DiversityInc - October 2008

Community leaders have also leveraged the city’s central location ( 60 percent of the nation’s population is within a one-day truck drive or 90-minute flight from Columbus) to attract logistics-industry and aviation companies and generate higher-paying jobs.

Example: The recently arrived aviation company NetJets created about 2,000 jobs and is building a $200-million campus near Port Columbus, potentially igniting an aviation- and aerospace-industry boom. What’s more, the region’s R&D funding and educational institutions, which produce more than 20,000 graduates each year, are luring biotechnology firms, one of the nation’s fastest-growing economic-development sectors. Currently, 60 percent of the Columbus work force is employed in white-collar occupations, compared with 51 percent nationwide, reports ColumbusChamber.

As a result of these and other employment opportunities, “We’ve become a place of attraction for the young and talented … for the diverse,” says Mayor Coleman, who has helped gain or retain about 30,000 jobs for all residents since taking office in 1999. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2006 American Community Survey, 27. 6 percent of Columbus residents are Black (versus 12. 4 percent nationally) and 67 percent are younger than 44 (compared with 37 percent nationally).