Drew Wilson
The Florida Council of 100 released a report Tuesday laying out an economic road map for the Sunshine State.
The key takeaway of the Project Sunrise report is that Florida needs to focus on improving in “tradable sectors” that can be easily exported to other states.
“Given Florida’s maturity as a worldwide economic powerhouse in recent years, we have a unique opportunity to lead and chart a path to help Florida become that ‘It’ State — the place where dynamic and exciting innovations lead the way,” said Chris Corr, FC 100’s chair.
“With this framework, Florida can apply the proper mix of talents, efforts, and resources to drive the state’s economy to thrive, en route to an improved quality of life for our citizens.”
FC100 said its recommendations attempt to break down the walls of traditional economic development strategy and integrate all of the considerations that are critical to quality of life.
“Simply put, the policy ways of the past are not necessarily adequate for present-day Florida,” Corr said. “Project Sunrise is intended to provoke this point to create a better path forward.”
To that end, the report offers more than 20 policy options and 90 initiatives to help get that done, with each of them contributing to of six broad goals:
— Human capital: Make Florida the place where talent thrives. Develop the state’s talent pipeline and better match talent supply with economic demand.
— Strategic repositioning: Strategically reposition Florida’s image and reputation as the place to thrive. Shape the national narrative on Florida using a comprehensive re-branding strategy focused on proof points that Florida is the place to thrive.
— Economic development organizations (EDOs): Create high-performance organizational capabilities. Rethink the structure and role of the state’s EDOs to maximize effectiveness based on best practices.
— Public investment: Grow the pie and maximize ROI. Apply public funding in a way that maximizes economic impact and increases available funds without raising taxes.
— R&D and innovation: Help innovation thrive. Promote Florida as the capital of innovation: one of the most desirable, predictable, and highest yielding opportunities for capital investment in the world.
— Health: Make Florida the world’s health capital. Establish goals and policies that lead to Florida being recognized as the healthiest place to live in the world, including leveraging the state’s existing strengths and assets to create a high-performing, high-talent health care, healthy communities, and health innovation sector that competes at the global scale.
“Countless bookcases are filled with reports that provide a snapshot of a moment in time and then sit around gathering dust — but Project Sunrise is not one of them,” said Syd Kitson, vice chair of FC100. “This tells us where we are, but it also provides specific strategies to guide and boost us to where we need to be. Project Sunrise shows the path to sustained economic prosperity for Florida and its growing population.”
In addition to statewide strategies, Project Sunrise also include recommendations for Florida’s top metro areas.
In South Florida, business marketing on par with the area’s current tourism marketing plan can help parlay the region into a global commerce market; in Orlando, doubling down on the R&D and tech industries can help move it away from volatile non-tradables such as tourism; in Tampa Bay, FC100 recommends leveraging area universities to ramp up talent output and providing those graduates with incentives to stick around; and in Jacksonville, taking advantage of its growing tradable sectors, such as health, can insulate it from possible economic decline.
The full Project Sunrise report is available online.
