当我们一起工作时，我们更有效率

As we approach the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina this summer, 新奥尔良的经济前景正在好转.

Louisiana State University economists recently projected that the Big Easy will add more than 17,在接下来的两年里，我们将减少1000个工作岗位.¹ Forbes recently cited New Orleans as the fastest growing city in America.²

但这仅仅是个开始. New Orleans' economy is poised to grow even more thanks to an innovative approach to economic development -- one that is poised for a big boost nationwide as cities turn to new methods to expand their economies and grow the businesses that call them home.

The strategy turns on what's known as a "business cluster" -- a concentration of closely related and interconnected businesses that share resources and ideas. The result is the creation of local networks of individuals with similar professional interests and expertise, which benefits the businesses within the clusters, 以及他们周围的经济体.

早在1990年, economists promoted the idea of using business clusters to boost economic development. 在这中间的几十年里, more and more cities and regions have embraced this approach and the results from these efforts are substantial. The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City recently analyzed data from the ten largest cities in the United States that looked at economic growth trends between 2003- 2011. The results were impressive: businesses in well-established clusters grew three times faster and had a higher job retention rate than other local businesses.

New Orleans has ample experience with the benefits of business clusters. 在卡特里娜飓风的破坏之后, the city invested tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure that reflected the city's interest in helping businesses to take advantage of the city's unique assets.

The effort didn't just rebuild the city -- it catapulted New Orleans past almost all others nationwide. Between 2009 and 2012, New Orleans' annual growth averaged 6.3 percent, the highest of any city in the United States.

大力提倡企业集群, 澳博官方网站app launched "小型企业 Forward" (SBF) to help spur exactly the kind of growth seen in clusters in metropolitan markets across America, 包括新奥尔良.

在新奥尔良, SBF已经提供了500美元,000 to several organizations in the health sector -- one of New Orleans' fastest growing industries according to Louisiana Economic Development. One of the drivers of this growth is the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, an incubator that offers the supportive infrastructure that small business owners and entrepreneurs need to help launch and grow promising businesses.³>

RenaissanceRX就是这样一家公司. 生物创新中心的毕业生, the young life sciences company recently announced it had secured $8 million to build a new headquarters and will be hiring 425 people at an average salary of $52,000. This kind of expansion is exactly the growth that clusters are built to encourage, and the kind of success story we hope to see replicated in clusters across America.

The BioInnovation Center is located in BioDistrict, a 1500-acre health campus.⁴ With close proximity to LSU's Health Science Center as well as Tulane and Xavier Universities and extensive local and national support, BioDistrict is poised to become the anchor for a health cluster.

The success of business clusters often leads to more success, 因为其他公司也想加入进来. 美国.S. 小型企业 Administration launched a regional cluster grant program in 2010. Within two years, the number of businesses in its ten clusters had grown by 380 percent. Those same businesses also saw their employment grow by an average of 18 percent.

很明显, business clusters represent a promising model for urban economic development, one that is proving itself both here and around the world. The economic contributions that cities make to the country's overall economic growth can hardly be overstated. A recent report from the Brookings Institution found that in 2013, 47个州是“大都市占多数”," which accounted for more than 50 percent of a state's total economic output. 从总体上看, the findings showed that cities accounted for 86 percent of total employment and 90 percent of the country's GDP.

多亏了小型企业集群, we hopefully will see more success stories like RenaissanceRX, 加强城市建设, 创造就业机会, 扩大我们的经济.