What do business tax incentives buy? The State of Florida let the Qualified Target Industry tax refund program expire at the end of June. I’m not a big fan of incentives anyway, especially this type of incentive that is often more of a bidding war between locations. I prefer incentives that are focused on actually changing market conditions to improve investment, such as occurs in CRAs. Incentives should be a last resort, with more focus on doing what can be done to improve market position to attract businesses through placemaking, infrastructure, and quality of life improvements. That’s why I especially like working on consumer-based industries such as retail, restaurants, live music, craft breweries, entertainment, etc. If you don’t have the customers, no amount of incentive is going to help a business. After all, the most important incentive is the market, and there are better, more sustainable and resilient ways for locations to compete for investment and business.
A bittersweet ending for the Maker Community’s Biggest Supporters. Jules Pieri and Joanne Domeniconi helped more than 3,000 entrepreneurs launch their businesses, and now have been ejected from their own.
Three traditionally offline industries that are going online. This list features some all-star companies that did a brilliant job at digitizing on the fly.
The Restaurant recovery is back on the rocks.
Major museums are reopening with restrictions, limited admissions, and extra safety measures.