Current Realities

For the City of Arlington, its presence in the dynamic Dallas-Fort Worth consolidated metro area provides enormous benefits in terms of workforce availability, quality of life assets, and transportation infrastructure, but also creates a number of challenges. For example, Arlington must focus on its own tax base and job and income creation, while also acting as regional partner in progressive development efforts. While the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth are not necessarily competitors, per se, they still act as powerful draws for new and relocating businesses.

It is essential that the process of creating economic development study recommendations be based on a clear, honest assessment of current realities. Therefore, the first stage of Market Street’s work for the City of Arlington will be a comprehensive, objective assessment of current and recent trends in Arlington’s economic, demographic, and competitive climates. This report will utilize official local, state, and national data sources to conclusively analyze the key indicators illustrating what has happened in the community in the past two decades, and very recent past. All Arlington data will be analyzed in the context of regional, state and national trends to provide perspective on key local strengths and challenges.

Market Street will also benchmark Arlington against three regional competitors: Anaheim, California; Glendale, Arizona; and Aurora, Colorado to provide a better understanding of Arlington’s economic and demographic trends relative to regions that compete against it for jobs and income. The benchmarks were chosen from metropolitan areas of similar size, demographic character, and economic structure and competitiveness.

In addition, Market Street will assess the components of the City of Arlington to identify notable regional issues, trends, and tendencies. The identification and profiling of this section will facilitate the development of Arlington’s Economic Development Study.

Demographic Indicators include: Population change; Migration patterns; Age distribution; Teenage pregnancy rates; Race and ethnicity demographics; Household size; Educational attainment levels; Commuting Patterns; and Poverty rates.

Economic Indicators include: Employment change; Top employers; Recent layoffs and announced openings; Labor force participation rates and unemployment rates; Per capita income; Employment by business sector; Self-employed individuals; Residential and commercial tax receipts; and Tax digest data.

Finally, Market Street will assess the Competitive Position of the Arlington area to determine its competitiveness as a place of business for existing, expanding, and relocating companies.

The Competitive Position Assessment will use the most relevant and up-to-date data from official local, state, and national data sources, supplemented with Market Street’s own independent research, pertaining to the following five key components of business climate: Education and Workforce Development; Infrastructure; Business Costs; Marketing and Regional Collaboration; and Quality of Life.

The challenge that the City of Arlington faces is how to find new and different ways to increase the competitiveness of its existing economic base, while fostering an environment necessary to grow the companies of tomorrow. Ultimately, the strengths and weaknesses identified in this process will be an integral component of the Economic Development Strategy.

Market Street’s team will also interview approximately 8 to 10 community leaders, and conduct 5 to 6 focus groups (15-20 participants each) with key stakeholders from different business sectors, constituencies, and populations that combined represent the community as a whole.

The stakeholder input process has two objectives:

1. To identify the key issues, potential goals, and action steps for the study recommendations.
2. To engage important stakeholders in this process.

Assessment of employment indicators and the dynamics of current and recent economic trends in Arlington, paired with feedback from the Stakeholder Input Process, will lead to the development of a Jobs Gap Analysis. Market Street will identify disparities between the available workforce, the skills of that workforce, and the most in-demand local employment opportunities.

Based on these conclusions, Market Street will assess which changes to the local economy are irreversible, and which have a good likelihood to be reversed with the proper strategic attention.