Ventura County Civic Alliance update for Aug. 15

by Bruce Stenslie

From our perspective at the Economic Development Collaborative–that is, with a concentration on business development and entrepreneurship, for the purpose of enhancing the quality of life throughout Ventura County–we’d like to concentrate our comments on four points:

First, we know that collectively we all bear an enormous responsibility for maintaining and enhancing our regional quality of life.  Effective contributions to that responsibility presume that we know who we are, what our condition is, and what needs attention.  On that front, the State of the Region Report and these convenings provide two enormous contributions.  The first, of course, is the extraordinary breadth and depth of data.  The second is how the Report responds to the adage, “it’s not what you know; it’s who you know it with.” The point being, the Report doesn’t just report on our condition; it builds community and contributes to the shared knowledge essential for collective action. For that, we owe a great thanks to the Civic Alliance and Community Foundation.

Second, in our role in looking at the economic data, we enormously appreciate that the data is integrated into and presented in this larger information context, not in isolation.  We have plenty of economic reports.  We have only one community indicator report.  This larger context helps assure that we approach our economic condition as an element of a triple bottom line consideration, that is, how we are doing, not just in terms of economic indicators, but also in terms of social equity and environmental balance–all three essential to a holistic quality of life.

Third and fourth, more on substance, two key issues pop out of the data:

The first is a highlight of our local housing crisis.  The problem is real.  Employers struggle to attract skilled workers that can afford to live here.  An over-concentration of personal spending on housing harms families and the larger economy.  Our kids take their educations and talents and move away for more affordable opportunity. Encouragingly, with the spotlight on the problem we see the emergence of healthy discussions on solutions: increased density, creative public/private partnerships, innovations for investing in infrastructure and incentivizing investment, and a chill-out on parking requirements.  Housing stock and affordability are problems that won’t solve themselves and won’t be fixed by a single solution.  The good news is with the data in hand we can agree that there’s a problem to be solved.

The second point of substance is the emerging evidence that suggests we’re stalling in our post-recession recovery.  Wages aren’t increasing; we’re creating very few new jobs, and we’re losing mostly high paying jobs and gaining jobs in lower paying sectors.  While the unemployment rate is encouragingly low, our labor force growth is barely positive over ten years and our overall economic growth lags nearly every region of the state.  The burdens from the declining opportunity fall disproportionately on our lower income families.

Our motivation for taking on these problems is buoyed by our confidence that Ventura County leadership won’t settle for less than an optimal quality of life, equitably distributed, with considerations for economic growth and opportunity balanced with attention to social justice and environmental health.

With the 2017 State of Region Report in hand, we are collectively informed, collectively responsible.  You can’t ask for more than that.