Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 | PDF format | Index
Brigham City Economic Development
Strategic Plan
Executive
Summary
Adopted Brigham City Council May
31, 2001
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
"Says T.J. Rodgers, founder of Cypress Semiconductor: 'the winners and losers in the information age will be differentiated by brainpower. It takes 2 percent of Americans to feed us all, and 5 percent to make everything we need. Everything else will be service and information technology, and in that world humans and brains will be the key variable.'"
"Our geo-architect certainly would have designed a country that still had a lot of environmentally attractive, wide-open spaces and small towns, to attract knowledge workers. Because today, thanks to the Internet, fax machines and overnight package delivery, high-tech firms and knowledge workers can escape from urban centers and settle virtually anywhere they want. So having lots of lush green valleys not far from oceans or mountains can be a real asset."
-The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman
"For the emerging workforce of the digital electronic era, 'the best benefit will be the quality of life in the community in which the worker lives,' and … many cities will compete not for firms, but for talented and skilled workers. …The real role for local government will be to 'increase the livability of communities as an attractor of talent," and to be 'entrepreneurial in devising products and services that can sustain social capital within the community.'"
-Where I'm @, William J. Mitchell, quoting Edward J. Blakely, Journal of the American Planning Association, Spring 2001
The purpose of this economic development strategic plan is to develop strategies the City can employ in its economic development efforts. These strategies should accomplish the following:
- Trigger public and private
investment in Brigham City.
- Enhance the quality of
life enjoyed by current and future Brigham City residents.
- Increase revenues to the
City without disproportionately increasing demand for public services
or tax rates.
- Increase the median income
of Brigham City residents.
- Accomplish the goals of the Brigham City General Plan.
The Strategic Plan was developed by a group of stakeholders chosen to represent the broadest cross-section of the political, economic, and social life of Brigham City. Stakeholders were divided into two broad categories, internal and external. Internal stakeholders are stakeholders who are elected or appointed officials of Brigham City. They are "internal" to the organization developing the strategic plan. External stakeholders are elected or appointed officials of governmental bodies other than Brigham City, as well as representatives of businesses, utilities, and community groups. These stakeholders are "external" to Brigham City as a governmental body, although they may or may not live or do business in Brigham City.
A Community Situation Analysis, developed by David R. Kolzow, Ph.D. and described in "Strategic Planning for Economic Development" (Kolzow 1998) was utilized to poll internal and external stakeholders about their perception of Brigham City's strengths and weaknesses in a variety of areas. These results were combined with information gathered in the first stakeholders; meeting to describe the stakeholders; perception of Brigham City's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or SWOT.
SWOT information was combined and compared with issue identification discussion in the second stakeholders' meeting, as well as comments from the Brigham City General Plan, and an analysis of current projects, proposals, and initiatives to identify the strategic issues to be addressed by the plan.
Issues were organized into groups of related issues, referred to in the plan as "Issue Sets". These issue sets included geographic setting, quality of life, infrastructure and services, and economic development program. These issue sets included a total of 17 issues.
Using the information gathered through the issue identification process, the stakeholders identified goals specific to each issue set. These goals were developed during the third stakeholders' meeting and were refined by staff using the input gained during that meeting and taking into account other planning efforts, current and ongoing projects, and literature searches. The Brigham City General Plan was also consulted to insure coordination with its goals. Goals were established addressing each of the17 issues identified in the four issue sets.