The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce is forming a new future-looking work group called N2, which stands for the Next Normal.
In a recent interview, Chamber President Zach Brandon noted “the pandemic dust hasn’t settled yet” and underlined persistent economic uncertainty.
“We just don’t know where things are going to land, but can we be the place that’s asking the ‘what if’ for the future?” he said. “So what is the future of downtowns, what is the future of remote work, what is the future of how you tackle housing and transportation issues? How will AI and automation impact the type of jobs that we have in Madison?”
This work group will be meeting over the course of the year, creating a guide for corporate and public policy decision-making, Brandon said.
He said the latest numbers on Madison’s economic trajectory show at least 200,000 people moving to Dane County in the next 25 years or so. While he said that’s “probably too conservative” an estimate, he added it’s useful for planning economic development efforts.
“And these things have a tendency to compound themselves, right? The more visible your city becomes, the more people see it, the more people notice it, the faster the acceleration is,” he said, pointing to Austin as an example.
He noted the Texas city’s “most ambitious projections” around population growth failed to predict just how quickly expansion would occur as its tech sector grew by leaps and bounds.
“If that is what the future likely holds for Madison and this region … How do you house another 250,000 people? How do you build the right roads and infrastructure? How do you have the right types of jobs, and what it means to have an economy that has elasticity to it?” he said. “And then what are the jobs of the future? And where will those jobs be?”
See more from the interview here.
