ECICOG’s ‘Envision East Central Iowa’ plan shows ‘big appetite for change’

If the new economic-development plan from ECICOG shows anything, one key takeaway is there’s “a big appetite for change,” said Karen Kurt, the East Central Iowa Council of Governments executive director.

“It’s all good, but there’s a potential for more,” she told The Gazette Wednesday when discussing the nine-months-in-gestation “Envision East Central Iowa,” a regional economic development plan for the counties of Linn, Johnson, Benton, Jones, Iowa and Washington.

The plan, funded in part by the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was released this past Tuesday.

“The pandemic and evolving economic conditions provided an inflection point for re-imagining the future of East Central Iowa, so a group of regional stakeholders formed a strategy committee to create a blueprint for growth and future resilience,” ECICOG said in a news release accompanying the plan.

Minneapolis-based consulting firm Future iQ, which helped formulate the 52-page plan, estimated some 500 participants contributed to the plan’s ultimate development. Those involved came from the business, academia and public and private sectors.

ECICOG works out an economic-development strategy plan every five years, Kurt noted, but this time was different.

The initial group of approximately 100 participants engaged in “scenario planning,” in which they looked at both expected outcomes — “if we do nothing,” Kurt explained — and at preferred outcomes — “the future most desired by participants,” according to the plan.

Most often, such studies focus on differences, Kurt said. Urban versus rural or manufacturing versus agricultural, for examples.

But when working on this new plan, the group “saw alignments,” she said.

For example, the plan identified a strong wish to apply “existing regional strengths and leverages” to “focus on existing industry clusters to build industrial diversification” as well as “spur new entrepreneurial activity and business creation in promising emerging sectors.”

That could translate into working toward building up specific sectors in the six-county region such as ed tech.

Working within traditional industries in the region also was identified as a path to explore, such as developing more research and development within food processing, Kurt added by way of example.

“The most prosperous future includes not only some new industry sectors but also a doubling down on some areas of natural and traditional strength,” Doug Neumann, Cedar Rapids Economic Metro Alliance executive director, said in the release.

“We need to be authentically Eastern Iowa in order to succeed.”

Another area in which the group discovered alignment?

Place came up as a key element in attracting and retaining workers, Kurt said. An attractive “place” could include boasting recreational amenities or a thriving downtown — something that gives the community “a unique identification.”

She cited Solon’s cluster of restaurants and Vinton’s two-mile glow-in-the-dark trail, called Nathan’s Miles.

“A key challenge is attracting people to our region, and this plan addresses our need for a welcoming environment to create a strong, diverse workforce,” Iowa City Area Development Group President Kate Moreland said in the statement.

The pillars of Envision East Central Iowa

The Envision East Central Iowa plan identified seven actions, or pillars, to help implement its strategies.

1. Embrace an innovation focus to build regional competitiveness
2. Foster an entrepreneurial approach to create and capture new opportunities
3. Protect and sustain our unique natural resources
4. Re-imagine the built environment
5. Create more vibrant communities
6. Purposefully grow a thriving diverse regional workforce
7. Create and expand pathways for shared prosperity.

Demographic changes in the region

The plan also looked at how demographics are shifting in the six counties, and thus would affect the region’s opportunities and weaknesses. It used data culled from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s StatsAmerica Innovation Intelligence website.

For one thing, the regional population is growing, the plan’s attendant 57-page benchmark report found, growing to almost a half-million residents.

In addition, the region is becoming more diverse. While it remains to a large extent white — at 84 percent — most of the net population growth in the region is non-white, the report said.

“This may indicate the regional community is evolving to be more diverse, inclusive and relevant for potential future residents,” the benchmark report said.

However, the region’s population is getting older. The number of residents aged 55 and over expanded from 19.6 percent in 2000 to 26.8 percent — more than a quarter of the population — in 2020.

The population’s median age climbed from 36.2 years in 2000 to 39.3 years two decades later. That is driven by the aging white population, the report noted.

On top of these factors, population growth in the region’s urban areas is rising more than in rural areas.

The benchmark report noted “significant growth” — greater than 20 percent — in the two metro counties. Moreover, over the past 20 years, the region has shifted from being approximately 70 percent urbanized to 80 percent urbanized.

Going forward, “continued collaboration will be key” for the six-county region, Derek Lumsden, executive director of the Jones County Economic Development, said in the plan’s accompanying news release.

“We will need to show strides in both the rural and the urban areas, involving all of the region in those successes. Just because a plan is complete, we cannot fall back into our local camps and put back on the tunnel vision glasses.”

Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation President and CEO Les Garner said in the release that the Envision East Central Iowa plan “provides our region with a strategic framework within which we can plan for a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive future.”

Next comes the forming of action teams around of the pillars.

“We’ll follow where the energy is,” Kurt told The Gazette. “We’re moving the ball down the field. We’re continuing to get better.

“It’ll be a lot of people doing this work.”

The complete “Envision East Central Iowa” plan can be viewed at https://envision-eastcentraliowa.org.

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