All Over Albany

Author of Sustainable Communities: Creating a Durable, Local Economy in Troy

Could be interesting: Bruce Seifer, co-author of Sustainable Communities: Creating a Durable, Local Economy, will be giving a talk this Saturday in Troy as part of a Transition Troy event at Sage.

Seifer worked for almost three decades leading Burlington, Vermont's community and economic development efforts. Curious about Seifer's perspective, we came across this Peak Prosperity podcast interview with him. This clip, in which Seifer talks about how Burlington pursued business growth, was interesting:

The other thing that we did, which is not rocket science but it's pretty much behind everything that we did, is pretty simple. We asked people in need what they needed and then we tried to figure out how to meet their needs. We were more like a gardener for small businesses. We'd focus on small businesses and try to find ways to help them grow to become major employers and economic players. So, we did things...you know if they needed financing we ended up starting a small business loan fund. If they needed training around understanding finance, we set up training programs for them. Sometimes they said they'd like to work with other like type of businesses and learn from each other. So we would set up trade associations working in concert with them. You know, we would tend to them over the years. We provided ongoing technical business advice to those business people so if they had an issue on getting a permit or they had problem with sewer overflow or whatever it may be, we were always there trying to solve their problems. As a result of all of that, we ended up helping a lot of small companies become bigger companies.

In addition to Seifer's talk, the event at Sage will also include "a few brief, uplifting 'pop-up' presentations from leaders of recent local initiatives."

The event is Saturday, April 11 from 3-6 pm in the Bush Memorial Auditorium. It's free and open to the public.