Even though we call our annual Best Metros for Business Expansion and Relocation competition the “Mayor’s Challenge,” the term – Mayor — is often a misnomer. Why do I say that?
After all, metro areas are rarely made up of just one political jurisdiction. Rather, most MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) include numerous counties and smaller cities, each of which usually has its own formal government. While there are one or more major cities in each metro that give it its formal name to the outside world, an MSA is more like a family or sports team than it is a fiefdom under the benign rule of one person: the Mayor (of the namesake city).
A vibrant downtown area is crucial to the health of the overall metro area because it is the part of town most visitors see. Much of the reputation a community has to the outside world is based upon the look and feel of its downtown.
This is the part of the region where people and businesses can be packed in greater density. For law firms, banks, corporate headquarters, financial centers — not to mention the Bohemian arts community — the downtown area provides a sense of exhilaration and pace, not to mention convenience, that many find conducive to their business and lives.
But an MSA is not just the region’s major city, say, Detroit, or Dallas or Kansas City. It’s also the suburban cities and towns, and the unincorporated parts of the county. All one need do is look at the Census figures to see that, while most big cities have seen their populations decline, or at best stagnate, over the past several decades, the outlying suburbs have experienced explosive growth over that same period.
Suburban growth is not just residential sprawl. The suburbs are an integral part of any metro area.
Jobs have migrated out to the suburbs as well, as people trade in an hour-long commute downtown in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a 15-minute ride to their new suburban office, which is often nearby the kids’ daycare or school, as well as being conveniently close to the dry cleaners, grocery store and other amenities that are part of the fabric of everyday life for most Americans.
The unincorporated parts of the county are also a critical part of the overall metro. After all, that’s where most of the unused land is, the “greenfields.” While the suburbs are often most attractive to technology businesses looking to set up a corporate campus in an idyllic setting, there’s enough NIMBY (not in my back yard) spirit in the ‘burbs to force companies to locate their manufacturing facilities or distribution centers farther out of town – to the unincorporated areas of the county, where land is cheaper, roads and infrastructure can be “built to suit,” and zoning is a lot more flexible.
It takes all three parts — the downtown, the outlying suburbs and the unincorporated sections of the county — to make a region thrive. That’s where the teamwork comes in to play. All three have their strengths and weaknesses but, if they cooperate and help each other, the entire region will prosper.
If, on the other hand, they choose to squabble amongst themselves, then the region is doomed to having jobs and people go elsewhere.
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