Economic Development

The ABAG Legislation Committee, the ABAG Finance Committee, the Advancing California Finance Authority Governing Board and the ABAG Executive Board will meet on Thursday, May 17, at the Bay Area Metro Center, beginning at 4:00 p.m. Read on for a preview of major meeting topics and for links to the full meeting agendas. Read More

The latest U.S. Census data from the 2016 County Business Patterns series shows continued overall growth for the nine-county Bay Area in employment as well as the number of business establishments. While the news is mostly good, the data also reveals some soft spots, and further highlights some of the disparities that have developed between different parts of the Bay Area, as well as between different industries. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into the latest data to look at: Bay Area Employment, or the number of employees as of the First Quarter of a given year, and Bay Area Business Read More

Over at the Upshot, Emily Badger is asking a difficult, important question: What happens when globalization and technology cause big, rich cities in the U.S. to lose their links to smaller cities and rural areas? The piece starts with an examination of how the Bay Area economy has changed over recent decades: Well before anyone thought of this place as the center of the tech economy, the Bay Area built ships. And it did so with the help of many parts of the country. Douglas fir trees logged in the Pacific Northwest were turned into lumber schooners here. Steel from the East, brought in by Read More