MetroHartford Future
Metro Hartford Future is an initiative to develop a strategy to guide the region’s economic development efforts. CRCOG is leading this effort in partnership with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the MetroHartford Alliance. The Metro Hartford Future planning process will involve four primary tasks:
- Goal-Setting: Build consensus around the need for accelerating inclusive/equitable economic growth; that is raising incomes across the income distribution with particular attention to opportunities for engaging those who have often been left behind.
- Situational Analysis: Do a clear-eyed assessment of our situation: who, what, where to identify opportunities that we should be pursuing as a metropolitan region (i.e., SWOT with an emphasis on context and opportunities).
- Strategic Planning: Formulate a limited number of “game changer” strategies that will move the trajectory of inclusive economic growth in the right direction.
- Capacity-Building: Identify organizational forms and collaborations that we will need to implement and sustain the strategies over time.
This effort will also result in a new Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) for the region, which enable municipalities to apply for certain economic development grants.
Strategies
On June 26, we started the process of developing potential strategies that will be considered for inclusion in the final Metro Hartford Future Plan. The initial strategies were selected based on input from our Advisory Committee, stakeholder interviews, and reviews of previous studies and reports. We invited a broad group of stakeholders to join us for a series of focus groups to refine these strategies. That work is ongoing and will go through a vetting process with the public, private sector stakeholders, and our Advisory Committee. Materials presented at the focus groups can be found below:
Committees and Partners
The CEDS process is overseen by two committees. We have an advisory committee that is made up of regional leaders in government, non-profits, and businesses. View materials from the meetings on the right.
- November 13, 2018 Advisory Committee Meeting
- October 11, 2018 Working Group Meeting
- July 31, 2018 Working Group Meeting
- May 22, 2018 Advisory Committee Meeting
- May 17 Working Group Meeting
- March 19, 2018 Advisory Committee Meeting
- February 15, 2018 Working Group Meeting
Reports
The Executive Summary of the Metro Hartford Future Report is now available. This document, produced by CRCOG, the MetroHartford Alliance, and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving provides an overview of the report as well as a snapshot of the region. It will be updated annually.
The final version of the Metro Hartford Future Project report has been published. You can find the final document below, which includes a new section detailing comments received during the public comment period. The full text of written comments we received is available from Maureen Goulet.
