Dick Heupel is interim director of Indiana Communities Institute at Ball State University. His column appears in Indiana newspapers.
For most of the last decade, community after community across Indiana has come to the realization that economic development is more than opening shovel-ready business parks, granting tax abatements and creating low-tax business districts.
Today’s thriving cities and towns focus their development efforts on primacy of place — a synergy creating locales that attract, develop and retain talented individuals. These people cluster in communities with abundant amenities: top schools, gathering places, trails and parks.
Places that lack these characteristics have declined within the last 50 years and face a bleak future. People increasingly decide whether to live in a particular area based on its quality of life, and research finds that businesses in search of talent follow these people.
Recognizing the need to focus on primacy of place, Ball State University is taking the lead in a new strategic economic effort to assist communities as they plan and dedicate resources to improving life experiences for residents, businesses and visitors.
The Indiana Communities Institute (ICI), a campuswide initiative, is a key part of Ball State’s strategic plan, The Centennial Commitment (18 by ’18). The plan is President Paul W. Ferguson’s vision for the future of Ball State as a model of the most student-centered and community-engaged of 21st century public research universities.
ICI will create a dynamic shift in economic development by bringing together the university’s top researchers and outreach activities to assist both rural and urban municipalities.
Faculty and staff — along with our talented students — at Ball State will research such diverse questions as community readiness for change, the role of the performing arts, the impact of broadband as well as wellness, access to education, water infrastructure and tax policy.
Researchers will examine public policy on issues such as early childhood education, regulations supporting telecommunications deployment, regional development and the role of federal agencies in state and local economic development.
As a result, the staff of the Indiana Communities Institute will focus on developing best practices of crafting high quality of place communities, including support for strategic planning and asset analysis, determining priorities and developing techniques to address intractable local challenges.
Over the coming years, Ball State will continue to send its best faculty, staff and students to places such as Columbus, Shelbyville, South Bend and anywhere local residents want to reshape their communities. In the end, the best type of economic development will occur when elected officials spend most of their time making their cities and towns attractive places to live and work. If talented people come, jobs will follow.