Editorial: Greater MSP offers hope for growth

Economic hope was dispensed in frothy portions Tuesday night at the Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis, as the new public-private business investment effort dubbed Greater MSP made its formal debut. The enthusiasm with which many of the state's top business and civic leaders greeted the as-yet-unproven organization's launch says much about how thirsty this region is for good economic news.

It's too soon to judge whether Greater MSP can slake that thirst. It should not be expected to do so alone. Still, count us among those cheering its creation.

Greater MSP is a welcome manifestation of the kind of leadership on which this region's prosperity has long depended. It's confident, collaborative and forward-looking. It shows that Minnesota business and political leaders are capable of identifying a shared problem and mounting a serious effort to solve it, without letting partisan strife, crosstown rivalries or recession-depleted resources get in the way.

The new organization has been created largely with corporate funding in response to a report issued 18 months ago by the business-related civic boosters at the Itasca Project. "Charting a New Course: Restoring Job Growth in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Region" was a call to address a sudden, stunning decline in job growth in a region that had economically outpaced the rest of the nation since the 1960s. Among its findings: "The region lacks a unified vision for economic development, a coordinated strategy for driving job growth, and an entity to drive that strategy."

Greater MSP is intended to fill that bill. Its aim is to lure business investment and talented workers, while enlisting homegrown businesses and local governments to spread a common message.

It sums up that message with one good word: Prosper. "Businesses prosper here," the Greater MSP vision statement says.

That's sweet music to Minnesotans accustomed to hearing employers complain about the state's business climate. It's also an accurate description of the region's track record through the last 50 years, the recent downturn notwithstanding. Minnesota is home to 20 Fortune 500 companies. Greater MSP's chief executive officer -- Michael Langley -- and his staff do not lack for past successes to trumpet.

But business investors know well the truth in the slogan, "Past success is not an indicator of future performance." Greater MSP appears to know that, too. Langley said he hopes to make his organization a reliable source of policy research on taxes, infrastructure and education, with an emphasis on the latter. He hopes to deepen Minnesotans' understanding of quality education's importance to their prosperity.

"The most important factor for businesses in making a decision about where they are going to stay and expand, or where they are going to go, is the quality and quantity of available talent to fuel their growth. Talent will trump a tax rate 99 out of 100 times," Langley said.

Count on Greater MSP to amass data that show state policymakers why they need to keep their eyes on the workforce prize. But the organization will not lobby at the Legislature or endorse candidates.

That reticence is understandable for an organization that needs bipartisan credibility and nonpartisan independence. But it puts an additional onus on the business and civic leaders who cheered its launch last night. They are the real stewards of this state's economic well-being. Their responsibility to advocate for policies that shore up the region's economy cannot be outsourced, no matter how able the staff or how clever the marketing.