Why Collaborate?

Why Now?

The Madison Capital Region is at a tipping point. Our population continues to grow throughout the region (Dane County alone added 60,000 people in the past 10 years), and while there has been no shortage of efforts, entities or good ideas around economic development or quality of life initiatives, what's been missing is focus.

Why Here?

Our central location between the coasts lends both economic advantages and disadvantages. Regionally, we are at the convergence of four major natural assets which overwhelmingly shape our economy and our culture:
  • the greatest agricultural resource in the world (America's Breadbasket)
  • the largest freshwater resource in the world (the Great Lakes Basin)
  • the Northern Timberlands and
  • the Mississippi River Basin
We are centered within a "Circle City" of 20 million people, a regional population that rivals any in the country. These major natural assets and economic drivers have given rise to our regional economic clusters.
Tom Still, President, WTC
Regional economic development efforts make sense in our 21st century economy. The future of Wisconsin or the Capital Region's economies won't be determined by Sun Prairie getting a leg up on Middleton or Baraboo out-competing Madison. That kind of rivalry does little to position the larger region to compete in a global economy.

Today's competitive threat is centered in places such as China, Singapore and the European Union, not in other communities that make up the IQ Corridor between the Twin Cities and Chicago.

Collaboration can play a valuable role in building a regional economy.

Tom Still, President
Wisconsin Technology Council