Portland Economic Development Strategy

Introduction
Portland city, just like many other cities in the world faced a global economic downtime in sixty years and global advancement away from carbon-based technologies. In the quest to counter local and global problems that include unemployment, retarded economic growth and climate change, the Portland Development Commission developed the Portland Economic Development Strategy in the year 2009 (Song & Gerrit-Jan Knaap 214). This was a five-year strategy aimed at promoting job creation and sustainable economic growth. The Portland Economic Development Strategy was also aimed at achieving a broad-based prosperity by providing equal opportunity and stimulating economic activities throughout the entire city.
Resilience of Portland Community
The Portland Economic Development Strategy document cites the challenges facing Portland city as; lagged economic growth and inadequate investment to spur growth and generate employment. Portland city’s economy is vulnerable to decline in international trade, local consumption, and business investments which make it lag significantly on economic growth compared to its peers like San Francisco and Seattle (Mendes et al. 443). Despite this, the resilience of the Portland community has made ensured that the economy remains the greenest in the United States and that they develop strategies to withstand these challenges.
Despite the various challenges facing Portland city, the community through the Portland Economic Development Strategy outlines the various advantages that the city has and identifies them as opportunities for the city to stand against local and global challenges.

These advantages include
The city of Portland is the greenest in the entire country due to visionary investment that foresaw the current and future phase in the way of life.
The presence of a great number of firms in the green building and clean technology sectors.
The city boasts a diversified base of employers who provide leadership in industrial sectors besides providing a stable source of employment.
The city continues to attract entrepreneurial talent and creative class due to its universally admirable quality of life.
The resilience of Portland community is clearly seen as the strategy is primarily aimed at growing job opportunities by 10,000 in five years through articulating the necessary investment towards the goal. This was necessary to curb increasing unemployment in the city which had nearly tripled from 60,000 to 140,000 by March 2009. The Three-Year status report of July 2012 indicated that the goal was far surpassed as 15,000 jobs had already been created. The Portland Economic Development Strategy was guided by three community-oriented and mutually reinforcing principles, that is;
Collective effort by and equitable distribution of benefits to all the city residents;
Vigilant maintenance of thriving neighborhoods and dynamic central city to maintain the city at a leading position; and
A combined effort involving business, public sector, academia, labor force and not-for-profit community to yield success in economic development.
The success of the program guided by these principles reveals the resilience of Portland’s community. The strategy used was characterized by the passion to have Clean Tech and Sustainable Industries (CSTI) involving firms in green building, waste recycling, renewable energy production and environmental services (Mendes et al. 441). This is an indication of Portland’s resilience in challenging global climate change and defending its position as a leader in green technology and sustainability. The cluster strategy designed to enable employment growth in CSTI sectors and entrepreneurship-driven action plans to increase internal employment creation. This was to be achieved through improved access to capital, training in entrepreneurship and talent development. The action plan to develop internal job creation can be considered as a brilliant solution to the problem of rising unemployment.
Portland Economic Development Strategy Policies
Building sustainable economy where individuals do business and live in a way that has no or very few negative implications on the community, environment and the economy. This is brought about by the understanding that local economy is under threat and hence the necessity to maximize the competitive environment for local business.
Growth in Clean Tech and Sustainable Industries has led to renewed effort to mitigate global challenge pertaining climate change and in particular global warming. Prioritizing green technology firms such as solar power production is essential in minimizing reliance on carbon-based energy and consequent carbon emission which is a global problem.
Higher education policy for supporting the higher education institutions to serve as innovation centers for a sustainable economy. This policy comes with the realization that there is need to educate the general public, especially on entrepreneurship and technology. An entrepreneurship-oriented population is an asset against rising unemployment both locally and globally.
Portland’s Unique Characteristics and as a Model to Other Communities
The city of Portland is uniquely identified with entrepreneurial activity and creative talent. This is attributed to a vast range of investment and policies that promote a sustainable and distinctive urban lifestyle (Song & Gerrit-Jan Knaap 211). Consequently, diverse plans that include development in software and enhanced education and outreach were made to reach out to its population.
Of most importance to other communities are the green economy and public education and empowerment policies. Adaptation of green economy strategies would be beneficial to both the community and globe by reducing pollution. Application of public education strategy is instrumental in creating job opportunities as witnessed in Portland.
Works Cited
Mendes, Wendy, et al. “Using land inventories to plan for urban agriculture: experiences
from Portland and Vancouver.” Journal of the American Planning Association 74.4
(2008): 435-449.
Song, Yan, and Gerrit-Jan Knaap. “Measuring urban form: Is Portland winning the war on
sprawl?.” Journal of the American Planning Association 70.2 (2004): 210-225.