, rent, or savings assistance. Since 2000, 60 employers have provided homeownership counseling for 2,100 employees, resulting in 1,200 successful buyers.
  
  
• Miami - Prosperity Campaign: To boost EITC participation, 10 metro-wide “Prosperity Centers” offer free tax filing and connections to other financial services. Launched in 2002, the campaign has increased the number of Miami-area volunteer-prepared EITC returns by almost 400 percent.
  
  
• San Francisco - Workforce Funding Collaborative: The collaborative pools funds from government, philanthropy, and private sector sources to train disadvantaged job seekers for employement in health care and life sciences. Between 2004 and 2006, the collaborative served 1,165 individuals, of whom 82 percent completed education and training initiatives and 79 percent were placed in actual jobs.
  
  
• Denver - FasTracks: Thirty-two metro mayors support this initiative to create a regional system of new rail and bus rapid transit with transit-oriented development to solve the region’s problems with traffic congestion, expanding highways, sprawl, and smog.
  
  
• New York - Regional Plan Association (RPA): A long-time advocate for greater metro-wide connectivity and expanded access to the Tri-State’s urban core, RPA spurred the development of a $1.5 billion light rail connection to Kennedy airport. Progress has also been made on realizing RPA’s plans for a new subway line and a new train terminal, both on Manhattan’s East Side.
  
  
• Portland - Metro: A directly-elected multi-purpose regional government operating since 1979, Metro has the authority to coordinate land use across several local jurisdictions on issues of housing, transportation, infrastructure, and environmental services. Metro’s current focuses include integrating housing choices and affordability into policymaking and funding allocations, better evaluating land use impacts of transportation investments, and safeguarding regionally significant natural areas.
  
  
• Greater Cleveland - WIRE-Net: the business network developed by WIRE-Net effectively served over 1,050 businesses from 2001–2005 by convening manufacturing firms to learn local best practices, implement new knowledge and training, and update industrial practices.
  
  
• San Jose - Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network annually draws about 1,000 stakeholders to discuss regional economic trends to ensure that adequate investments are being made in infrastructure, communication networks, and science and technology research.
  
  
• Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff - Science Foundation Arizona: They lead Science Foundation Arizona to enhance scientific education and research throughout the State.
  
  
• Milwaukee - Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership: Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership has been so successful at linking unions, community organizations, and technical colleges, that its efforts at modernizing workplace technologies and practices and training workers are credited with adding an additional 6,000 industrial jobs to the metro area between 1995 and 2000.
  
  
• Lancaster - Workforce Investment Board: Workforce Investment Board identifies common employment gaps across specific clusters of related businesses and then funds workforce education to address those needs.
  
  
• Kansas City - Mid-America Regional Council: An active metropolitan planning organization has managed to enlist numerous localities to common regional goals, such as interconnected gateways.
  
  
• Philadelphia - Welcoming Center: Metro leaders are connecting new immigrants from around the world to employment opportunities, job readiness training, English as a Second Language classes, and other services to better include them in the regional economy. Through their Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, they have assisted more than 2,000 clients from 64 countries since 2003.