Diversifying the economy, building a city
Headwinds are rising.
The unemployment rate in Windsor has climbed to 8.3 per cent, the highest in Canada for the second straight month.
FCA will cut its third shift — 1,500 jobs plus spinoffs — in July.
COVID-19 is creating mass havoc. Stock markets dove again Thursday, with trading temporarily halted. The Bank of Canada cut interest rates by half a percentage point, the biggest cut since the financial crisis in 2009 and the first in four years, in response. There are predictions of a recession.
Against this backdrop, Mayor Drew Dilkens is launching what could be Windsor’s most comprehensive and far-reaching attempt to diversify its economy.
As Coun. Fabio Costante said, “We absolutely need to embark on this.”
Few details are being made public now, but city council approved hiring “economic experts,” possibly a “team,” at an undetermined cost at a closed meeting recently, according to Andrew Teliszewsky, chief of staff for Dilkens, who is away this week with his family.
“This is job one,” Teliszewsky said.
“Tonight is the call for all hands on deck,” Dilkens said in his impassioned but sobering inaugural speech in 2018 — rewritten after GM announced it was closing its plant in Oshawa.
“What if Windsor lost its largest employer?” he asked. “I know we like to think it could never happen, but we must think, talk and prepare for this possibility,” he said.
The proposed new diversification strategy and its potential cost could make many people feel “uncomfortable,” he has warned.
Diversifying the economy has been a perennial challenge in this automobile and manufacturing capital. But two things suggest this effort could be much different.
The first is the acknowledgment that there is no silver bullet, that this must be far more substantive.
The sense is that this will be about far more than chasing new plants.
“I definitely want to see action today to reduce that 8.3 per cent unemployment rate,” Coun. Fred Francis said.
So does everyone on FCA’S third shift.
The city must maximize its strengths, he said, citing for example the new bridge and the potential for a logistics hub.
That’s a given, but transformational change — “it’s going to really speak to the fundamental philosophy of how we build our city,” said Costante. “Economic development can’t be seen in isolation. I see economic development and city-building as inextricably linked.”
If we’re trying to attract a major employer, but our downtown has vacant storefronts and panhandlers, “there’s a disconnect, right?” he said.
Many young, talented workers, the kind we need, want more than a job. They want to live in a vibrant city, and that starts with a strong downtown, something people look for.
“So both things have to be aligned, economic development and building a great city, to attract the type of talent, the type of companies we want to invest here,” he said.
Sandwich, in Costante’s ward, has been trying to attract a bank forever. Banks say there’s no business case because there isn’t enough population density. But planned new housing that includes apartments, townhouses, student rooms and units above storefronts will create density that could make a bank and other needed businesses, like a grocery store, more viable.
“If we’re going to help small businesses, it’s really tied to how we build our neighbourhoods because walkable neighbourhoods are better able to support small businesses,” Costante said.
Economic diversification does more than cushion economic declines, said downtown Coun. Rino Bortolin. It brings new types of people and talent to the city, and that fuels regeneration.
“A lot of the regeneration of Detroit’s downtown has come with employees of tech jobs,” he said. “That’s happening across North America in urban areas.”
The second factor that suggests this attempt at diversification will be different is the fact that this isn’t about the mayor flying around the world, drumming up business. There’s a realization that it will take the entire community — business, academia, senior governments, “all the stakeholders you can imagine, pretty much everyone,” Francis said.
Why are our university students leaving? Bortolin asked. Why aren’t there enough skilled tradespeople? You can’t talk about diversifying the economy without talking to the university and college, which are building the pipeline to the new economy. How do you build the kind of neighbourhoods that attract people? he asked. Talk to city planners.
The mayor’s office will be the catalyst, as it should be, but this time, its job will be to lead and co-ordinate the team “so it’s not just ad hoc here and ad hoc there,” said Francis, “so all the options are on the table and we can take advantage of all the opportunities we have.”