Bike to Work Day, May 16, in Duluth was spectacularly successful.

Read, see the coverage.

The News Tribune has a front page story here, as well as an editorial here.

You can also see a video of coverage from KBJR’s coverage here.

And some blog coverage here.

The Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation is celebrating its 25th Anniversary today at their annual meeting at the DECC. Read the story from the News Tribune.

The KCCI project was hosted by the Community Foundation in Duluth-Superior, but you should take a look at the other great initiatives sponsored or hosted by the organization here.

Remember that Friday, May 16 is Bike to Work Day in Duluth. Rally at 9 a.m. in Minnesota Power Plaza. Free DTA bus rides for people with bikes. Panel discussion on the future at 2 p.m. in the Holiday Inn.

How is Bike to Work Day and week going elsewhere in the country.

In Minneapolis, events have been happening all week.

Click here for more news from Minneapolis.

The San Francisco Bay Area is always a hotbed for exciting things around bicycles and community. Read this.

A Washington DC update is here.

But it’s not just restricted to the big cities. Take a look at this effort in New Hampshire and Vermont to get people out of their cars and onto bicycles.

Here’s a national organization’s set of links and events.

Bike Friday.

Bike to Work Day
Friday May 16, 2008

Free DTA bus rides for bicyclists
Use of the YMCA for bike storage & showers
Events:

Rally:

Minnesota Power Plaza
(corner of Superior St and Lake Ave)
Refreshments, bike safety checks & bicycle info.
7:00am-9:00am

Bike in Duluth - Panel Discussion
Downtown Holiday Inn, Lake Huron Ballroom
Light, healthy appetizers will be served (vegetables, fruit, cheese, etc.)
2:00pm-4:00pm

Free DTA Rides are offered to anyone to bikes and buses on Friday.

Check out the DTA Website Here.

The magazine Governing, the monthly feature magazine for elected officials published by Congressional Quarterly, has a story this month about the different ways that universities can drive the economy of regions. The article focuses on the impact of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, but also delves into the growing realization that universities drive the economy of regions in more ways than many communities previously realized.

Not only do the universities produce technology for local companies to benefit, but they draw additional investment to an area, bring in fresh talent, and are generally better than average employers.

In Northeast Minnesota, colleges and universities (both the 4-year and the 2-year variety) have proved to be good employers, with both the number of jobs and the wages growing at much better than average. See an article here.

A new report in the Economist magazine talks about the great demand for executives and other top talent for companies responding to the Green movement.

In the article, Peter Rothstein, a venture capitalist, says “A lack of talent, especially entrepreneurial talent, was one of the biggest bottlenecks to growth we identified in the clean-tech industry.”

Read the whole article here. To counter the problem, some of the venture capitalists have set up a special training program to teach entrepreneurs what they need to know about the science, the government regulations, and the unique financing required in the clean energy business.

But also look at some of the excitement growing in the Twin Ports through programs like those set up by Sustainable Twin Ports.

A New York Times Magazine article by William Galston and Pietro S. Nivola makes the claim that as a country we are more divided than we have ever been: but divided by geography and therefore politics. In other words, we are more likely to live near people who are like ourselves and vote like ourselves.

A quote: “Meanwhile, young people have deserted rural and older manufacturing areas for cities like Austin and Portland. Places with higher densities of college graduates attract even more, so that the gap between such communities and less-educated areas widens further. Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes. Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.”

Read the whole article here.

Reinvigorating the Great Lakes with GLUE

Friday, May 16, 12 noon

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,

30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!

How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

Speakers:

Jennifer Hawkins, Senior Economic Development Analyst, Minnesota Power.

John Bennett, Regional Extension Educator, University of Minnesota Extension

GLUE, which stands for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, is an organization formed in late 2007. Its mission is to serve as a forum for people to exchange stories, ideas, and best practices between otherwise isolated Great Lakes cities. The GLUE coalition is currently made up of over 20 Great Lakes cities and is working to promote the power, aid in the transformation, and address the shared challenges of similarly-storied older industrial cities. Come hear more about this initiative and how you can be a part of it from one of the young professionals spearheading Duluth’s involvement.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website: http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

It’s not just this region, but the entire country is starting to get worried about what’s going to happen over the next few years. Fortunately, Northeast Minnesota and Northwest Wisconsin have been working for years on strategies to handle the boomer retirements.

Take a look at this Washington Post story.

How well is a community doing? There are thousands of statistics to pick and choose from. An exciting new project in Minnesota, the Compass Project, is underway in the Twin Cities and working on expanding outward to the rest of Minnesota.

Take a look at their extensive website here.

In the Twin Cities, they have the backing of a long list of foundations and key organizations ranging from the Bush Foundation to the Wilder Foundation. As part of Duluth Mayor Don Ness’s frist 100 days in office speech, he said he’d like to see the project extended to Duluth. The idea is to make sure there’s a good “dashboard” of indicators across many sectors to give everyone in town a good (and simple) way of understanding how the community is doing. Using many indicators is a useful way of approaching an understanding of community. Many times, leaders look at simple economic indicators that might not tell you that while the economy as a whole is doing well, those at the bottom are really struggling.

Itasca Economic Development does a nice job of using a variety of indicators to show how their community is doing. Their reports are available here.