Why Data Matters
03.13.2010
Jim Wehmeier, economic development director for the Lufkin EDC, in The Lufkin Daily News yesterday:
He said the Project Inbound company looks to make a decision pretty quickly, and would begin operating this summer with approximately 130 employees if it chooses Lufkin as its new home.
The company has a facility in another rural community and was looking for one that is demographically similar, Wehmeier said. He said the company began with a list of more than 500 cities, and narrowed it down to such attributes as how many institutions of higher learning are within so many miles, whether the town has a community college, and tax rates. The company did not know Lufkin was the top-ranked Micropolitan Statistical Area in Texas, but Wehmeier said the statistics that went into that ranking were important to the business.
“We have a lot of economic stability compared to some cities,” he said. “They came in, saw the community and liked it.”
Know where you stand relative to other communities. It will save valuable time during these frantic back-and-forth communications with prospects and consultants. You can start with ZoomProspector.
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About Civic Analytics
Brian Kelsey is an Austin-based economic development consultant and former senior policy advisor at the U.S. Economic Development Administration in Washington, DC. Civic Analytics is his blog about data-driven analysis for understanding community and economic trends. Views expressed here are his own.
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