Mayor Menino Promotes The Boston Model for Success

Announces plans for Public Innovation Center and encourages national agenda to replicate Boston’s example of partnership, not partisanship

Today, during his annual address to the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Mayor Thomas M. Menino highlighted how Boston has successfully created jobs, education, and innovation during a stalled economy. Mayor Menino outlined The Boston Model, calling on the nation’s leaders in Washington to learn from Boston’s successes by focusing on partnership, rather than partisanship.

“With spring officially here, there is no doubt that Boston is a rising sun. And I believe our progress shows that Boston has a lot to offer the nation,” Mayor Menino said. “Politicians in this country are now so focused on ideology, and not on the things that improve people’s daily lives.”

Mayor Menino also announced that the City has finalized a partnership agreement with Tim Rowe and the Seaport Square development team to operate the new Boston Public Innovation Center. The Center will break ground in three weeks and will serve as a hub and home base for entrepreneurs to meet and exchange ideas, to convene programs and events, and support of the innovation economy. The center will be a one story, 12,000 square foot facility, including a 3,000 square foot restaurant, and 9,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

Mayor Menino outlined five steps that the federal government should take to replicate Boston’s success.

One: Create a National College Completion EffortTwo: put One Million High-School Teens to Work Over the SummerThree: Launch a National Workforce Housing Program for Middle Income HouseholdsFour: Invest in Basic Life Science and HealthcareFive: Use Green Technology to Improve People’s Lives

“The most vital thing to replicate would be our cooperation and partnership,” Mayor Menino said. “Together, we have showed The Boston Model is about partnership; not partisanship.”

Results of “The Boston Model” include:

$3 billion dollars of development currently under construction in Boston.

100 companies and 3 thousand jobs have set up in our waterfront Innovation District since January 2010.

Earlier this month, the City sold over $200 million in bonds at less than 3 percent interest.

Boston again reaffirmed its fiscal health with a AAA bond rating.

From 2006 to 2011, Boston saw a 25 percent drop in crime.

14 thousand more students are receiving arts instruction compared to three years ago.

The City of Boston provided 3,100 businesses with financial and technical assistance last year.

If the country had Boston’s unemployment rate, 2.6 million more people would be on the job.

If the U.S. did as well as Boston, workers would see their hourly wage rise 34 percent.

If the country had Boston’s foreclosure rate, there would be one million fewer families threatened with foreclosure.

If the U.S. had as many college graduates as Boston does, almost 28 million more Americans would hold bachelor’s degrees.

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