(PA) Prosperity Agenda- Clusters and City Hall

Once clusters have been identified, mapped and named, what can Brandon's City Hall do to advance the growth and sustainability of our economic clusters?

Establish a solid foundation: supporting the specific frame of every cluster in the City are various attributes and characteristics. These include:

• Brandon and Westman's educational assets such as Brandon University, Assiniboine Community College, the Fire College, and the K-12 school divisions;
  
• the physical infrastructures of the City- roads, water and sewer, IT connectivity;
• Brandon's attractiveness to creative talent- Richard Florida's research into the economic importance of the creative class and the roles that aspects such as culture, heritage, and diversity can play in attracting and retaining these people are just coming to the forefront of economic development practices;
• Aligning the efforts of our educational system, the workforce, and our economic institutions- Putting these key players around the table creates a solid partnership base and opens further opportunities.

Build relationships: Successful cluster strategy is built on inter-firm collaboration and the tacit knowledge that resides in people and processes. Cluster leadership councils and associations help facilitate the dissemination of this knowledge as well as provide an effective lobbying and public advocacy voice.

Deepen skills and talent: Educational facilities play a lead role in ensuring that clusters have the workforce that they need to be successful. City Hall can be a link between industry and education, and this role will be explored further in the One Smart City postings in this blog.

Align innovation investments: Investments in research and development, centres of excellence, and business innovation are critical components to economic growth and cluster-strategy development. For a city its size, Brandon's economic base has access to unique R&D capabilities within their College and University. Currently, the limited collaboration in healthcare, agriculture, and environmental research only scratches the surface of the potential opportunities of private sector partnership with our educational institutions.

Accelerate entrepreneurship: Talent and research are necessary, but it takes entrepreneurship to translate good ideas into successful products and services. Brandon's City Hall and the Mayor can support entrepreneurship by supporting entrepreneurial networks, the Chamber of Commerce, creating cluster-focused incubators, organizing small-business centres around cluster expertise, and encouraging entrepreneurship education in highschools, the College and the University. Brandon ranked 31 of 36 Canadian cities in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business listing.

Open global opportunities: Successful clusters extend their networks to distant markets, vendors, and institutions. City Hall can help support this growth by supporting participation in international conferences, trade shows, and study tours.


Clusters are not silver bullets, but rather one arrow in a quiver of opportunities for economic development. Properly designed and applied, they offer a promising way to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth and can play a key role in establishing Brandon's Prosperity Agenda.


The Prosperity Agenda is a series of postings exploring economic development opportunities for the City of Brandon. City Hall needs to provide leadership to provide a progressive economic strategy for our community, to encourage a new era of income growth, as well as promote a broad-based prosperity that produces the widest possible impact. I'd love to hear from you and can be reached at shariformayor@gmail.com.