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July 2, 2019

From the Editor - New Haven: What’s the story?

With each passing year New Haven becomes less like the other mid-sized New England cities with which it is historically compared.

Yes, just like communities from Manchester, N.H. to Worcester to Waterbury, much of our legacy lies in manufacturing. New Haven was a factory town — from carriages to corsets to the repeating rifles that won the West.

But we never were just a factory town. For better or worse, New Haven’s history and development — economic, social, intellectual — is tied to the presence of that interloper that relocated here in 1716 from Old Saybrook: the Collegiate School.

So New Haven was a manufacturing city — but it was also a college town. It was Lowell, Mass. (New England’s premier textile hub a century ago), and Princeton, N.J. — at the same time.

And unlike cities like Hartford (insurance) or Waterbury (brass), New Haven was never defined by a single industry.

And today we still are not. But what makes us different today is not just our past, but our trajectory. While the Springfields and Bridgeports struggle to redefine themselves, New Haven already has, and it’s moving ahead. No looking back.

The conventional wisdom is that New Haven’s 21st-century economy sits on a foundation of “Eds & Meds” — higher education and health care. That’s an incomplete truth. Much of the Elm City’s entrepreneurial energy in 2019 is channeled into the technology and service sectors. Also, cultural and hospitality businesses (including restaurants) have been and continue to be dynamic economic engines.

The purpose of this special issue — our inaugural Market Intelligence Report — is to provide an economic-development snapshot of our region: New Haven and south-central Connecticut. From the perspective of business owners, investors, public officials and others whose fates are intertwined with the economy of the city, region and state, we here provide an in-depth look at the human, institutional and commercial landscape of this place, at this time.

And what a time this is for our 376-year-old city. In barely the span of a single generation, New Haven has transformed from the place you caught the train to Grand Central to a certifiably cool place — a destination, even. A place to go to — not just through.

The purpose of this Market Intelligence Report is to show New Haven in an objective, quantifiable way that tells our story to the outside world — and especially to the business community beyond East and West Rocks and the Sleeping Giant. We think it’s a pretty great story — and we’re going to continue to tell it.

As always, I invite you to contact me at mbingham@newhavenbiz.com. 

Michael C. Bingham

Editor

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