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The primary mandate of the IEDC should be to re-establish viable infrastructure in places that have declined. Brownfields, dead malls, unsustainable stroads, and etc. Clean up any environmental messes that may exist; demolish dilapidated structures if there are any; re-establish a denser street grid with smaller subdivided lots where applicable; and work with municipalities to establish optimal zoning, streetscape, and transportation options.
Basic infrastructure fuels private investment better than anything else. It may not be sexy, but re-establishing high quality infrastructure in places that have declined stands to be one of the most effective ways that the IEDC can drive economic development.
Secretive negotiations with private companies? Hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate acquisition for a speculative megaproject whose purpose is to attract non-specific megaprojects? These are just prime examples of some hybrid between cronyism and top-down, CCP-inspired planning.
The IEDC should not even be allowed to engage in subsidy negotiations with private companies or real estate transactions unless a municipality asks for the State’s help with negotiations that began more organically.
If we want more top down economic planning than what I outlined, we simply need to embrace regionalism. Instead of having a single economic development bureaucracy for the entire state, each of Indiana’s regions should have the necessary autonomy over taxes rate, tax revenue, and land-use to handle its own economic development matters.
More broadly, Indiana has too many distinct regions not to embrace regionalism. NWI; South Bend and Elkhart; Greater Fort Wayne & the Lake Erie/Maumee watershed; R1 college towns; Central Indiana; Wabash River & Ohio River manufacturing communities; and the suburban counties of Louisville and Cincinnati, respectively. There is simply too much variance for Indiana’s very top-down state government to handle well.
Well said. Instead, the IEDC takes more farmland and encourages more suburban sprawl. And refuses to update their 1970s economic development playbook. It’s madness!
All good points above. There are so many small “ghost towns” skattered around Indiana that with the right infrastructure and connectivity could become thriving communities again. With the amount of stay at home workers these days these type of communities would be highly attractive with affordable housing and a quiet and comfortable environment.
Agreed! And it would help eliminate health care deserts that are becoming all too common.
Without IEDC, would the Lebanon LEAP development be happening today? That project, if not spearheaded by IEDC, would likely have gone out of the State by Lilly, as Lilly has done in the not too distant past. I’m not defending everything IEDC does, but the agency does need to exist in order to foster the economic development mission of Indiana.