Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. Planning Manager Tim Kelly emails a weekly GR Forward update to the project Steering Committee. Here's this week's communication:

Happy Friday Everyone!

Hope your first full week of 2015 has been a great one.

Despite the weather, we are ramping up for another busy week for GR Forward. Next week both the Downtown and River Corridor Steering Committees will be holding their first meeting of 2015.

Additionally, as I mentioned last week, on Thursday, January 15 we have an exciting evening of events planned. Starting at 6p at the KCAD Federal Building (17 Pearl St NW) the third installment of our GR Forward Thinking Speaker Series will occur. Theresa Reno-Weber, the Chief of Performance Improvement for the Louisville Metro Government will give a presentation on Performance Based Governance. Immediately following this, in the same room at 7p, we will host our first GR Forward Public Forum. The Public Forum will allow attendees to hear an overview of the work that has been completed to date, and to provide feedback on the working vision and goals.

We hope that all of you will be able to join us that evening, and please be sure to share this information within your networks.

Presentations

Unfortunately the snow forced us to cancel our meeting last night with our neighbors in Roosevelt Park, but we are working to reschedule the meeting and will notify you when a new date and time are set. Earlier in the week we were able to meet with the following groups:

• MEDC

• Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Board

Web Numbers

The latest web and social media numbers are below.

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/grfwd

Twitter - https://twitter.com/grfwd

Instagram - http://instagram.com/grfwd#

Resources

This article from Richard Florida on the best performing cities in America in 2014 is interesting: http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/01/americas-best-performing-cities-in-2014/384336/.

Of particular note, is that the Grand Rapids-Wyoming MSA ranks 25^th on the list, up from 48^th on the list in 2013. This is in contrast to many of our Midwestern neighbors, which were identified as “underperforming”.

The ranking is based on a number of economic indicators, including job growth, wage and salary growth, and the size and concentration of high tech industry. Florida asserts the economic recovery has been concentrated in the “twin pillars of America’s knowledge/energy economy”, namely energy centers and tech hubs, and this assertion is largely supported via the numbers. Though cities and citizens may have alternative ways to evaluate their performance, I think the report is useful for looking at the role city’s and metro regions have played in climbing out of the recession, and how those cities will perform going forward. Florida notes:

Ultimately, the report paints a clearer picture of America’s geographically uneven recovery, where tech hubs and energy centers prosper while older manufacturing and construction driven metros continue to falter. But there may be some dark clouds looming over the twin pillars of America’s knowledge-energy economy. Falling energy prices will likely put a damper on growth in many energy-driven metros. And leading urban tech centers like San Francisco are faced with rising housing prices and mounting inequality, which threaten to price out some of the very people who have driven innovation there in the first place. To determine how those factors play out, we’ll have to wait for next year’s ranking.

As always, if you have any questions let me know. Otherwise, I look forward to working with all of you to make 2015 a rousing success.

Have a great weekend,