Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickapedia
I dont understand the airport bashing for NOLA. For a market our size, we have a ton of direct flights from our airport. This is a result of tourism obviously but it doesnt mean it cant be leveraged to recruit businesses. We arent going to be getting corporate relocations but that doesnt mean we cant get satelite offices of large companies. No reason in my mind that we cant get a few more DXC type announcements over the next few years especially considering you can get downtown office class A office space in a vibrant downtown which is a huge plus for younger workers for 19-22/sqft and get a generous technology tax credit from the state on top of that (not to mention pay people 20% less than other markets). Google hasnt left California but they certainly have moved thousands of jobs to Austin so we dont need an HQ just to get good jobs.
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I don't get the airport bashing either. MSY has non-stop service to nearly every major business market in the country, and also non-stop service to London, Toronto, Montreal, and Panama City, Panama year round. There are very few metro areas of our size that can boast that.
I would fully expect to see all of those markets continue to be served once we get through this current situation.
The region has had recent success recruiting satellite offices, and success typically builds upon success. Accruent and DXC are biggest wins in the past couple of years. We also can not discount the success of local startups like Lucid, Levelset, and Ampirical Solutions. These companies are growing rapidly (at least before this self-induced economic crisis), and will hopefully survive this downturn and continue to grow at a fast pace. Again, success typically breeds more success and that has been happening for the past few years here in New Orleans.
Crime is at historic lows for my lifetime, infrastructure is actually being repaired throughout the city and now has a real funding mechanism in place to allow for continued upkeep, and the public education system has continued to see improvements even as the bar keeps being raised by the state. Things are absolutely not perfect, and there is still a lot of work to do. However, the region has been on an upward trajectory for the past decade that I don't see stopping anytime soon.