Upstate New York's economy will need to be in a near-constant state of reinvention if it wants to survive in the current environment, according to CenterState CEO, an economic booster organization based in Syracuse.
Reinvention was the theme of CenterState's annual meeting held Monday morning.
"We have to be better. We have to reinvent ourselves and our businesses every single day," Rob Simpson, president of CenterState told reporters before the luncheon.
With so much competition from around the world, and Syracuse having lost it's historic economic mainstays - Carrier Corp. and New Process Gear, for example - retooling with be always needed, Simpson says.
"The reality [is], is that the reinvention that’s taken place in our regional economy is – it’s not a one-time thing. It’s something, unfortunately, that I think is the new reality."
CenterState CEO has been touting the figure of $1.4 billion being invested in central New York at the moment.
"Communities that are too timid, that don’t act quickly enough, that aren’t willing to invest, are not going to make the transition to the new economy successfully," Simpson says.
And indeed there are multiple renovation and construction projects underway - or about to be - in downtown Syracuse. But the region has only regained 22 percent of the jobs it lost during the last recession, a figure well behind many other parts of upstate New York.
