Economic Development Plan

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Great Recession exposed significant weaknesses in the regional Pima County economy. While most of the nation emerged from the recession by 2010 or 2011, Pima County and Arizona struggled to rebound. Our region was overly reliant on a few sectors, namely defense spending, our large state university and home building. The Great Recession was caused by the popping of the massive housing bubble and Pima County was among the regions of the country most harmed by the pop. Normally robust new home construction came to a screeching halt and existing home values tumbled by nearly 25 percent, ravaging the property-tax-reliant County budget. Moreover, changes in national attitudes toward home ownership, especially by the newly retired and millennials, meant the halcyon days of double-digit growth rates were over. The growth train that had carried our local economy for 50 years was off the tracks. Our region needed a new path to prosperity. County leadership set about blazing that new trail by writing a comprehensive Economic Development Plan in 2012, with significant updates in 2015 and 2017, that is intended to strengthen and diversify the local economy. The plan is bearing fruit. Over the past year, existing major employers have announced expansion plans, new major employers have announced relocations to the County, and the County is now a state leader in high-wage job growth. The uniqueness of the Economic Development Plan is the full integration of nearly the entire County government in growing the economy. From combatting poverty’s drag on growth to transportation infrastructure investment, and from building inspection efficiencies to workforce training, the County has evaluated everything it does in terms of economic development. By adding jobs and growing and diversifying the tax base the County can lower the region’s overall tax burden, improve government services and efficiency and help ensure a prosperous, healthy community.