This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Growing up Muslim The Moving Beyond Racism Book Group will discuss “Muslim Girl A Coming of Age” on Monday, October 1. Author Amani Al-Khatahtbeh was 9 years old on September 11, 2001. Like […]
Rochester economy
Posted inSpecial Sections
Rochester clicks for young professionals
The Rochester region is home to about 20 colleges, universities, and technical schools, which is impressive for a mid-size metro. But despite those offerings, the area’s loss of young professionals continues to concern many business and community leaders in Upstate New York. A Brookings Institute report on education, which is based on data from 2007 […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Good news and cynicism
Several friends have been on my case about focusing on Rochester’s problems so often. Can’t I, they ask, write about some of the good things that are happening here? And certainly there are plenty of good things to write about. Last month, at the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation’s “Changing Fortunes” program, a panel of business […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Upstate, Cuomo, and the state of our state
We’ve turned things around in New York State! We stopped talking and started doing! In three years (coincidently, the Andrew Cuomo years) we’ve reversed decades of decline and made dramatic and undeniable progress! And the progress is not just in the numbers! We can feel it in every region in our state! We have much […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
‘Cliff’ notes
Hold your nose and close your eyes: it looks like we’re going over the fiscal cliff. But the fight Congress is having with President Obama is a bit of a short-term distraction. The deals being discussed in Washington will do little to address the country’s real long-term economic crisis: rebuilding the US work force. Almost […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
They will come
It was at a Little League game that I had a consciousness-raising
experience. One of the dads, a developer, told me his adult son was moving back
to Rochester to work with him. Instead
of being delighted, he was troubled. The economy here is bad and getting worse,
he said. Jobs and people are fleeing the state. Bringing his son here might be,
my friend said, “my biggest mistake ever.”
Posted inNews & Opinion
The Rump coup
There was a time when people complained that business leaders called all the shots in Rochester. Then businesses started consolidating and relocating corporate offices. Big-business commitment and leadership disappeared. And we started longing for the old days. Well, you may have noticed that in City Hall, the old days are back. Last November, Rochester elected […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The XX Files 2.22.06
The people are leaving. They’re packing up their cars and pulling their kids out of school, and they’re leaving and leaving and leaving. They’re looking for work. An average of nearly 1.7 million people has left the state in the past nine years, according to the Manhattan Institute. That’s nearly 200,000 — almost as much […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
The Seligman plan: moving from ‘good’ to ‘great’
The future of Rochester’s economy will be increasingly linked to health care and education, says Joel Seligman, the University of Rochester’s new president. And his goal — to take the university from being a “good institution” to being one of the most prominent educational centers in the country — could impact the region’s economy. “I […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Time bomb
There is a time bomb waiting to blow up in our faces — in Rochester, in Pittsford, in Hamlin, in Webster, in Gates, in Mendon…. The time bomb is the county’s financial situation, severe now, and growing worse. Last year and this year, the county faced major budget deficits. It covered them by, among […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Can we think big?
If Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse worked together as a region, could we get the growth — new companies, new jobs, new people — that’s eluding us? Maybe. We’d certainly have a better chance than if we keep working separately. But boy, do we have a long way to go. Working together as a […]
