Consultant Changes The Face Of Economic Development In Miami

Economic Development Visions

Chuck D'Aprix a Washington DC-based economic development consultant has been calling for the elimination of the City of Miami's Department of Economic Development for months. Last week the Miami City Commission agreed and voted to eliminate the Department.

D'Aprix, a maverick economic development consultant who founded Economic Development Visions to infuse innovation, creativity and streamlining into the economic development process was hired by the City of Miami to evaluate economic development programming.

What Chuck D'Aprix found were countless agencies engaged in economic development, many of them performing the same tasks. D'Aprix says there were at least eight agencies essentially doing the same thing. He says, " what is amazing is that one of the country's premier economic development agencies--THE BEACON COUNCIL sits smack dab in the heart of Miami. There is no need for most of these agencies, the Beacon Council has things well in-hand."

D'Aprix said, " I was dumbfounded. I was astounded there could be so much economic development redundancy in such a poverty-ridden city. It is difficult to see people sleeping in the streets when there are ad agencies creating branding programs for countless economic development agencies and when the City Economic Development staff is running off to junkets in Las Vegas. I made the common sense recommendation and called for the elimination of the City Economic Development Department"

According to D'Aprix the Beacon Council and the Community Development Corporations that dot the landscape can easily manage economic development in the City and the County.

D'Aprix who has garnered national attention for his unconventional approach to economic development says the goal is not to eliminate economic development programming, but to streamline it so that it is more effective, thus maximizing the number of people ultimately helped. He says, " we need to make economic development more efficient, because ultimately it affects the lives of millions of people--many of them living under the poverty line."

Chuck D'Aprix says, "Look, I could have gone along to get along in Miami, but this was a matter of ethics. We waste so much money on economic development programs in this country, yet we still have pockets of poverty that are so deep and go untouched for generations. What's wrong with that picture? We need to be smarter, more creative and far more innovative about how we approach local economic development."

Apparently the Miami City Commission agrees.