Assorted Links Monday

Happy Presidents' Day from the Econ Dev Show.

21 Feb 2022 — 3 min read

People are three times as likely to move to a county 15 miles away, but in the same state, than to move to an equally distant county in a different state. These gaps remain even among neighboring counties or counties in the same commuting zone. This pattern is not explained by differences in county characteristics, is not driven by any particular demographic group, and is not explained by pecuniary costs such as differences in state occupational licensing, taxes, or transfer program generosity.

Used car prices are through the roof:

This week on the Econ Dev Show Podcast:

Lumber prices have never been this high ahead of spring building season: Lumber extends rally on supply, ‘unprecedented’ transport snags.

California leases out container storage sites as part of plan to ease congestion: The state government of California has moved to lease six off-dock properties, with a standing capacity of some 20,000 containers. The move, announced on 15 February, is the latest in a series of steps designed to alleviate supply chain bottlenecks.

Google searches for supply chain fix: Will shippers soon be able to Google their way out of a supply chain crisis? New York-listed Dun & Bradstreet, a provider of business decisioning data and analytics, and Google Cloud have announced a 10-year strategic agreement to to co-develop software and services around supply chain visibility and other business issues.

Seth Godin on sales and the story of money:

A competent salesperson could have said, “Some of our competitors charge $300 and some charge $5,000. We’re right in the middle and I can tell you why.”

Or perhaps they could have said, “Some people charge as little as $300 for this. Let me tell you why we charge a lot more than that, and why it might be a smart choice for you.”

In both cases, the truth becomes a firm foundation for a story about value and position.

Money is a story we tell ourselves about value, status and position.

Four intersting economic development videos I found this weekend:

Neil Linscheid, community economics educator with the University of Minnesota Extension outlines the concepts put forward by Edward Jeep in his article "The Four Pitfalls of Economic Development"-

Explore four common economic development strategies with Brigid Tuck, Economic Impact Analyst with the University of Minnesota Extension.

Economic development is often centered on ensuring that people have access to a livelihood and a local system of support that makes economic prosperity possible. As the role of technology in society and the economy expands, strategies around economic development also need to evolve to make this prosperity possible — especially in communities across rural America.

On September 29, 2014, Professor Michael Porter delivered a keynote speech at Mapping the Midwest's Future, a conference held in Minneapolis and hosted by the University of Minnesota that officially launched the new U.S. Cluster Mapping tool. His presentation focused on U.S. competitiveness and cluster-based economic development, to reshape the approach to economic development in the U.S. based on a deeper understanding of the drivers of competitiveness in the modern global economy.

The professional’s guide to SEO: Link building sneak preview.

The CDC isn’t publishing large portions of the Covid data it collects: The agency has withheld critical data on boosters, hospitalizations and, until recently, wastewater analyses.

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