Overall, Southwest and American Airlines serve two very different operations.
Southwest = 100 destinations, mostly domestic
American = 350 destinations, domestic and long haul international
Kevin Warsh has a tough balancing act at his first Federal Reserve policy meeting as Chair this month.
The rocky Middle East.
Skyrocketing inflation.
Disruption in tech with A.I.
Either way, I think the Fed will keep interest rates unchanged for now.
Watching the Wendy’s leadership shake-up closely from a DFW lens.
The DFW metro is one of the strongest QSR markets in the country — strong population growth, rising incomes, and hungry consumers. Whatever direction new CEO Bob Wright takes the brand, the DFW market will be a key proving ground.
Don’t let the headline GDP numbers fool you — inventories and trade swings from tariff uncertainty are distorting the picture.
Strip those out and look at what businesses are actually investing and what consumers are actually spending, and the underlying economy looks a lot steadier — averaging a solid 2.2% over the past six months.
That’s the number worth watching.
Planning for the submittal process. It’s almost time for the new Opportunity Zones 2.0.
A stronger framework for driving private capital into communities.
New development doesn’t happen where it’s hard.
It happens where cities have gotten smart — reasonable entitlements, an understanding of go-to-market speed, and a genuine willingness to work with developers and tenants beyond the transaction. @ICSC
Great tour of our city this morning with a foreign based company.
Discussed plant-to-DC sourcing flexibility as the company decides which supply chain configuration to go with.
Inflation offsets wage gains in Q1, leaving earnings flat and unchanged for 5 years.
The inflation burn continues. Will the Federal Reserve try to counteract?
The sharp increase in prices in Q1 (mostly from energy spiking in Mar) countered the increase in nominal earnings so that inflation-adjusted (real) median earnings were flat, unchanged from Q3 and Q2 of last year, but also flat since Q4 '20 - that means 5 years and no progress:
Companies don’t make decisions on which city to expand to. People do.
Deep inside the boardroom its politics, personalities, and power plays.
Thats where decisions toil.
Economic developers go beyond showing sites.
They read the room and adjust to win the project.
US jobs growth fractured — employers CUT 92K jobs in Feb, worst surprise in years. Unemployment ticking up to 4.4%.
This puts massive pressure on local economic developers for your city.
Time to get creative: incentives, place-making, talent magnets, whatever lights growth.
Visiting a construction site.
One of my favorite action items as an economic developer.
If needed we help with power, txdot, permitting clarifications - and especially just thanking them for being in our city!
For cities, deal flow comes from these three channels:
Inbound - company or broker
Outbound - internal cold outreach
Community Partners - RFIs
We fuel each one relentlessly.
Companies have lots of cities as options to pick from. We don’t wait.