EDITORIAL: I-69 brings need for common goals

A snapshot of that area’s economic history over the past 40 years is not grim but worrying. Population has grown, but much more slowly than the national average. Employment grew 53 percent over the same period but national growth was 90 percent. Personal income, according to University of Southern Indiana official Mark Bernhard, who cites all these numbers, grew by 116 percent, while nationally, that growth was pegged at 164 percent.

The economic gap between southwest Indiana and the nation is widening, he argues, and with change quickening around the world, the region is in danger of being left out in the cold. One indication of the problem, Bernhard said, is the region’s “Innovation Index,” as reported by the Indiana Business Research Center at IU. The index average for much of southwest Indiana is 81.6, almost 20 points below the national average.