I was talking to someone today about the upcoming City Council election and he brought up the "business community" and it's take on what the city needs to do. And that got me thinking...
This is a little simplistic but there are three basic business communities and they do not talk to each other much. And they have very different priorities.
The first is the real estate development and associated industries. This spans the gamut from the property owners to developers to construction companies to Realtors. This group has the most interest in city law and actions because what the city does or does not do has a gigantic financial impact on their business.
As a rule, they want unlimited construction opportunities, while the city keeps the policies in place that continue to drive property prices up. Granted, these two desires are in direct conflict but the human mind is flexible. And what they want today is approval for whatever project they have in mind.
This group also is strongly opposed to affordable housing. Because increasing prices means increasing profits. So zoning restrictions, environmental requirements, building restrictions (on others, not them), are all issues they will support or at least not fight.
Second is retail business. From the local coffee shop to Walmart. To these companies the City is an organization that takes their money (we call it taxes) and gets in their way (we call it licensing). Large companies will use their potential to get tax breaks. And they will all complain about licensing and inspections.
But by and large this group has no large issues with the city. And many times their biggest interaction with the city is working together to bring more consumers to their stores. Occasionally a medium sized issue will arise but generally there is no reason for this group to heavily lobby the city.
The third group we can call industry. This spans the gamut from factories (do we have any in Boulder?) to software companies (we do have those). These are the companies that bring money in to town because they create or provide a product that is purchased by people elsewhere.
This group has a strong interest in affordable housing (for it's employees), efficient mass transit (for it's employees that cannot afford to live in Boulder), and for the high-tech companies, a good education system (BVSD doesn't cut it).
But while companies in this group has these interests, it doesn't have a strong incentive to fight for them because an effort to increase affordable housing for example does not directly help that company. The ROI for a given company sucks.
The bottom line to all of this? The one group that is significantly impacted and can see a direct and significant ROI from getting what they want from the city is the real estate group. So they are the ones that are heavily trying to influence the city government.
One of the problems with this is non-business people involved in the city government, from the city council to city employees to involved citizens assumes that the "business community" is this single entity and the entire group has the same interests as the real estate developers.
But speaking as a businessman from the industry group, my interests are very different from those of the real estate developers. It's just that city policies have very little impact on my business so I don't get involved.
The critical point is that the people involved in running the city government and those setting policy need to keep in mind, it's not the business community asking you to approve X or change Y. It's merely one subset of the community.
