Published on February 22, 2022
In December 2017, the City of Fort Worth’s Economic Development Department published the city’s first Economic Development Strategic Plan, developed with assistance from TIP Strategies Inc.
The goal of that plan was to identify strategies to help Fort Worth become a hub for creative businesses and identify additional opportunities to enhance Fort Worth’s economic status in the region and across the nation, over the next five years and beyond.
Much has changed since the plan was originally crafted in 2017. For starters, Fort Worth has grown from the 15th to the 13th largest city in the nation, according to the 2020 Census, with a booming population set to pass the 1 million mark by 2024.
With this additional growth, as well as the economic disruption resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Fort Worth turned once again to TIP Strategies last year to review and update the 2017 plan. This “refresh” would determine whether any of the original recommendations – including metrics, target industries and plan objectives – should be revised for Fort Worth’s current needs, and how Fort Worth can build upon its existing foundation to create a roadmap for further economic development success.
The complete 2022 Economic Development Strategic Plan update is available online.
“We’re looking forward to rolling up our sleeves and getting to work on the recommendations from our 2022 strategic plan update,” said Robert Sturns, the city’s director of economic development. “A lot has happened since the strategic plan was first created in 2017, and while Fort Worth has seen a fair amount of success since then, there’s still a lot more work to be done to address well-known gaps in our local ecosystem and strategically set up our city for long-term economic success.”
Target industry update
As part of this update, Fort Worth’s list of target sectors from 2017 was reevaluated based on current conditions to assess…