The Ohio Department of Development is moving in the right direction by encouraging cities and towns to collaborate.

To encourage that thinking, the Ohio Department of Development is putting together incentives, as mayors in 16 northeastern Ohio counties, including Richland, work on a plan to share new tax money.
“The department is reviewing a variety of options to get communities to work together and prevent competition,” said Mark Barbash, chief economic-development officer for the Development Department.

Towns start to cooperate

One suggestion: Look at the WIRED regions to see how they have started to come together. (WIRED stands for Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development. This initiative is a strong effort by the federal government to encourage regional collaboration in regional education, economic development and workforce development.)

There are some important lessons emerging from the WIRED experiment. See WIRED Nation.

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