We find Chattanooga as a model of a quality place beginning to grow an entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem to be very replicable. You're representative of a much broader part of the country.
Three years ago, Chattanooga leaders looking to jump-start the city’s entrepreneurship economy set up an Innovation District downtown.
Now, the time has come to take the district to the next level, says Mayor Andy Berke.
Part of that effort is to better secure the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s involvement, he says. Also, plans are to use the city, including EPB’s so-called smart grid, for what the mayor terms “a platform for innovation.”
Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Brookings Institution scholar and author Bruce Katz takes notes at the intersection of East 11th and Market streets in front of the Edney Innovation Center while touring the downtown Innovation District recently.Bruce Katz, who studies and writes on the challenges and opportunities of global urbanization for the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, says Chattanooga has put together “a quality of place” downtown with the needed anchors within bicycling distance.