Following last week’s excerpt from David Wessel’s new book on Opportunity
Zones, this week two experts on state fiscal health from the Pew
Charitable Trusts explore strategies to strengthen place-based programs
and better support distressed areas.
RCLCO Real Estate Consulting has released its 2021 STEM Job Growth Index (which it has named
the STEMdex) identifying which cities are poised for the greatest growth
in STEM. The index, first created in 2016 in collaboration with CapRidge
Partners, examines 24 indicators grouped in four categories: STEM
Trends/Economic Factors (including population growth metrics,
industry-specific growth and location quotient metrics, and STEM wages),
Workforce Quality (including the growth of millennial households and
educational attainment levels), Quality of Life/Health (including cost
of living factors, commute times, walk scores, and more), and Business
Climate (including office costs, local tax environments, and other
metrics). Here are the top 10:
Denver, Colorado
Seattle, Washington
Austin, Texas
San Francisco, California
Washington, D.C.
San Jose, California
Raleigh, North Carolina
Boston, Massachusetts
Portland, Oregon
Salt Lake City, Utah
Among other findings, the only states with multiple cities in the top 20
are Texas, California (three cities each), and North Carolina (two
cities). “Boston, San Diego, Minneapolis, and Washington D.C. have
entered the top 20 for the first time as strong economic trends point to
robust future growth,” says RCLCO. “While it remains far too early to
fully assess how the COVID-19 pandemic and any current or future
variants will continue to impact our daily lives, another year of data
has given us increased confidence in the growth prospects for STEM jobs,
particularly in the regions highlighted by the 2021 STEMdex,” said Gregg
Logan, managing director of RCLCO. In the latest 10-year industry
employment projections released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(published in September 2021), higher than average employment growth,
particularly for STEM jobs, is forecast.
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“League of Legends” creator Riot Games announced October 28 that it will
open a new Remote Broadcast (RBC) and Content Production Center in
Dublin, Ireland. Riot Games and its Esports Technology Group (ETG) are
“growing to enable efficient, game-agnostic production of esports
content, through technical innovation, standardized workflows and shared
infrastructure,” said the announcement from IDA Ireland. “The RBC in
Dublin will be the first of up to three facilities in a global
follow-the-sun model, with each RBC having the ability to produce six
events simultaneously across production and audio rooms, bullpens and
live stages, all built upon a scalable technology backbone for future
growth.” The RBC will be located in Airside Retail Park, Swords, County
Dublin and will create more than 120 jobs across broadcast engineering,
production, control crew and event production. Riot Games first set up
its EMEA Headquarters in Ireland in 2010 and has grown over the past
decade to 165 employees in its Dublin city center office. Watch this
space next week for further coverage of the exploding esports sector.
Facebook on October 27 announced (on Facebook) that the company is
expanding its Los Lunas Data Center by two new buildings with an $800
million investment that will bring the site’s numbers to $2 billion
invested, more than 400 operations jobs and 3.8 million sq. ft.
developed since ground was first broken at the site exactly five years
ago. The company also announced a new goal to restore 200% of the water
the data center consumes into the New Mexico watersheds. “To date, we
have invested in a total of five local water restoration projects, and
in 2020, these projects restored approximately 64 million gallons of
water right here in New Mexico,” the company said. “We are also
announcing that we are partnering with Lokket and Valencia County to
bring free WiFi to up to 900 homes in the area.” Meanwhile, the
company’s portfolio of renewable energy generation continues to grow in
the state too, with two new solar projects bringing the total to 10
projects across six counties.
The Government Accountability Office this week unveiled a
new report on Opportunity Zones. According to the IRS, over
6,000 Qualified Opportunity Funds have invested about $29 billion in
Opportunity Zones through 2019. The incentive attracted investment in
housing, renewable energy businesses, and other projects. The IRS
“developed plans to ensure these funds comply with requirements,” the
GAO states. “But its plans depend on data that isn’t readily
accessible—which could make it hard for [the] IRS to find investors who
aren’t following the rules. We recommended addressing this risk.”
PHOTO OF THE
DAY
Photo courtesy of Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS)
James Varhegyi made this photo yesterday of a U.S. Air Force graphic he
created at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, an 8,000-acre base that
encompasses 30,000 employees, operational support for more than 100
associate units and an economic impact of $4.2 billion per year. In 1954
Congress passed a bill, which was then signed into law by President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, establishing Veterans Day as a National Holiday.
Each year since, November 11 — the date the armistice agreement was
signed in 1918 to end World War I — is a day meant to honor all military
veterans.
