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:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It has some of the things in life I love the most: Food, drink, football, naps, and family. How could it go wrong? Thanksgiving week is also good. People are getting into the holiday spirit, the workplace has a certain levity, and by about Wednesday afternoon, everyone is checking out.

Did you know that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of the biggest drinking nights of the year? That's due to several factors. Google it, I'm not kidding.

When I lived in downstate Illinois, I started a short-lived tradition (then I moved farther away, ending the practice) of having family come to me on Thanksgiving. I rented the suite at the local Marriott and had the hotel staff bake my farm-raised turkey. We brought some sides, but the most remarkable thing was that once we were done, we just picked up the phone, and the hotel staff came up and cleaned up!

One year, much to the chagrin of several family members, I produced a 'family talent show." Knowing that some family members would claim not to have a talent, I identified their skills in advance and assigned their performances. What a hoot that was. Another year, I wrote a play, included parts for everyone, added stage directions, and we performed it for ourselves. The play was a combination of Hallmark and Science fiction. It included turkeys, Christmas carols (yes, it was a musical), and of course, aliens from outer space.

Maybe that's why the family refused to come the following year. Hmm…I'll have to ask.

Finally, in a previous version of my blog, I decided to write a short, moving dedication to the one who sacrificed the most on this momentous holiday: my Thanksgiving Turkey, named Cecil. It is now becoming a new tradition for me to repost "Ode to Cecil."

Read it here, and may your family be blessed on this great day.

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The $7 Trillion Question: Getting Your Share While Protecting Your Community

As the global data center industry races toward $7 trillion in investments by 2030, the scramble for these massive facilities has created a crucial fork in the road for local leaders: chase the economic prize without regard for consequences, or negotiate strategically to capture benefits while protecting community interests. Experts from the Brookings Institution are sounding the alarm that the current data center boom requires far more sophisticated policy approaches than traditional economic development playbook tactics. Communities are pioneering new frameworks that extract genuine community value from data center deals, moving beyond simple tax abatement giveaways to structured agreements that fund infrastructure improvements, create workforce pipelines, and ensure developers pay their fair share of the substantial infrastructure costs these facilities impose.

Why This Matters: The data center wave represents one of the largest infrastructure investment cycles in modern history, but it's fundamentally different from traditional manufacturing or corporate headquarters recruitment. These facilities bring enormous tax revenue potential but also create unprecedented strains on electrical grids, water systems, and community infrastructure that dwarf historical development patterns.

The difference between communities that will look back on data center development as transformative versus those that will see it as extractive comes down to whether local leaders negotiate proactively or reactively.

The acute shortage of electricians and trade professionals needed to build and operate these facilities creates an opening for communities to negotiate workforce development partnerships that deliver lasting benefits beyond the initial construction phase.

Take Action: Before the next data center proposal lands on your desk, convene your planning, utilities, and legal teams to develop a comprehensive impact assessment framework that quantifies the true infrastructure costs these facilities impose, particularly on electrical capacity, water consumption, and grid upgrades.

Research and draft model development agreements that include mandatory community benefit provisions similar to Cedar Rapids' approach, specifying dollar amounts or percentages that must flow to infrastructure improvements, affordable housing, or other community priorities.

Contact your local technical college or workforce development board immediately to begin designing data center-specific training programs that position your community to negotiate workforce development partnerships before developers approach you.

Proactively inventory your community's available sites, power capacity, and water resources to understand your competitive position before responding to inquiries, ensuring you negotiate from a position of knowledge rather than desperation.

Read How government leaders can balance the pros and cons of data center development by Kaitlyn Levinson | Route Fifty

Scenario vs. Prediction: Why That 'Oil Through 2050' Headline Is Misleading Your Planning

The International Energy Agency's latest World Energy Outlook has generated breathless headlines claiming the agency "predicts" or "forecasts" that oil and gas consumption will continue rising through 2050, but sustainability analyst Hannah Ritchie explains why these interpretations fundamentally misunderstand what the IEA actually published. The controversial projections come from the IEA's "Current Policies Scenario," which isn't a forecast at all but rather a "what if" exercise exploring what would happen if no new energy policies were enacted beyond those already passed and enacted.

he scenario makes dramatically pessimistic assumptions that Ritchie argues are implausible, including that electric vehicle adoption will permanently stall everywhere except China and the EU at current levels, and that global solar deployment will flatline at 2024 capacity for more than a decade despite ten consecutive years of growth.

Why This Matters: Economic developers making long-term infrastructure investments, workforce development plans, and incentive strategies need to distinguish between hypothetical policy scenarios and actual expected trajectories, or risk basing multi-decade commitments on fundamentally flawed assumptions. The difference between a world where EV adoption stalls at 25% market share versus one where it continues growing to majority market share completely reshapes workforce training priorities, utility infrastructure requirements, and the types of industries you should be recruiting.

The IEA scenario assumes solar deployment has already peaked despite continuing cost declines and growing demand, which would fundamentally alter the calculus for communities marketing renewable energy availability as a competitive advantage for data centers and advanced manufacturing. The political context matters too, with suggestions that the IEA faced pressure to publish scenarios aligning with certain political views, reminding us that even authoritative sources can be influenced by factors beyond pure analysis.

Take Action: Train your economic development team and key stakeholders to critically evaluate energy projections by always asking whether you're looking at a scenario, forecast, or prediction, and what assumptions underlie each. When consultants or site selectors present energy demand projections for your community, probe specifically whether their models assume policy changes, technology cost declines, and market adoption trends or whether they're frozen-in-time scenarios that may not reflect reality.

Review your community's comprehensive plan and economic development strategy to identify where you may have inadvertently incorporated scenario-based assumptions as if they were forecasts, particularly regarding future energy mix, transportation infrastructure needs, and workforce requirements.

Create a simple framework document for your board and elected officials explaining the difference between scenarios and forecasts so they can better evaluate the energy and climate projections that increasingly influence economic development decisions.

Read Will oil and gas consumption keep rising through 2050? By Hannah Ritchie | Sustainability by Numbers (Newsletter/Substack)

Municipal Power Moves: How Chattanooga's Battery Strategy Delivers Resilience Without Wall Street

When a power line serving nearly 400 customers at Sale Creek, north of Chattanooga, lost power on October 8, the lights stayed on anyway, marking a turning point in how one municipal utility is rewriting the rules of grid resilience. EPB, Chattanooga's nonprofit public power company, had quietly installed a Tesla Megapack battery system at this outage-prone location, providing 2.5 megawatts and 10 megawatt-hours of storage capacity that seamlessly switched on to bridge a half-hour maintenance window.

The installation is part of EPB's rapidly expanding 45-megawatt battery fleet, which serves a dual purpose, the utility's leaders believe, that makes the business case irresistible: keeping lights on during outages while simultaneously shaving peak electricity costs for the entire 500,000-person service territory.

While California and Texas dominate national battery deployment headlines, EPB is demonstrating how responsive local utilities can adopt proven technology to improve reliability and lower bills without massive research budgets or shareholder profit pressures. The approach is catching on regionally as well, with the Tennessee Valley Authority committing to 1.5 gigawatts of grid batteries across its territory by 2029, its largest battery deployment ever.

EPB is also moving forward with a 33-megawatt solar project in West Tennessee that will generate power cheaper than TVA's already-low rates, providing additional rate stability as costs rise across other sectors.

Why This Matters: EPB's battery deployment offers economic developers a compelling case study in how municipal utilities and public power structures can move faster and more innovatively than their investor-owned counterparts, creating a competitive advantage for communities they serve. The distinction matters because municipalities with public power utilities may have infrastructure advantages that economic developers haven't fully leveraged in competitive positioning, particularly when recruiting companies concerned about power reliability, renewable energy access, and rate stability.

EPB's approach of targeting batteries at specific outage-prone grid segments rather than pursuing massive utility-scale installations demonstrates how even modest-sized deployments can deliver measurable reliability improvements that matter to manufacturers, data centers, and other power-sensitive industries.

The dual-purpose strategy of using the same batteries for both emergency backup and peak shaving to reduce costs shows how infrastructure investments can be financially self-sustaining rather than requiring ongoing subsidies or rate increases.

Take Action: If your community has a municipal utility, schedule a briefing with utility leadership to discuss whether battery deployment for grid resilience and peak shaving makes economic sense for your service territory, using EPB's model as a discussion framework. Work with your utility to identify the most outage-prone segments of your distribution grid and assess whether targeted battery installations at these locations could become part of your economic development pitch to reliability-sensitive industries.

Connect with EPB directly to learn implementation details and lessons learned from their battery deployment strategy, as they've become a recognized leader in utility innovation through their partnerships with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and status as a Department of Energy "living laboratory" for smart grid technologies.

Finally, if your community lacks public power, consider whether highlighting your existing utility's battery deployment plans or renewable integration strategies could still serve as a competitive differentiator, even without the municipal utility governance advantage.

Read Batteries are helping Chattanooga keep the lights on — and bills low by Julian Spector | Canary Media

Something You Should Read:

My father and I often disagreed about things. He was a virulent anti-communist Nixon-Republican, impacted heavily by his experience as a displaced person from WWII. Having gone through that experience, I can easily see why he felt the way he did. To be sure, I wasn't a Communist by any stretch of the imagination, but as a young boy, I thought his position on things was often a bit strident.

Until I learned more about our family history, which was revealed slowly as I got older, I often wondered why my Father held the opinions he did. When I was young, I recall that the company that he worked for, which made machine tools (machines that generally cut metal), wanted to send him to Moscow for a trade show. It was the 1970s, but he refused to go. He refused partly out of principle and also out of fear. His parents were sent to a Siberian Gulag as he himself was fleeing his home in Latvia. He was afraid that somehow the Soviets might do the same if he showed up, even though he was now an American citizen.

While his reasoning may seem paranoid, try to put yourself in his shoes and consider the Cold War context, which might change your perspective.

We turn to the USA in 2025, and we see our own citizens being arrested and detained. One report says that at least 170 American citizens have been arrested or detained. The Supreme Court has determined that ICE agents can detain people based on appearance, such as 'Latino or Hispanic,' at least temporarily. The decision is a 'stay' of a lower court order barring that activity and still awaits final legal resolution.

These court decisions on immigration and other issues are leading to widespread disagreement in our country. I would hope that, regardless of differing opinions, we can avoid further polarization or hatred by fostering understanding and respectful dialogue.

Unfortunately, that is not what is occurring in the USA. There are reasons why this has happened, which again, I have strong opinions about, but what I wish for everyone is that we take a step back and consider that, regardless of our strong opinions and beliefs, we are all in this together as human beings and fellow citizens. We must act with kindness and respect toward one another.

The essay that follows makes that argument. As the end-of-year holidays approach, we will even encounter differing opinions in our own families (I'm looking at you, Uncle Bob), and we will see vehement disagreements break out, highlighting the need for understanding and respect.

If this occurs, try not to be too harsh. Take a deep breath and grab another glass of Egg Nog.

Then read The Hidden Cause of America’s Mental Health Crisis by Alex Buscemi in Builders to fortify your decision to be cool, calm, and collected.

Overheard:

“Our country, if you read the 'Federalist Papers,' is about disagreement. It's about pitting faction against faction, divided government, checks and balances. The hero in American political tradition is the man who stands up to the mob - not the mob itself.”

Jonah Goldberg

"There are people out there who disagree with me politically, and understand the limits of that disagreement. It doesn't mean we disagree as people on basic human needs.”

Lawrence O’Donnell

The Rabbit Hole:

I Am Trying to Remember His Name…

Many years ago, I attended a seminar (long before webinars were made possible by technology, and we actually sat in the same room together… no hiding behind the camera 'off' switch in your PJs) and a mini-conference on manufacturing networks. This era was a period of economic life in America when we were transitioning from old-school processes to new ways of manufacturing and building products. Today, we don't think twice about these concepts.

Before we got into how economic developers might identify supply chains and work with their local manufacturers to devise and innovate new products and capitalize on the inherent strengths, one of the seminar leaders introduced the idea of networks. Specifically, he introduced "mind-maps."

I've been hooked on this concept ever since and have used it to think "non-linearly," learn new ideas, create plans, take notes, and memorize things. If you buy me a beer (or two), I will sit and describe it to you for hours.

But you don't have to do that. Quickly, here is the basic idea: Our brain remembers things through relationships. If you attach something you want to remember to something else, the more abstract the better, you will be more successful in recalling it later.

To give you a more detailed and sophisticated description of how and why it works, read the newsletter from Jim Kwik, who studies and teaches these topics. Read Think deeper, remember longer, here.

Note: I have taken Kwik's memorization and speed-reading courses. I highly recommend them if you want to enhance your cognitive skills. Also, I get no remuneration for recommending them.

Who Wants to Stay at the Hanoi Hilton? (not recommended)

My secret indulgence is watching a lot of YouTube videos. I guess telling you this doesn't make it a secret anymore. I watch everything from a Russian guy who upholsters furniture to Gen Zers who travel the world, while I ask myself, "How come I didn't do that?" or "It's not too late to do that, isn't it?" Throw in some cooking channels and a few obscure history programs, and who needs cable TV?

Recently, many younger digital nomads who document their travels on YouTube have highlighted Vietnam. They paint a picture of lush tropical jungles, beautiful landscapes, peaceful Zen-like Airbnbs, and kind, lovely people willing to help travelers navigate the countryside on a rented motorcycle. Some channels suggest retirees might want to retire there.

Indeed, the country looks beautiful, but I grew up thinking about Vietnam differently. I grew up thinking about the Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket versions of Vietnam.

I grew up watching Walter Cronkite, the erstwhile CBS news anchor, tell me how many American, South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, and Viet Cong soldiers died that day.

I grew up watching American POWs released from the "Hanoi Hilon;" North Vietnam's notorious POW facility, limp home to less than welcoming crowds.

I grew up wondering when it would be my turn to go.

That's the Vietnam I remember. The YouTubers never address the fact that Vietnam is one of the last remaining Communist dictatorships still around. Nor do they mention that some fundamental human rights, such as the right to assemble and free speech, are often curtailed and enforced. They see and present a different Vietnam.

There are still many Vietnam veterans alive who also remember a different place and undoubtedly a different experience. The Newseum organization has recently published a collection of photographs showcasing the work of Stars and Stripes photographer John Olson, who spent three days with U.S. Marines during the Battle of Hue in 1968.

It will definitely give you a different perspective of Vietnam. Check it out here.

(Note: History will tell us that our foray into Vietnam was flawed and perhaps ill-advised. It does not diminish the fact that our military carried out its mission the best way it knew how, and that many young men and women made the ultimate sacrifice. We should always honor their sacrifice and the veterans still among us.)

Where Will I Sit?

When I lived in Indianapolis, I was impressed by a socially-minded company called PUP. This was an acronym for "People for Urban Progress." A local architect created PUP after watching the former RCA Dome being demolished and wondering what would happen to the roof material covering the field. It was likely to be sent to a landfill.

He came up with a plan to create wallets, bags, and other trendy materials, a recycling or upcycling project. (Kinda like my Pallet Christmas trees I made this year for family and friends, but obviously on a much smaller scale.)

His project was so successful that PUP began looking for other projects. When they redeveloped an old baseball stadium, PUP turned the 9,000 seats into bus stops across the city. There was obviously a need.

Today, in the same city, the need for sitting down remains. It is what has spurred one man to build and install benches around Indianapolis, albeit with wood from the lumberyard.

I like these stories because of their "we don't need no stinkin' permission" and proactive attitude toward doing things in their community. It's something more of us, especially economic development professionals, should adopt.

Read about the 'Bench Mench" and his "a little bit of good mischief," here.

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Your Curated Morning (#218) for November 27, 2025 is here!