Hey kids! The Quad Cities are on the GROW!!!

Mark you calendars and clear your schedules. Soon you'll be able to find out how YOU TOO can do your part to make the Quad City region a thriving, up-to-date, modern, "happenin'" place to live and work. Yet more consultants are to unveil our regional path to salvation.

Everyone in the community is responsible for economic development, and everyone can find out next month how they can play a part in the success of Illinois Quad-Cities.

As part of the Unified Growth Strategy, on May 23 the Illinois Quad-City Chamber of Commerce will unveil "Blueprint 2010: A Regional Strategy for Unified Growth." The five-year economic development action plan is designed to sustain and grow the area.

The recommendations and community priorities will be released at the 5 p.m. event to be held at The Mark of the Quad Cities.

The chamber hired AngelouEconomics and Next Generation Consulting last year to study the Illinois Quad-Cities. The study has been supported by local businesses, government, and community leaders from Rock Island, Henry and Mercer counties.

The study has looked at the community from the point of view of a business as well as from the point of view of workers.

Those results have helped to create the final action plan which focuses on five areas: business climate and entrepreneurship; workforce and education; sites and infrastructure; marketing and economic development; and quality of life.

"We are very excited about the findings," said chamber president and CEO Rick Baker.

The recommendations from both AngelouEconomics and Next Generation Consulting can change the way we operate as a community, he added.

"We want the community to know we are very interested in implementing the plan. It will not sit on a shelf," he said. "... It is best if we are able to create our own future rather than rely on outside forces to create our future."

Of course, the chamber has predictably relied on just such outsiders to tell them what our future should look like. They hired not one, but two expensive consultant outfits to tell them what needs to be done. (Hell, the fact that AngelouEconomics has no space in their name shows that they MUST be cutting edge. And however many thousands they were paid, they earned it just for coming up with the title of the report.)