"Companies making decisions about where to locate today are focused on where talented young workers want to be instead of - as in the past - where CEO's want to live."
Wellington has many, many good things, but the one thing it doesn't have is the ability (the physical ability) to mount a large job creation effort by providing facilities to attract sizable new white collar businesses to the community. We simply don't have enough vacant commercial space left to build the complexes and office space that would be required to make any type of significant impact.
If You Build It They Will Come? Don't Count on It - Consider that just a 40 minute drive to our north, we have the Scripps Center in Jupiter which, after $ millions in government incentives and huge political promotion from the state level, still remains a largely unfulfilled dream with "unfilled space". This very large investment has yet to pay off for Jupiter, in particular, or for the state in general.
If new white collar jobs could be attracted to anywhere in our area it would be at Scripps, where available space and other synergistic businesses just sit there waiting for the right new businesses to come along. The point is that if it isn't happening there, we certainly have a very small likelihood of making it happen here, from scratch, with limited available space to build upon whatever business catalyst we may be lucky enough to attract.
Entrepreneurs Seek Quality of Life - So what can Wellington do to attract better paying jobs and kick start job creation? If you consider the obvious patterns of job creation anywhere across the U.S., the places where such job creation has occurred share some common characteristics. Generally, these places have good climate. They have fostered communities that are progressive, forward-thinking, and committed to creating a superior lifestyle for their residents. They provide excellent community amenities that include abundant green space, and such elements as bike paths, good cultural and entertainment options, good schools and an environment that encourages plenty of other new business start ups. Creative business people gravitate toward concentrations of other creative people; they gravitate toward the places that provide them with a good creative environment and creative energy. And, what's even better - entrepreneurs don't limit job creation by sector such as high tech only. They create job diversity which makes for an even stronger economy.
Here's what nearly all the articles on the topic have to say in one way or another:
The Secret's Been Out for a Long Time - "More than three-quarters of all new jobs are created by small business, according to the Small Business Administration, so a region showing strong job growth is in all likelihood a hotbed of entrepreneurship. The impact on business of a city's educational and training systems, housing and living costs, taxes, regulatory burdens, and quality of life--factors commonly measured by other "hot lists" to identify strong economies--are all ultimately reflected by job growth."
If, in Wellington, we focus on creating a better, amenity-rich community, with a superior quality of life, we stand the best chance of attracting and retaining the types of people that are the engines of job creation. Without laying this foundation first, it's highly unlikely that the quality jobs will ever follow.
Wellington has many, many good things, but the one thing it doesn't have is the ability (the physical ability) to mount a large job creation effort by providing facilities to attract sizable new white collar businesses to the community. We simply don't have enough vacant commercial space left to build the complexes and office space that would be required to make any type of significant impact.
If You Build It They Will Come? Don't Count on It - Consider that just a 40 minute drive to our north, we have the Scripps Center in Jupiter which, after $ millions in government incentives and huge political promotion from the state level, still remains a largely unfulfilled dream with "unfilled space". This very large investment has yet to pay off for Jupiter, in particular, or for the state in general.
If new white collar jobs could be attracted to anywhere in our area it would be at Scripps, where available space and other synergistic businesses just sit there waiting for the right new businesses to come along. The point is that if it isn't happening there, we certainly have a very small likelihood of making it happen here, from scratch, with limited available space to build upon whatever business catalyst we may be lucky enough to attract.
Entrepreneurs Seek Quality of Life - So what can Wellington do to attract better paying jobs and kick start job creation? If you consider the obvious patterns of job creation anywhere across the U.S., the places where such job creation has occurred share some common characteristics. Generally, these places have good climate. They have fostered communities that are progressive, forward-thinking, and committed to creating a superior lifestyle for their residents. They provide excellent community amenities that include abundant green space, and such elements as bike paths, good cultural and entertainment options, good schools and an environment that encourages plenty of other new business start ups. Creative business people gravitate toward concentrations of other creative people; they gravitate toward the places that provide them with a good creative environment and creative energy. And, what's even better - entrepreneurs don't limit job creation by sector such as high tech only. They create job diversity which makes for an even stronger economy.
Here's what nearly all the articles on the topic have to say in one way or another:
The Secret's Been Out for a Long Time - "More than three-quarters of all new jobs are created by small business, according to the Small Business Administration, so a region showing strong job growth is in all likelihood a hotbed of entrepreneurship. The impact on business of a city's educational and training systems, housing and living costs, taxes, regulatory burdens, and quality of life--factors commonly measured by other "hot lists" to identify strong economies--are all ultimately reflected by job growth."
If, in Wellington, we focus on creating a better, amenity-rich community, with a superior quality of life, we stand the best chance of attracting and retaining the types of people that are the engines of job creation. Without laying this foundation first, it's highly unlikely that the quality jobs will ever follow.
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