Three years ago, at the height of the pandemic, the Boulder Chamber and the Boulder Economic Council (BEC) were active in bringing business and community leaders together through online forums to discuss strategies to maintain our economic vitality and, frankly, rescue it many people vote to protect our businesses from collapse. Amid the uncertainty of this time and efforts to deal with current circumstances, I continued to focus on the long-term game with an eye toward a more strategic economic recovery phase based on what I used to call the “new normal.”
Scott Sternberg / Boulder Chamber (Photo courtesy)
Today we face more traditional economic headwinds, such as rising inflation and the threat of recession. Taken together, successive periods of economic recovery and today’s difficulties may have forever redefined many aspects of our national and local economy. Although the economic paradigm shifts may seem abrupt, I argue that they are merely accelerating and more transparent core economic trends.
That’s why the theme of the Boulder Economic Council’s upcoming economic summit is “Our Evolving Economy.”
Perhaps the most important force in our current economic development is the rapid development and adoption of new technologies. Most experts agree that the transition to an online way of working and shopping was already well underway before the pandemic. With the introduction of Zoom-like collaboration tools, the proliferation of artificial intelligence resources, and the incorporation of widespread online education services, some say we have seen a decade’s worth of digital adoption in just a few years.
The consequences of this hyperdrive in technological progress and the hybrid work and lifestyle models it enabled certainly also had downstream effects.
First, aggressive hiring of engineers to meet the initial demands of technology adoption was followed by a retreat once the market stabilized. This, in part, led to the current state of our professional and technical services sectors. Additionally, there was a significant impact on our commercial real estate markets. As the equation between in-person and remote workers reaches its new equilibrium, we are seeing an increase in office space vacancies and a complete rethinking of building usage. To further compound these challenges, recent increases in property valuations coupled with certain state and local ballot initiatives are having a dramatic impact on an individual company’s cost of doing business.
A second important factor determining our current economic situation is “once in a generation” government funding initiatives and political laws. While some of this was pandemic-related, much of the federal investment is a critical response to long-deteriorating domestic infrastructure, unsustainable global technology competition and the undeniable impacts of climate change. This includes large federal grants targeted at areas that can have a positive impact on our local economy, such as domestic semiconductor development, use-oriented science and improved mobility models. These new investment programs have also stimulated higher-level interdisciplinary and cross-community engagement, creating opportunities at the regional level to address major economic initiatives in a more equitable and environmentally sustainable manner.
Finally, this latest period of economic transition has seen strong progress in several of our key industries. For example, a drastic reduction in low-Earth orbit deployment costs has opened up major opportunities for aerospace companies. Because of the proven effectiveness of mRNA vaccines, our life sciences sector is rapidly adopting faster drug discovery techniques, developing improved medical devices and achieving better patient outcomes. Increased federal investment is also supporting novel products and solutions in climate technology and increasing awareness of emerging industries such as quantum computing and sensing.
Here at the Boulder Chamber and BEC, we are beginning to take a look at what the new normal could be. To dive deeper into the changing economic conditions and others that have yet to be uncovered, I encourage you to attend our annual economic summit on October 19th. No, the current circumstances are not unexpected, but changes are accelerating and our collective economic vitality depends on us understanding the influences, challenges and opportunities of our evolving economy!
Scott Sternberg is executive director of the Boulder Economic Council and associate vice president for economic vitality.
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