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Consultants present draft economic strategy urging San Francisco to grow knowledge, tourism and blue-collar jobs
Summary
ICF Consulting presented a draft San Francisco economic-development plan that prioritizes investing in knowledge-sector innovation, retaining growing companies, raising the visitor-experience value and strengthening links to physical infrastructure to create middle‑income jobs and generate fiscal revenue.
Ted Egan, director of analysis for ICF Consulting, presented the second major deliverable of the city's economic development planning effort, outlining goals and metrics the consultants used to identify "strategic priorities" for San Francisco.
Egan said the plan was informed by outreach, including a web survey that drew about 500 respondents, and by analysis of industry multipliers, job impacts for workers without four‑year degrees and fiscal effects. "One of the goals that we have declared is creating job opportunities by building on our strengths to promote greater overall economic growth," Egan said.
Egan identified four priorities the plan recommends pursuing: continue to invest in and diversify the engines of innovation in the knowledge sector so more startups form; retain growing companies so they expand in the city rather than relocate; raise the value of the tourism and visitor experience to increase revenue and raise wages in that sector; and strengthen linkages between physical infrastructure industries (construction, manufacturing, wholesale and transportation) and the city's export base to preserve middle‑income jobs.
The presentation showed the analytic trade‑offs the consultants used: industries with high multiplier effects can generate many follow‑on jobs but may not all be highly viable in San Francisco; where viability and impact diverge, policy should target the right mix of supports. "It's not simply a matter of picking the high impact industries and just getting them," Egan said. He recommended policies both to stimulate emerging technology industries and to shore up mid‑level firms that provide middle‑income employment.
Commissioners praised the report's depth and asked technical questions about the growth‑share analysis, wage thresholds and regional competition. Bernard Shoden, a public commenter, complimented the presentation but urged the planning department to couple the strategy with deeper, city‑level economic analysis.
The commission did not take any formal action on the plan at the meeting; Egan said the presentation would feed subsequent policy recommendations and the consultants' next deliverable.
