CED Newsletter - May 2011

May 2011

The Newsletter

Greetings!

You are invited to Participate in CED's Strategic Planning Meeting!

In the Fall the Center for Economic Development at CSU, Chico will mark its 25th anniversary as a cornerstone community outreach program in Northeastern California. Started in September 1986, the Center for Economic Development is one of the oldest, most respected economic development programs in the Western United States. In his hallmark work, "Regional Economic Development in the New Economy," the first Center Director, Dr. John Sanzone spoke of the importance of workforce and community amenities (tied to quality of life) as the key drivers of economic prosperity. Over the past 25 years, the Center for Economic Development's service region has grown from 12 counties, to 20 counties, with additional clients located across the state. The Center is known for providing regional decision makers with vital information to make informed decisions. The Center's county profile series and county economic outlook workshops are the key source of information for local community leaders. Larger events, like the Tri County Economic Forecast Conference, draw over 400 attendees annually. Over 20,000 community and business leaders turn to the Center each year to get the best available information and resources.

As we approach our 25th anniversary, we will be conducting a Strategic Planning Meeting. In preparing for this meeting, we are soliciting your input on what you would like to see the Center for Economic Development do. We are looking to explore broad lines of business activities and determine the resources (personnel, training, or products) that we will need to pursue these lines of business. This is your opportunity to tell us what you would like to see us doing, or how we can best serve you and support your needs.

Please send your feedback directly to me at cedplanning@csuchico.edu. I look forward to your input and look forward to reporting on the results of our strategic planning session.

Dan Ripke

Director

Don Krysakowski
Assistant Director

News From CED's Broadband Land

In support of California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Broadband Planning grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Center for Economic Development, CSU, Chico (CED) is working to help California's broadband outreach and adoption efforts.

To date, CED has analyzed broadband penetration rates by census tract, and the overall state average is 70.5 percent (total number of Census 2010 households divided by total number of residential subscriptions). While we understand this number reflects only broadband subscription data as submitted to the FCC semi-annually, we believe penetration will continue to rise with each subsequent FCC data submission from the service providers.

In addition, CED has been reaching out to Sustainable Broadband Adoption (SBA) awardees (also under the NTIA's stimulus funding) throughout California, and due to their direct efforts via community training and events, we already are seeing signs of broadband adoption, especially in hard-to-reach communities (minority, low income-based communities, etc.). However, CED has learned from a few of the SBA working partners that they are experiencing difficulty in quantifying these efforts. Through our data analysis, we expect to be able to provide the quantitative data to measure real progress made by the SBA awardees.

Meanwhile, we here at CED are working diligently to identify the best format for making our data analyses user-friendly. As CED gathers news and information of the SBA awardees and their outreach efforts statewide, we will be developing an online resource of information. Our publicly accessible database will include: results of our broadband penetration analyses; maps (in .pdf format) of broadband penetration rates and their corresponding data tables; and, a referral network to facilitate communications and collaboration among those driving broadband adoption, including their mission, target audiences, and success stories.

Stay posted for updates.

Map of the Month

Percent of Mortgages in Serious Delinquency (90 Days or more past due) by Metropolitan Statistical Area, December 2010

Click on the map below to see full size.