The Reno-Tahoe metropolitan area is an interesting case study. First, it is located in the same region as major ‘new economy’ centers such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The policies and decisions by policy makers had to recognize these close markets and respond accordingly. Second, the region pursued an aggressive business attraction strategy. A now famous anecdote describes how the planning manager for Storey County scrawled out a grading permit on the spot for Tesla executives to convince them to locate to the region[1]. Furthermore, the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center has been a long-term public private partnership which has seen Storey County collaborate with private landowners to develop a large employment center on the outskirts of the urban center[2].
While the strategy has been broadly successfully (manufacturing employment grew 81% between 2014 and 2018 in the metro area compared to 4% across the US)[3], this raises the question of how such a strategy has worked and the impacts it has had. The fact that the region has been an outlier makes it an interesting case study. The region also addresses an interesting trend in economic development, the desire to diversify its economy away from tourism. As a major tourist destination, the Reno-Tahoe area was severely impacted by the 2008 recession. This has led the region to try and balance its previous framing as a destination while also marketing itself as a place to work and live. One example of this is the renewed marketing of Reno as a city to live in with major cultural institutions such as the University of Nevada – Reno[4].
In the attached paper, I examine Reno’s strategies and compare it to other metropolitan areas. I draw out what other cities and regions can take away from Reno’s example.
[1] Episode 4: West World, vol. 2, The City Podcast (Reno, 2019), https://www.thecitypodcast.com/.
[2] “Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center: A Public-Private Partnership on Steroids – Center for Regional Studies,” accessed March 24, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20160622194845/http://centerforregionalstudies.org/2009/05/21/tahoe-reno-industrial-center-public-private-partnershi/; “Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center – The Largest Industrial Center in the World,” accessed March 24, 2020, http://tahoereno.com/.
[3] “Data Browser: StatsAmerica,” accessed March 24, 2020, http://www.statsamerica.org/innovation/anydata/.
[4] On Strategy, “Continuing Economic Vitality in the Region: 3-Year Strategic Plan” (Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, July 2019).