New Group Analyzing Economic Development Strategies

PORTLAND-A new task force is preparing to analyze the economic development plans of major cities in the region and see if there’s enough synergy for them all to play out harmoniously. The first meeting is this week and the final report is due back in summer 2003.

Calling themselves the Metropolitan Economic Policy Task Force, the group of economic development professionals will take an inventory of the region’s current economic development studies, plans and strategies, assess synergies and disconnects, and then identify strategies for forwarding the commonalities on a region-wide scale.

“This will be the first truly metropolitan look at what we are currently doing to support the development of our economy,” says Ethan Setzer, director of Portland State University’s Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies, which provided an assessment of the inventory that will serve as the foundation for the task force’s work.