The Greater Des Moines region has its act together (See the related guest opinion). We do not.
Two of the most compelling sentences from the guest opinion are: “Our economic stability hinges on tight connections and civility between urban and rural neighbors,” and “If we have learned nothing from the past year’s global pandemic, it is that we prevail when we are united together.”
The Des Moines region continues to get amazing national press coverage on its welcoming nature to immigrants, female workers and tech companies, despite the less than positive national media coverage our state has received during the past legislative session.
Des Moines has a mostly unified region. They have a clearly defined regional vision. They have a regional leader with Jay Byers, the president and CEO of the Greater Des Moines Partnership. They have a strong brand and continue to invest in that brand. And they are rallying around the expansion of the Des Moines International Airport to continue to accelerate growth. They have all the components of a highly successful region, according to economic development guru Michael Langley.
But did you know that community leaders from Des Moines, who were embarking on a regional transformation and visioning process, asked a group of business and community leaders from the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Corridor to come over and brief them on our regionalism efforts nearly 11 years ago, seemingly impressed with what we began after the floods of 2008?
What happened to our momentum?
To be sure, Des Moines has some advantages, such as being the center of state government, a larger population base and a single dominant city, Des Moines, within a region.
We have none of that, which should propel us to work even more diligently on regional cooperation. But we are doing just the opposite. The promising joint venture between the Iowa City Area Development Group (ICAD) and the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance is all but abandoned.
Our Corridor region, which is defined as Kirkwood Community College’s seven-county region, is rudderless. Perhaps regionalism no longer matters?
Yes, we have a great airport and great communities and some intriguing collaboration within counties, like Project Better Together in Johnson County, but that isn’t regionalism. It is just another way of packaging parochialism. Yes, we get some economic development wins like BAE and FedEx, but just imagine what we could do if we really had our act together.
The Des Moines region is behaving as if their region as a whole is greater than their individual communities.
We are acting in just the opposite manner. That does not bode well for us in a global economy where regions win and parochialism loses.
