By Bethia Burke, President
“Job Sprawl Spillover,” the front-page headline of the July 26th issue of Crain’s Cleveland Business, introduced a special forum detailing challenges of no-growth sprawl and potential solutions to it. The coverage emphasizes the economic imperative of growing job hubs and advancing mobility solutions, strategies shaped and advanced by the Fund for Our Economic Future for more than a decade.
Getting here—where the recognition of job sprawl is a front-page economic issue and leaders across the civic sector are working together to make change—took collective foresight and a commitment to long-term change from our nearly 40 members and relied on capable and innovative work from many partner organizations. And I could not be prouder of the progress we’ve made together to bring jobs closer to people and people closer to jobs. Our work has included enabling the successful regional application for what became the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium, highlighting the human and economic consequences of sprawl in the Geography of Jobs, defining job hubs, funding the development of the ESG^P tool to enable measures of talent, equity and sustainability to be included in site selection decisions, emphasizing the importance of transportation access to the regional economy and developing and deploying The Paradox Prize.
As always when it comes to systems change, there is still work to do! But, the Crain’s forum is a celebration-worthy milestone for our Fund and it demonstrates the value of an aligned regional agenda as we work towards a more equitable and inclusive economy.
Join the effort
For more information about how you can join with Fund members to understand what matters, advance what works and shape what’s next for a more equitable regional economy, please contact us.