Low Entrepreneurial Activity in the Seattle-Tacoma Area?
Photography by Alicia Wilkinson
Here’s a headline that almost audibly screams, “Make political hay out of me”:
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Area 2nd Lowest For New Businesses (Tacoma News Tribune)
A new study shows that, out of 15 major American metropolitan areas, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Area (more correctly known as “the Seattle-Tacoma area”) has very nearly created the fewest new businesses. If you’re one of the cynical Hobbesian types, ignore the rest of this article.
The study goes on to say that the areas with the most new businesses tended to also have high unemployment. This effect was compounded by the fact that a large number of the new businesses are single-individual enterprises, making minimal improvement to employment statistics.
Could it be argued that our area has experienced greater economic stability than much of the rest of the nation? There are certainly individual cases that would counter such an assertion; but with its late entry into the housing collapse, two busy ports, high concentration of tech jobs and large military presence, the Seattle-Tacoma corridor had a leg up on areas that did not fare as well. So, could that stability explain the lack of entrepreneurial activity?
I’ll be sitting by my laptop waiting to read your thoughts on this before I develop an opinion. Don’t leave me hanging…
Filed under: General
11 comments
R RR Anderson March 10, 2011
Museums, Museums, Museums.
N Nick March 10, 2011
I haven’t read the report yet, but it sounds like there’s too much noise in the data to draw a useful conclusion. Including every new business and netting in individual sole proprietorships, single-person LLCs, etc. could just as easily tell us that the Seattle-Tacoma area is generally better at networking. Maybe we’re better at putting our heads together to start a handful of successful enterprises versus hundreds of failing individual endeavors?
A more useful dataset would be to set some kind of floor (whether it be the size of capitalization, net valuation, or even the age of the “new” business). In other words, find some way to separate out the authentic new business from all the business licenses issued to people that never end up actually using them.
N Nick March 10, 2011
… or to put it another way, the team that has the most shots-on-goal isn’t always the team that wins the game.
J Jordan March 10, 2011
This could be linked to declining funding for higher education. If we aren’t funding higher ed to attract the best professors and students, then business development will be low. Graduates from the UW and WSU, if they are the best and brightest the region has to offer, will create start-up companies. Businesses will locate here if there is a pool of skilled workers to meet their needs. Declining support for public 4-year institutions is likely a contributing factor to the low ranking.
L low bar March 10, 2011
kind of a superfluous and arbitrary report since the whole country is at the whim of the top 2 percent and it hasn’t mattered what we at this level think about the whole thing since with first asshole began bogarting the first oasis. thank you:)
M Mofo from the Hood March 10, 2011
“Life in Tacoma is nasty, brutish, and short.”—-Hobbes from the Hood
D Daniel March 10, 2011
i agree that the report gives greater import to its findings than perhaps is prudent. There are many more factors to consider. But the data is still interesting from a national standpoint. I don’t necessarily agree with the use of the word “entrepreneurial” for “new businesses” either. The terms aren’t really interchangeable.
And Leviathan was the most insufferable book I ever read. My brain did not work correctly for weeks after i was finished.
M Morty March 11, 2011
Commercial Prop manager here. With a quick count I come up with 13 small start ups in my buildings in 2010, including a airline safety consultant, massage therapists, graphic designer, a property maintenance group, government contractor, a couple of attorneys of course, and some accountant tax types. Whether to take advantage of opportunities or out of necessity (no one’s hiring) the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well here from what I can see.
M Mofo from the Hood March 11, 2011
Whether singular cartoonists or various strategic combinations of cartoonists can develop and sustain the Seattle-Tacoma economy is an area of study best suited for the Tacoma City Council.
We can rely on absurd conclusions from a succession of panelists that have proven their merit in such matters as: Smoking outdoors in public parks; importing complex Chinese buildings for no apparent reason during a recession; converting Tacoma back into farmland; travelling to foreign countries in search of distant family and/or international trading partners.
A Altered-Chords March 12, 2011
Has meth production and distribution been counted in these statistics?
M Mofo from the Hood March 16, 2011
Imagine, if you will, that published author RR Anderson were a member of the Tacoma City Council. We could expect, in the least, that the Tacoma economy would change. Why? Simply because the actions of the city council would develop in unforeseen ways due to the conceptual shift of perception brought about by exposure to Mr. Anderson’s pseudo-Carrollian colored pontifications.
Cartoonist energy working within the Market Street halls of government rather than competing outside in the market sector may prove to be the final solution for defeating chronic stagflation.
Cartoons and cartoonists under-utilized contribution to the development of Tacoma’s economy hasn’t heretofore been seriously considered. What I’m suggesting at this point is that we look back at what has been accomplished by the preceeding so-called progressive councilmen and then ask ourselves if things might have been different with a cartel of cartoonists.