Connecting state and local government leaders
Also: Detroit’s possible livestock legalization and Rhode Island’s struggles continue.
Here’s some of what we’ve been reading today …
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania: What can midsize cities like Pittsburgh that are increasingly developing a strong tech economy offer in the face of Silicon Valley and bigger-name tech-sector powerhouses? In a feature in the MIT Technology Review, startup CEOs are more and more arguing against the notion that places like Pittsburgh can’t compete.
They make the case that Pittsburgh and other second-tier tech cities—including Raleigh, St. Louis, and Minneapolis—are places with strong university pipelines, affordable living costs, great quality of life, and collaborative tech ecosystems. “Despite the fact that a lot of people have told us to leave,” [Duolingo CEO Luis] von Ahn says, “we’re happy here.” Expanding the tech economy beyond the West and East Coasts could support inventors tackling problems that those based in the Bay Area might overlook. “The culture of Silicon Valley is really a bunch of twentysomethings solving twentysomethings’ problems,” says Matt Zieger, the vice president of the Forbes Funds in Pittsburgh, which has invested in local startups that fight human trafficking and provide voice-based apps for the visually impaired.
Pittsburgh, as a result, is booming. [MIT Technology Review]
LAS VEGAS, Nevada: Officials in Nevada are disputing a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the impact of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. As the Las Vegas Review Journal reports:
Among the state's concerns is that the draft report fails to evaluate the effect on the Basin and Range National Monument, and how that would affect building a rail line from Caliente to haul waste to Yucca Mountain. The state contends that entombing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain would also impact traditional American Indian water sources used by Western Shoshone tribes. Contaminating groundwater over time as nuclear waste containers deteriorate would violate environmental laws.
DETROIT, Michigan: Because the Motor City enjoys plentiful acreage of vacant land, urban farming has found a home and has flourished in recent years. But raising livestock has been against municipal regulations, not that those rules have stopped some agricultural entrepreneurs, as the Detroit Free Press reports. And by March, the Detroit City Council may vote on an ordinance that would create a framework for livestock inside city limits. [Detroit Free Press]
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island: The economic recovery has been uneven across the nation and Rhode Island demonstrates how many residents are still struggling to get by, even to get food. As the Providence Journal reports, one in eight Ocean State residents—about 60,000 people—rely on the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, according to the food bank’s 2015 Status Report. [Providence Journal]
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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