Editorial: City-UNM collaboration takes economy to school

It’s one of those V-8 moments — learning the University of New Mexico and the city of Albuquerque are partnering on a development that combines research, technology and private enterprise.

Why hasn’t this been done before?

Maybe because Bob Frank wasn’t president of UNM and Richard Berry wasn’t mayor.

Frank took the model of the University of Florida’s Innovation Square to Berry, and after a trip to Gainesville, Fla., it was promptly included in the mayor’s bond package with $2 million in funding.

Using the broad city platform to leverage the expertise of the state’s flagship research university with a private sector that can bring those innovations to consumers is a smart investment that promises to pay off in sales, exports and jobs. Diverting $500,000 of the start-up funding to workforce housing, as the Albuquerque City Council did Monday, not so much.

What Albuquerque needs are game-changing projects that position its economy for independence, not projects that cement a hand-to-mouth existence and increase reliance on city, state and federal tax dollars.

Innovation Square — a joint venture among the University of Florida, government and the private sector — is doing the former, pushing a “from mind to market” philosophy with an emphasis on co-locating researchers and the business entities that can bring their discoveries to market. It appears to be working; urban economist Richard Florida has projected for Gainesville 17.7 percent growth in “higher-paying, higher-skill jobs for knowledge, professional and creative workers … in fields like science, technology and engineering; business, finance and management; law, health care and education….”

That’s a model that provides the education and jobs that give individuals the means to afford a home rather than a sliding scale they will never move beyond; it’s a model that lasts beyond a construction project.

And it’s a model worth emulating. Frank was right to bring it to Berry, Berry should do what he can to ensure it gets to voters with sufficient funding, and voters should cast a ballot in favor of putting the city and state on a firm new-jobs foundation.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.