Your Curated Morning (#217) for November 20, 2025 is here!
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Welcome to Curated Morning. A compendium of news, information, and stories that economic development professionals, community development leaders and elected officials read every week to stay in touch with what is happening in our economy. The Main Thing:As 2025 lurches toward the finish line like me heading for the nearest couch after Thanksgiving dinner, I'm looking ahead to 2026 with the kind of optimism usually reserved for people who don't read economic development articles for a living. I consistently preach the gospel of a growth mindset (mostly to convince myself), which means I'm supposed to be open to learning new things. So here's where I admit I need your help. Shocking, I know—a newsletter writer asking readers what they actually want to read. It's almost like customer feedback matters or something. (If only there were an entire profession dedicated to this principle... glances at economic developers everywhere) I've created a reader survey, and I promise it's shorter than an economic development strategic plan. Your feedback will directly impact what shows up in your inbox—meaning you can finally tell me to stop with the (fill in the section you dislike the most), or demand more of whatever it is you're into. I'm flexible. Desperate, even. To bribe—sorry, incentivize—your participation, I'm offering two prizes: First, a signed and numbered copy of Ryan Holiday's new book "Wisdom Takes Work" (debuted at #2 on the NYT Best Seller List, which means it's fancier than anything currently on my nightstand). Second, a $50 Amazon gift card. I know, I know—I'm a "shop local" guy. But unless I want to give away a gift certificate to the Kwik-E-Mart nearest my house, Amazon is the only thing that works for my geographically questionable readership. (Yes, I have international readers. No, I don't know why they signed up for this either.) Your feedback is genuinely valuable, and I promise to read every response while pretending I'm not emotionally devastated by any constructive criticism. Thanks for sticking with me. Let's make 2026 weirder together. Here is the link to the survey. Please don't forget to leave your name and email address, so I can send the prize to you if you win. One more thing...I receive a lot of newsletters, and the authors always ask me to forward the newsletter to someone who might benefit from it, hoping they subscribe as well. It’s not a very good way to grow your subscription list. Do I do it? Sometimes, but not very often. So be a rebel! Stand out in the crowd and show everyone how the economic development community sticks together and supports one another! Forward this to someone who might enjoy reading this newsletter. Better yet, send them this link so they can subscribe, and they will receive a free copy of my Startup Business Environment Self-Assessment. It’s a fantastic deal! Focus On AIWhen Speed Trumps Everything: The Messy Reality Behind Memphis's AI Supercomputer Jackpot Elon Musk's xAI transformed an abandoned Electrolux factory in Memphis into what it claims will be the world's largest AI supercomputer in just 122 days. This timeline would have been unthinkable through traditional development processes. The Colossus project aims to deploy up to 1 million GPUs requiring gigawatt-scale power consumption, with cost estimates running into the tens of billions of dollars. But this breakneck speed has come with significant complications: xAI faces a federal lawsuit from the NAACP over alleged Clean Air Act violations, an exodus of key executives, including its CFO and top legal counsel, and questions about whether its $10 billion fundraising round at a $200 billion valuation will materialize. The company's solution to Tennessee's regulatory pushback? Build the massive natural gas turbine farm just across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi, where temporary permits without air pollution controls were easier to secure. Why This Matters: This cautionary tale reveals the double-edged sword of speed-to-market economic development. While Memphis secured what city leaders call the largest capital investment by a new-to-market company in its history, the compressed timeline left community stakeholders, city council members, and environmental agencies completely in the dark until announcement day—some learning about it the night before. Economic developers must recognize that today's megaprojects increasingly operate under nondisclosure agreements and "global security concerns" that fundamentally alter traditional community engagement models. The project also highlights how AI infrastructure is forcing communities into impossible trade-offs: jobs and investment versus environmental health, particularly in historically marginalized neighborhoods already bearing disproportionate pollution burdens. Take Action: Establish clear community benefit agreements as non-negotiable prerequisites for fast-tracked projects, regardless of the company's profile or promises of economic impact. Establish mandatory public disclosure periods for all projects, including confidential ones, requiring developers to brief community leaders and environmental stakeholders within a defined timeframe before making public announcements. Resist the pressure to move at "tech speed" when it means bypassing the community engagement and environmental review processes that protect your constituents—because once the project is built, leverage evaporates and "plans" rarely become enforceable commitments. Read Musk’s High-Stakes Gamble: xAI’s Billion-Dollar Bid to Build the World’s Biggest AI Supercomputer in Memphis by Markus Kasanmascheff | WinnBuzzer A new Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis projects that artificial intelligence will boost U.S. productivity and GDP by 1.5% by 2035, nearly 3% by 2055, and 3.7% by 2075—with the most substantial growth surge hitting in the early 2030s. However, the study's most striking finding challenges conventional wisdom about who faces the greatest risk: it's not low-wage workers or top executives, but the middle tier. Examining 784 occupations, researchers found that 40% of current employment involves at least half of its tasks being potentially automatable, with office and administrative support roles facing the highest exposure at 75%, followed by business and financial operations at 68%, and computer and mathematics positions at 63%. Meanwhile, the lowest-wage workers in manual labor and personal services face minimal exposure, and the highest earners—executives, athletes, medical specialists—are largely insulated. The study also reveals that employment has already begun to stagnate in the most AI-exposed occupations, with jobs that AI can completely replace showing a 0.75% decline between 2021 and 2024. Why This Matters: Economic developers have spent decades building strategies around attracting and retaining middle-skill, office-based jobs. In one community, we called this targeted industry “back-office.” These are the very occupations now facing the highest exposure to automation. This research forces a fundamental rethinking of workforce development priorities and business attraction strategies. Communities heavily concentrated in administrative support, financial operations, and mid-level tech roles face potential tax base erosion and population loss if they don't act now. The counterintuitive finding that manual trades and personal service jobs are most protected from AI disruption suggests that communities should reconsider their historical bias toward creating white-collar jobs. The timeline also matters: with the strongest productivity boost coming in the early 2030s, you have roughly five to seven years to prepare your workforce and reposition your economic base. And while the potential $400 billion reduction in federal deficits sounds positive, it signals that AI's productivity gains may not translate into the job creation that economic developers traditionally expect from new technologies. Take Action: Commission an AI exposure analysis of your local employment base, mapping current jobs against the study's occupation-level data to identify which sectors face the highest automation risk and how much of your tax base is vulnerable. Shift workforce development resources toward AI-resistant occupations, particularly skilled trades, construction, healthcare delivery, and personal services that require physical presence and human judgment. Partner with community colleges and technical schools to rapidly expand capacity in these fields while your current workforce is still employed and can retrain. Develop business retention programs specifically for companies in high-exposure sectors, helping them adopt AI tools that augment rather than replace workers—frame it as productivity enhancement, not headcount reduction. Read How AI Could Lift Productivity and GDP Growth by Kent Smetters | Knowledge at Wharton Major corporations are pointing to artificial intelligence as they announce massive workforce reductions. Amazon is eliminating 14,000 positions, UPS is cutting 34,000 roles, and Salesforce is reducing headcount by 4,000, all of which are recent examples. Yet despite the corporate cheerleading about AI-driven efficiencies, the math isn't adding up. A Boston Consulting Group survey found 60% of companies seeing minimal returns despite substantial AI investments, with only 10% reporting significant ROI from advanced AI systems. MIT economist David Autor suggests companies may be using AI as a convenient cover for old-fashioned problems like underperformance and economic uncertainty. Even Amazon couldn't keep its story straight, with one executive crediting AI for the cuts while another downplayed its role hours later. The disconnect between AI hype and actual productivity gains raises serious questions about whether we're witnessing a technological transformation or just a tech-savvy spin on traditional downsizing. Why This Matters: For economic developers, this AI-layoff trend carries significant implications that extend far beyond corporate boardrooms into your communities' workforce and talent pipelines. When major employers blame automation for job cuts, whether genuinely or as a public relations strategy, it can create ripple effects in your local labor market and shift public perception about the stability of specific sectors. The discrepancy between AI promises and actual productivity gains also matters for your recruitment and retention efforts. Companies considering expansion or relocation may be overselling their AI capabilities and underestimating their workforce needs, which affects their infrastructure planning and talent development strategies. Additionally, if AI is genuinely displacing workers in some roles, displaced workers with corporate experience could represent an underutilized talent pool for other employers in your region. Take Action: Develop a monitoring system to track which employers in your region are implementing AI and automation technologies, distinguishing between genuine transformation and rebranding of traditional efficiency measures. Create proactive outreach programs to connect with workers displaced from large corporations, offering rapid retraining and job placement services that leverage their transferable skills for small and mid-sized businesses that may be overlooked. Commission a local labor market analysis specifically examining AI's actual impact on job categories in your region versus national rhetoric, giving you data-driven insights for workforce development planning. Convene roundtables with local employers to discuss realistic AI adoption timelines and workforce implications, helping them avoid overselling automation capabilities to investors while underinvesting in human capital. Read Tens of thousands of layoffs are being blamed on AI. What are companies actually getting? By Rob Wile and Jared Perlo | NBC News. Just Be… It is the name of my other newsletter, one that I haven't discussed much here. It is a newsletter, more like a tip sheet or brain hack guide, that helps you navigate and work through the numerous stimuli we all encounter every day in our fast-paced electronic world. “Can’t you just be?” are also the words uttered by a long-ago therapist I was seeing as I went through a stressful life transition over twenty years ago now. Those words have always stuck with me as I progressed through various leadership positions. The JustBe newsletter is for the curious who want to learn about how to function better in their personal and professional life. It cycles through the topics of Grit, Resilience, Flow, and Growth Mindset every four months. At the beginning of every month, you get introduced to the topic of the month (the first Tuesday), and each Tuesday, you get a very short email guiding you through a task or actionable item you can take to implement the idea. The beginning of the month issue of the newsletter always opens with a story about a real-life situation, sometimes personal, often about people you would recognize. The remaining weeks of the month help you process the topic and give you real-world techniques and ‘hacks’ you can use. I am currently offering a discount to Curated Morning Readers. The regular subscription price is $10 per month or $97 if billed annually. Curated Morning Readers will receive a discounted price of $7.50 per month or $75 if billed annually.
This offer expires December 31, 2025, so act now and start the new year one step ahead. Here is the first issue of JustBe, to give you a taste of what you can expect. Other Articles of Interest this week:Economic Development -- Prologis Explores New Capitalization Strategies To Fuel Growing Data Center Business by Matt Wasielewski | BISNOW-- Prologis added 1.5 gigawatts of power capacity to its data center business in the third quarter, and the industrial giant is aggressively searching for more electricity to meet customer demand. Green Economy-- Geothermal developers lay groundwork for industry’s expansion by Tricia Crimmins | Tech Brew -- With a leg up from federal tax credits, geothermal giants Fervo and Dandelion debuted new policies to foster growth. Leadership -- Halfway Through Her TED Talk, This Neuroscientist Blanked Out. What She Did Next Was Perfect by Justin Bariso | INC. -- Onstage in front of 800 people, Anne-Laure Le Cunff realized her worst public-speaking fear. But she rose to the occasion, and taught a major lesson in the process. Technology -- A new South Texas data center will rely on untapped renewable energy by Berenice Garcia, The Texas Tribune | RouteFifty -- The new data center will work directly with a nearby windfarm to use energy the windfarm can’t send to the state’s electricity grid. Housing -- Chicago Housing Authority files lawsuit over HUD’s anti-DEI funding stipulations by Ryan Kushner | SmartCitiesDive -- The country’s third-largest public housing authority says at least 13% of its budget is at stake. Something You Should Read:My Uncle and the War Against Progress Last month, my uncle sent me a 2,400-word email (single-spaced, Comic Sans) explaining why he's getting rid of his smartphone and going back to a flip phone because "Big tech is rotting our brains." This is the same man who once drove six hours to avoid flying because "those things aren't natural." I wanted to tell him that neither is cheese, antibiotics, or living past 40, but I value family harmony. It turns out that Uncle Dale is part of a much larger trend. Economist Noah Smith has written a genuinely alarming piece about how Western civilization is actively turning its back on the very technologies that made us prosperous. We're not talking about being skeptical of the latest iPhone—we're talking about a broad cultural rejection of nuclear power, vaccines, AI, genetic engineering, and basically anything that smells like "progress." Smith compares this to how Islamic civilization abandoned its golden age of science or how Ming Dynasty China refused Western technology and spent centuries stagnating. Except now the stakes are way higher because technology actually determines whether we're 20 times richer than medieval peasants or, you know, are medieval peasants. The kicker? This anti-tech sentiment is coming from both the left and the right. It's bipartisan Luddism, which might be the only thing we can agree on anymore—and that's not exactly something to celebrate. Smith's argument is straightforward but chilling: civilizations that reject technological progress don't just stagnate, they collapse. And we're flirting with that fate right now. Read the full essay if you want to understand why your tech-skeptic relatives might be symptoms of something much more serious than just being annoying at Thanksgiving. Also, it might help you craft better arguments than "but Uncle, cheese isn't natural either." Overheard:“If the government regulates against use of drones or stem cells or artificial intelligence, all that means is that the work and the research leave the borders of that country and go someplace else.”
—Peter Diamandis
If you are a City or Village in Illinois, you will want to read this: Question: What if you could define a roadmap and structure to have every aspect of city administration and economic development work together…and do it at a very low cost…like I’m talking…no cost. Are you interested? Keep reading and cue the Strong Communities Initiative (SCI) Hometown Consulting in cooperation with Compeer Financial, is offering a fantastic opportunity for communities in Illinois to provide a solution to the challenges described above through the Strong Communities Initiative (SCI). The Strong Communities Initiative (SCI) is a diagnostic, capacity-building program designed to help small and mid-sized communities in Illinois strengthen their internal systems, readiness, and leadership alignment. SCI focuses on five equally weighted pillars of municipal health and performance, providing communities with a clear roadmap for operational and economic success. Through this Compeer Financial-funded initiative, Hometown Consulting partners directly with selected Illinois communities to evaluate current conditions, benchmark performance, and identify actionable steps toward greater efficiency, resilience, and growth. Here is the best part: ALL of the services (valued at over $12,000) will be provided to selected communities AT NO COST. Over the next thirty days, put together a winning application for your community. Five to seven communities will be chosen. Applications will be available NOW and are due December 15th. You can read more about SCI here. The application can also be found here. The Rabbit Hole:Flying the Friendly Skies to...Where? For many years, when the topic of discussion is the misery of Airports, I quietly and respectfully bow out. Where most people have their list of hated airports and airport and flying experiences, and I certainly have my stories to share, I love airports and everything about them. One of my favorite airports, which I affectionately refer to as my hometown airport, is Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Why would I pick O'Hare, the bane of many a traveler? There are many reasons, including, among other things, watching the airport develop over the years when we would go to pick up my Grandfather every summer for his annual two-week visit. That was back when you could walk directly to the gate and wait as passengers disembarked from the plane. It was also the time when people could smoke on a plane (you could smoke everywhere), and my Grandfather, a chain smoker, always had a cigarette hanging from his mouth, even as he disembarked. O'Hare even has an observation deck, where, during good weather, one could stand outside and watch the planes come and go. One time, while waiting for my Grandfather's plane to arrive, my father and I walked onto a parked Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet to check it out. No one stopped us, and no alarms went off. But O'Hare wasn't the airport's original name. Chicago's big airport was named after Butch O'Hare, a WWII pilot. The original name was Orchard Field, hence its airport code "ORD." You can read about other airport codes and the meaning behind them in The Surprising Stories Behind 10 Famous Airport Codes by Peter Vanden Bos in Daily Passport. I've Been Mainlining Vitamin C Wrong My Entire Adult Life The second I feel that telltale tickle in my throat—you know the one, that harbinger of doom that says "you're getting sick, buddy"—I become a Vitamin C addict. I'm chugging orange juice like it's a competitive sport, downing Emergen-C packets, contemplating whether I can just eat an entire bag of oranges in one sitting. I've convinced myself that if I can just flood my system with enough ascorbic acid RIGHT NOW, I can beat this thing before it starts. It turns out that I've been doing this completely backwards for decades. According to actual science (as opposed to my panic-fueled wellness theater), Vitamin C doesn't work like some emergency immune system defibrillator. You can't just shock your body with 1,000 milligrams at the first sniffle and expect miracles. Instead, you need to take it regularly, like every single day before you even feel sick, for it to actually shorten your cold by about a day and reduce its severity. It's preventative maintenance, not an emergency repair kit. About 46% of U.S. adults don't even get the bare minimum 90 milligrams daily (that's half a red bell pepper or one orange). And if you actually want cold-fighting benefits, you need closer to 1,000 milligrams, which means supplementation unless you're planning to cosplay as a citrus fruit farmer. So basically, my entire life strategy of "ignore vitamin C until I'm dying, then overdose on it" has been theater and pure performance art. Read the full breakdown and join me in the realization that we should've been taking this stuff all along. On the bright side, at least all that panic-chugged orange juice was hydrating. Can Your Roomba do a Roundhouse Kick? Does anyone remember the Jetsons? You must be of a certain age to know and appreciate this Cartoon created by Hanna-Barbera studios. When you think about it, The Jetsons was prescient in its ability to predict future technology. Or maybe all the tech bros' are watching Jetson to get their idea. Of course, one of my favorite technologies, which is often featured here in Curate Morning, is flying cars (coming soon to major cities). Another technology featured in the show was Rosie, the domestic robot. She did everything and rolled around on wheels, keeping up with the space age family. Rosie was made of metal and ate nuts and bolts for nourishment. Current robots aren't cleaning houses, with the exception of Roombas, but the robot featured in this video is certainly more agile than the old wheel-rolling Rosie. Thanks for Subscribing and Reading If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter, please feel free to share it with them. If someone forwarded this to you and you would like to subscribe, you can do so by clicking below. All the cool people are doing it!
Let's work together!With over three decades of experience in economic development, public administration, and small business, I can now bring my expertise to benefit you. What are the issues facing your community? What obstacles are you facing in growing your business? Let's work on this together. While I am experienced in a wide variety of sectors and issues, here is where my interests lie, and thus where I can benefit you most:
If you have any thoughts or comments regarding any articles in this newsletter please feel free to contact me through email at martin@martinkarlconsulting.com. You can review my services and offerings at www.martinkarlconsulting.com |