QUALITy OF P LACE
Strategic Goal
Step Across the Digital Divide Focus resources on access to and investment in technology. The traditional workday is becoming a thing of the past. Creative professionals work when and where they need to, to get the job done. This might be on a laptop computer in a coffee shop, in a home office, or in a small office in a neighborhood district. Creative professionals are mobile. They change jobs more frequently and as a result, want to be in areas with multiple job and career opportunities. Fresno must develop a technological fabric if it is to develop the variety of opportunities necessary to keep local talent. A technology-based economy allows people to hire creative services to further develop their businesses. A healthy small business economy will support web designers, graphic artists, advertising creatives, writers and others who will boost Fresno businesses into other regions. A commitment to technology, innovation and entrepreneurship will keep business profits within the local economy. Every website designed by a local resident, every meal purchased in a Fresno-owned restaurant, every purse made by Hmong immigrants, every peach produced by a local farmer will keep more money inside our economy to be respent locally. Creative professionals seek to use their talents and skills, to develop them further and to see the results of their abilities. Factory work, warehouses and distribution centers all add jobs to the economy, but not the kinds of jobs that are going to keep and attract knowledge workers and creatives. Knowledge workers are plugged-in and are online, and they must have the infrastructure to support this. Recognizing the City’s limited resources, we believe that it is imperative to prioritize economic development efforts to support local entrepreneurship, local business expansion, and local business networks. If resources are spent on business attraction, they should be spent luring businesses that add to the depth of creative occupational opportunities.
Recommendations Move forward with the Metropolitan Area Network project. Address the accessibility of T1 lines for small businesses. Provide free Wireless (Wi-Fi) access to the downtown core. Review city policies to support the technological needs of start-up business. eview fee structures to support local businesses investing in and developing new R technologies. stablish policies that help the City’s purchasing power to go toward locally-owned E businesses.
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