Chambers of commerce are normally in the optimism business.
They sell the successes of their communities to in-towners and out-of-towners alike, in hopes of churning more successes.
So while a current project of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, a visioning plan called Velocity 2040 isn’t beginning with the usual rah-rah, its aim is to achieve celebration for the future.
For now, the idea is to be blunt and give our local elected leaders, educators, business executives and residents a solid grounding in where we are today versus where we must go to keep Chattanooga competitive and growing.
The first piece of sobering news presented by consultants is that we are – despite our success in recruiting three of the biggest business investments in Tennessee from 2008 to 2010 – falling behind in job growth. Our city and county trailed other comparable mid-sized cities over the past five years and even grew more slowly than the rest of Tennessee and the U.S. as a whole, consultants for the Chamber told city and county leaders last week.