Assets

• Execellent "Quality of Life".
• Abundant labor
• Enabling infrastructure
• Broad & deep educational resources
• Regional resource cost advantage (City vs. Suburbs)
• Solid base of "tradable industry clusters" and "strategic economic assets" (outlined in GPF Benchmarks 4/98).

Impediments

• General education,
  skill training and retention of workforce
• Taxes
• Regulatory / Tort
• Cost of living / housing
• Entrepreneurial zest

(Sources - Wadley-Donavan, U.S. Department of Commerce, CATO Institute)

Objectives

• Blend with economic development goals of the City of Philadelphia.
• Reinforce the Assets and neutralize the impediments listed in this proposal.
• Compliment economic development strategy for the Region (as outlined in "GPF Regional Benchmarks" - April, 1998.
• Augment City's strides to embrace "Regionalization", while promoting Philadelphia's economic growth in targeted areas.
• Incorporate goals of "Greater Philadelphia Works".
• Anticipate local, regional and national trends in Telecom/IT.
• Promote collaboration between business and education/training institutions.

Implications

• Fully applies City's Asset base against technical resource shortfall of Region & State.
• Mobilizes business executives to migrate regional expansion opportunities into the City's deep resource base.
• Reinforces the regional economic imperative of keeping Philadelphia a vibrant hub.
• Orchestrates technical collaboration between students, businesses, entrepreneurs and government by further investing in a powerful regional knowledge exchange platform.
• Utilizes regional investent in our Campus as short term solution while national and international investment is developed.