Regional Day in Akron

October 29, 2009 by Mike Gesing

Yesterday the Leadership Groups of NEOhio came together in the Student Union of the University of Akron for their annual Regional Day. Always a good event to network with citizens from all walks of life & hear Ned Hill's annual recap of how we're doing - a better prognostication but not great.

First some stats to get a better feel for things:

Our 19 county GDP of $134 Billion puts up 18th among US regions, a fall from 15th in 2001:
- Cleveland 86.6 (includes Lorain/Elyria)
- Akron 23.2
- Youngstown 14.1
- Canton 10.8

In one of prime sectors, manufacturing, the US average share of the GDP is 20.3%. Cleveland is 16.8 and Akron 17.9, showing good movement into other clusters. However, Canton still has 23.7 % of its economy tied to mfg. with Youngstown at 22.4%.

His top reasons for whey things are slow in the region:

1 Tryanny of the product cycle - we need for cutting edge products in our regional portfolio.
2 Creative destruction - the natural business cycle & it's getting faster
3

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