Portland’s Food Economy: Trends and Contributions

The primary goal of this report is to document the scope, growth, and contribution of the food economy to the city of Portland and the region. Specifically, this report addresses the following research questions: What is the food economy, and how is it defined? What is the size of Portland’s food economy, and how has it changed in recent years? How is the food economy distributed spatially within the city and the region? How is this changing? What kind of employment opportunities does Portland’s food economy offer? How do they compare to the broader economy? Who works in Portland’s food economy? How has Portland’s food economy performed relative to national trends? What is the broader impact and contribution of the Portland food economy to the overall regional economy, and to state and local government finances

Talent on the Move: Migration Patterns of the Young and College-Educated in Pre and Post-Recession America – Migration Trends Across the Largest Midwestern Metros

In the most recent period, 2012-2014, the Midwest’s largest metro areas attracted and retained almost 37,000 YCE migrants, which is almost double the number during the Great Recession period. Although the region’s largest city, Chicago, recorded the largest net in/migration of YCEs (11,033) in 2012-2014, Kansas City recorded the highest NMQ of YCEs (18.6 percent), followed by Columbus, OH (18.5 percent) and Detroit (16.4 percent). Detroit’s turnaround is particularly noteworthy; the Motor City metro posted the second highest change in NMQ values between the two periods (second only to Birmingham). Two metros reported a net out/migration of YCEs, one being Buffalo (-14.5 percent), and the other being Milwaukee (-7.0 percent)

Centering Work: Integration and Diffusion of Workforce Development within the U.S. Manufacturing Extension Network

As the U.S. economy rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, strategies that promote long-term transformation toward high-quality jobs will be critical. This includes workplace-improving interventions that enable employers to upgrade existing jobs, often while enhancing their own competitive position. This paper focuses on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a national network of federally funded centers that support small and medium-sized manufacturing firms. We document the range of workforce- and workplace-enhancing strategies that MEP centers have adopted since the network’s inception in the mid-1990s. While workforce development is unevenly implemented across today’s MEP network, leading centers within the network are devising transformative strategies that shape underlying business practices in ways that can improve the quality of front-line manufacturing jobs. The pandemic recovery, along with federal commitment to reenergize domestic supply chains, presents an opportunity to establish NIST-MEP as a national workforce-development leader while also strengthening localized institutional partnerships to center that effort on inclusive economic development and recovery

Northeast Minnesota Industry Cluster Study

Saint Paul: University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and Bureau of Business and Economic Research University of Minnesota-Duluth.This major study explored factors contributing to the economic competitiveness of northeastern Minnesota communities and counties. It has a strong focus on economic and industrial development. The study focuses on four “clusters”: forest products, tourism, health services and information technology. The first two clusters are assumed to require an adequate supply of water, and are assumed to greatly influence the quality and quantity of water available for multiple uses. Summary: "This regional study sought to understand the issues shaping the competitiveness of Northeast Minnesota’s industry clusters. The study follows the Michael Porter 'industry cluster' approach to understanding competitiveness. The project identified four clusters for the region: 1) forest products, 2) tourism, 3) health services, and 4) information technology. Focus groups and individual interviews with local business leaders and economic development professionals offered insight into the industries. The study region encompassed a twelve-county area of northeastern Minnesota that centered on the city of Duluth (St. Louis County). Also included are Aitkin, Carlton, Chisago, Cook, Isanti, Itasca, Kanabec, Koochiching, Lake, Mille Lacs, and Pine Counties.

Web-Based, Participant-Driven Studies Yield Novel Genetic Associations for Common Traits

Despite the recent rapid growth in genome-wide data, much of human variation remains entirely unexplained. A significant challenge in the pursuit of the genetic basis for variation in common human traits is the efficient, coordinated collection of genotype and phenotype data. We have developed a novel research framework that facilitates the parallel study of a wide assortment of traits within a single cohort. The approach takes advantage of the interactivity of the Web both to gather data and to present genetic information to research participants, while taking care to correct for the population structure inherent to this study design. Here we report initial results from a participant-driven study of 22 traits. Replications of associations (in the genes OCA2, HERC2, SLC45A2, SLC24A4, IRF4, TYR, TYRP1, ASIP, and MC1R) for hair color, eye color, and freckling validate the Web-based, self-reporting paradigm. The identification of novel associations for hair morphology (rs17646946, near TCHH; rs7349332, near WNT10A; and rs1556547, near OFCC1), freckling (rs2153271, in BNC2), the ability to smell the methanethiol produced after eating asparagus (rs4481887, near OR2M7), and photic sneeze reflex (rs10427255, near ZEB2, and rs11856995, near NR2F2) illustrates the power of the approach

Is Portland Really the Place Where Young People Go To Retire? Analyzing Labor Market Outcomes for Portland’s Young and College-Educated

Few segments of the population are more critical to Portland’s future economic vitality than the young and college‐educated (YCE). In the last several decades the Portland metropolitan region has become a magnet for YCEs nationally, boasting one of the country’s highest net migration rates for college‐educated individuals under the age of 40, a trend that has continued in good economic times and bad. The infusion of human capital from other regions has undoubtedly been a benefit to Portland, especially given Oregon’s historically low levels of investment in higher education. However, in recent years there has been growing concern about the poor labor market prospects for Portland’s YCEs, in particular the problem of underemployment. The television show Portlandia has amusingly captured this concern, dubbing the city the place where young people go to retire. To the extent that Portland’s YCEs face a chronically difficult job market, there is cause for concern that college graduates will stop moving to Portland, or that those who have moved here won’t stay

Is Portland Really the Place Where Young People Go To Retire? Migration Patterns of Portland’s Young and College-Educated, 1980-2010

For many metro areas, including Portland, being economically competitive in today’s knowledge and information economy depends on attracting and retaining young, college-­‐educated (YCE) migrants. On this indicator, Portland has been most successful: since 1980, the Portland metropolitan region has attracted college-­‐educated individuals under the age of 40 at some of the country’s highest net migration rates in good economic times and bad. Though not unique to Portland, the resiliency of Portland’s migration streams, even in periods of economic uncertainty, calls attention to an increasingly selective group of YCE migrants who appear to place greater relative value on non-­‐economic factors—from political milieu to access to quality public transportation—compared to employment opportunities. This trend directly challenges a long-­‐established cornerstone of traditional migration theory suggesting that the decision to move is predicated on benefits exceeding costs, and linked to the importance of jobs and economic opportunity as attractive forces for working-­‐age households. Reading between the lines of recent media accounts, and in particular the television show Portlandia, the shift from economic to non-­‐economic factors has been portrayed in a most interesting way: because young migrants to Portland place relatively low value on work and traditional careers, their desire to exchange employment opportunities for quality of life (amenity) factors indeed makes Portland the city “where young people go to retire.” The question is: in the short and long-­‐term, how sustainable is Portland’s trend of attracting and retaining YCE migrants if labor market outcomes continue to remain worse compared to other metro areas? What are the facts? In this paper we draw upon U.S. Census Bureau data from the 2000 Census and more recent American Community Surveys from 2005-­‐2007 and 2008-­‐2010, to compare migration patterns in Portland to the other 50 largest U.S. metros

Are First Source Hiring Agreements Effective? Evidence from Oregon

Local economic development policies are often justified in terms of their employment impacts on populations and communities in need, but evidence suggests the linkages are indirect, at best. To improve the social return on economic development investments, several cities and states have developed “First Source Hiring” policies that obligate employers receiving economic development incentives to utilize publicly‐sponsored workforce services, improving the odds of targeting benefits to disadvantaged groups. But the evidence on the efficacy of these policies is lacking. Using administrative data for two Oregon counties, this research examines whether the initiation of a First Source Hiring Agreement affects who employers hire, their use of public workforce systems, and labor turnover rates. This research will inform labor market policy efforts to enhance the employment outcomes for disadvantaged workers and populations, and make local economic development efforts more effective and accountable