Locally Grown (LoGro) Northfield Posts

I love this cold weather. Bring it on, baby! How cold did it get last night? ‘Twas -19 F at around sunrise this morning, according to the Carleton College Weather…

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Civic Orgs Gov't & Policy Podcasts

Faux News

We’ve started inviting a variety of community leaders to submit commentary pieces here on Locally Grown. The first to respond is former Dundas mayor Glenn Switzer, co-owner of Switzer’s Nursery…

Gov't & Policy

Businesses

We’ve turned the “email this” and “susbcribe to comments” features back on, as our web host has informed us that the date glitch from yesterday was a problem they caused.…

Site Admin

The Intelligent Community Forum will be announcing its Most Intelligent Community of the Year award in May. The Intelligent Community list isn’t based on Ph.D’s per capita; if it were, Northfield would have a shot at it. No, the communities on the list have been evaluated and ranked based on their deployment of broadband, their development of a knowledge-based workforce, and fostering of innovation, among other things.

Significantly, there are no American cities among the finalists. In the last five years only three American cities have even been nominated, and we’ve never gotten top honors. Rightfully so; we’re way behind the curve in the New Global Economy despite having pretty much invented it.

What’s going on here?

According to the ICF, in the broadband economy, “adaptability outweighs legacy, skills rather than resources are the keys to the future, and innovation, not location, creates a competitive advantage.” Sounds good: Creative Class plus tech infrastructure equals economic strength.

I wish Northfield had a good technological infrastructure. We’re working on it, but there’s a lot of catching up to do. I’m preparing a broadband/tech primer which I’ll probably present to the EDA in February, and when I have that together, I’ll post it here as well, to provide some definitions and an overview of the issue.

This year’s Intelligent Community finalists are:

Businesses Technology

We’ve temporarily disabled the “email this to a friend” and “subscribe to coments” features to see if they’re causing some funny stuff with the time and date functions. Apologies for…

Site Admin

Two months ago, I never really thought about ethanol. Now, thanks to Progressive Rail’s efforts to get an ethanol plant built in Bridgewater Township, I’m reading everything on the subject…

Businesses Environment