Through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the NADO Research Foundation and Envision Utah are two of eight teams providing capacity building and technical assistance to HUD and EPA sustainable communities award recipients.  The capacity building teams are forming networks among the grantees to exchange ideas on successful strategies, lessons learned, and emerging tools for community and economic development.

Below are links to the workshop materials, including presentations, worksheets, and grantee background information.  If you have any questions about this workshop, these materials, or NADO’s work as a capacity building team, please contact Brett Schwartz.

Workshop Background Materials

Opening Plenary:  Regional Visioning Based on Shared Values
Robert Grow, President/Chief Executive Officer, Envision Utah 

Finding and Leveraging Competitive Advantage 
Nora Johnson, Policy Fellow, US EPA Office of Sustainable Communities
Kathy Nothstine, Associate Director, NADO 

Scenarios Planning 101 and Part 2
Christie Oostema, Planning Director, Envision Utah
Jay Baker, Countywide Planner, Cache County, Utah
Lori Haddock, Economic development professional, Bear Lake County, Idaho
Mitch Poulsen, Executive Director, Bear Lake Regional Commission

Rural Poverty and Equitable Development 
Danielle Bergstrom, Program Associate, PolicyLink
Bill Vanderwall, Capacity Building Manager, Minnesota Housing Partnership

Keynote Address:  Progress and Challenges in Place-Based Rural Policies
Chuck Fluharty, President/CEO, Rural Policy Research Institute 

Best Practices in Creating Strong Regional Economic Development Strategies
Brian Kelsey, Director of Economic Development, NADO 

Implementing a Regional Plan as an Over-arching Economic Development Strategy: Focus on Implementation Strategies and Toolkit
Christie Oostema, Planning Director, Envision Utah
Dave Conine, USDA Rural Development

Additional Materials/Links 
Sonoran Institute’s About Town research and report 
California Financial Opportunities Roundtable (CalFOR) Guidebook 

In this session, Brian Kelsey (NADO) explained how regions are developing effective economic development strategies by linking land use, transportation, and workforce development using sound data and effective communication techniques.  The session included a discussion of the Comprehensive Development Strategy (CEDS) and techniques for integrating the CEDS with other regional plans.

Materials:
Best Practices in Creating Strong Regional Economic Development Strategies Powerpoint (PDF)

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The NADO Research Foundation’s report “Alabama Statewide Consolidated Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies:  Planning for the Future” addresses the role that Regional Development Organizations (RDOs) – in this case, Regional Councils – played in the Alabama statewide Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) process and explores lessons learned that can be applied to future RDO attempts at creating statewide CEDS.

The Regional Councils in Alabama strive to improve the quality of life for their residents by obtaining funding for local government assistance, coordinating local governments’ responses to regional issues, and providing a wide range of services to the region’s governments and  residents.  Regional Councils have differing structures and program priorities, but each focus on areas of economic development and planning.

Collectively, Alabama’s 12 Regional Councils work across the State of Alabama by planning and implementing strategies that create opportunities for development and prosperity. The Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) of each of the Regional Councils reflects the goals, objectives, and priorities specific to their region or constituency.  The Alabama Consolidated CEDS was developed by the Planning Task Force of the Alabama Association of Regional Councils (AARC) to reflect the common vision, values, and goals contained in each regional CEDS and to serve as a comprehensive and representative statewide economic development strategy for the State of Alabama.

Click here to download the report (PDF)

The presentation is available here.

Projects from regional organizations across the United States demonstrate how the fields of transportation and economic development can complement each other and create an environment for increased collaboration and aligning of resources. Achieving multiple goals with a single project offers significant benefits as budget concerns continue to impact regional planning.

In particular, this report examines transportation planning through the lens of economic development and the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), a regional economic development plan. In 2011, the NADO Board of Directors adopted Peer Standards of Excellence for Economic Development Administration (EDA)-designated Economic Development Districts (EDDs). These principles, developed by NADO members, are intended to make the CEDS a more effective tool, beyond a compliance plan needed to access EDA funds. The Standards of Excellence promote a strategic planning and implementation framework that is results-oriented; focused on aligning and leveraging resources; inclusive of public, private, and nonprofit sector leaders; and emphasizes the importance of asset-based regional economic development.

The seven principles of CEDS Standards of Excellence are:

1. Build resilient regions and capitalize on assets.
   Build more resilient economies and communities by focusing and targeting regional strategies on the existing and potential competitive advantages of each individual region.
2. Align plans and investments.
   Foster a regional collaborative framework to strategically align public sector investments from federal, state, and local sources, as well as private, nonprofit, and philanthropic partners.
3. Focus on data and analysis.
   Use modern scenario, data, and analysis tools and planning techniques that provide policy makers, stakeholders, and the public with evidence-based and factual based information.
4. Link strategies and outcomes.
   Transform the CEDS process into a more strategy-driven planning process focused on regional visioning, priorities setting, and performance outcomes, rather than a broad-based encyclopedia or narrative of the region with a laundry list of random projects and programs.
5. Increase collaboration among regions.
   Promote and support peer reviews and exchanges of Economic Development District planning professionals and policy officials with the goal of increasing collaboration across EDD boundaries, enhancing organizational resources, and positioning regional CEDS as more effective building blocks for statewide and local strategies.
6. Adopt a communications strategy.
   Communicate in a compelling and modern communication style, including use of executive summaries, high quality print and online media, and social media.
7. Collaborate on plans and implementation.
   Engage the public, private, nonprofit and educational sectors, along with the general public, in the development and implementation of the CEDS.

A previous NADO Research Foundation report from April 2009 examined another element of the interaction between transportation and the CEDS. Role of Transportation Planning
in the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Process presented the results of a national scan of EDDs to determine the extent to which transportation is incorporated into the CEDS. This report, Aligning Strategies to Maximize Impact provides more detail on collaboration among organizations and implementation of projects that create opportunities for linking transportation investments with economic development objectives.

Although the seven core principles of the Standards of Excellence were created with regard to the development and implementation of the CEDS, they also apply to broader regional planning processes, including transportation planning. As the case studies in this report show, investments in transportation promote numerous other goals outside of mobility, notably economic development efforts. A safe, efficient, and reliable transportation network provides essential infrastructure for a robust regional economy.

The most recent reauthorization of federal surface transportation funding reflects the increasing recognition of transportation as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), signed into law in July 2012, emphasizes performance and outcome-based transportation planning that makes progress towards seven national goals, including freight movement and economic vitality. (1) Performance goals for improving passenger mobility are also embedded in the restructuring of several national programs with increased support for multimodal investments.

This report features 10 case studies on diverse transportation and economic development topics such as freight movement, cluster development, ridesharing, and project prioritization.  RDOs in these 11 states are implementing initiatives with regional impact. Each case also includes valuable takeaway lessons that can serve as a resource to others hoping to promote a stronger link between transportation and economic development strategies. Throughout the report, the best practice themes embodied in the CEDS Standards of Excellence are identified where they appear in these case studies as applied to transportation as well as economic development.

Read the full report at http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AligningStrategies.pdf.

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