Bluestone touts strategy for successful growth to Lynn’s business partnership

LYNN – Why would anyone choose to live at Boston’s pricey Rowes Wharf when they could live on the Lynn waterfront at perhaps half the cost and with an equally beautiful ocean view, and still be within 30 minutes of the city by commuter ferry?That was the rhetorical question asked by Dr. Barry Bluestone, director of the Dukakis Center of Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University and founding dean of Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. He gave an optimistic vision of Lynn’s potential to city and business leaders Wednesday morning at a Lynn Business Partnership forum at the Eastern Bank offices on the Lynnway.Bluestone, leader of a think tank that studied Lynn last spring, said the city is well positioned for economic growth and development. During the past year, he said, he has visited city and business leaders here five times, something he said he has rarely done in any community because of time constraints.See also: Cowdell points out Lynn’s futureAnd he explained why.”When I was growing up in Detroit in the 1950s and ’60s, Detroit was the richest city in America. It had the highest family income of any city in the country; of course that was based on the auto industry and the UAW, which took the profits of the auto industry and spread the wealth.”Lynn was also one of the most rich communities in the whole country, in part because of GE’s Aircraft Engine plant, which I studied very closely in a book I wrote in the 1970s called ‘Aircraft Industry Dynamics.’ Because of my roots in Detroit and because of Lynn’s history, this is a city I love being in ? I fell in love with Lynn, fell in love with its people and fell in love with its prospects.”Keys to economic successBluestone explained that his team at Northeastern, after exhaustive interviews with members of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NIOP) and CORENET, a trade group of commercial site specialists, developed a 230-question community self-assessment survey. This is the survey he and his team administered in Lynn at the request of the Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce, and which has also been given to approximately 60 other Bay State communities and 20 others as far as Florida and Washington State.”We came to Lynn and went through this entire (survey), about what you’re doing in terms of lease rates, wage rates, schools, roads and transportation, how long it takes to get zoning variances and building permits ?”He said his team took that information and processed it through a computer at Northeastern with software that analyzes it and produces a report comparing the city to others studied.”Lynn looks pretty good on a lot of stuff and needs some help in other areas,” he said, noting he presented the survey results several times, to the Lynn Area Chamber, the city and during a lengthy meeting with State Sen. Thomas McGee, chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation.Bluestone said the essential keys for economic development, which he bases on those interviews with NIOP and CORNET, are a streamlined permitting process, and a city administration and business community that works together.”In this new, modern global economy, everything is moving at warp speed and we can’t delay,” he said. “If a town takes three years to approve a zoning variance, goodbye; if a building inspector takes too much time approving the electrical capacity of a building, goodbye ? Time and time again what (commercial site specialists) look for is a city that has an administration, a chamber of commerce and a partnership that will make this an inviting place and break down barriers.”Tax incentives, he said, are always sought, but are seldom if ever what makes or breaks a company’s decision where to locate or expand.A ‘Fertile Crescent’Following up the Lynn survey, Bluestone said his graduate students next January will be working with city and business officials – free of charge – to ensure it is part of regional economic growth. H