Kelly O’Brien, the president and CEO of the Alliance for Regional Development, was the keynote speaker at the annual BizTimes Commercial Real Estate and Development Conference. The Alliance is a coalition of business, government and academia working to strengthen the economic competitiveness of Chicago’s tri-state megaregion, a 21-county area that includes southeastern Wisconsin.
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“For the (most recent) 10-year period, the national average for economic growth was 6.2 percent. Our region was 2.4 percent.”
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“What we are doing isn’t working. It has been decades that we have been lagging behind other metro regions. It means people have to work together.”
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“You have no idea what I have been through trying to break down the barriers, trying to change the culture, of economic development.”
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“If we want to compete on the global stage, we have got to forget about these arbitrary state lines.”
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“Traditional economic development is business location and relocation. And there should be sharp elbows when it comes to that. But there are other areas where we need to work together.”
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“There are so many issues where people do not want to work with the county next door, never mind the county across the state line. We’ve got to change that mentality.”
