Governing.com: How Communities Can Benefit from Amazon’s Great Data Caper

Rob Lalka, professor of practice and executive director of the Freeman School's Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, contributed an op-ed to Governing.com about how cities can use data originally prepared for Amazon as part of the retailer's 2018 headquarters sweepstakes to support and promote the development of Opportunity Zones.

Think about what the $3.5 billion that Cleveland offered to Amazon could have meant for small businesses and other local priorities. For that sum, the city could have made equity investments, provided low-interest loans or even given straight-up grants of over $6,500 to every single new business in the entire state of Ohio on a yearly basis for the next quarter century.

To read the article in its entirety, visit governing.com:

https://www.governing.com/finance/How-Communities-Can-Benefit-from-Amazons-Great-Data-Caper-opinion.html