Business View Magazine
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civic actors. The network serves as a platform that
connects employers with individuals who possess
the skills and motivation to be successful employees,
but whose nontraditional pathways to acquiring those
skills too often render them invisible to traditional re-
cruiting processes. The $100 million initiative was an-
nounced last year by President Obama at the National
League of Cities annual meeting. “We’re committing
to work with various organizations here in the City,
be it educational, healthcare, etc., to come up with a
plan to show how we’re going to increase the hiring of
technology-driven jobs,” states Davis. “We’re excited
about that and we are on our way to doing great things
in that area.”
“The City of Jackson has also received a TIGER (Trans-
portation Investment Generating Economic Recovery)
grant for our State Street area,” Davis adds. “This grant
was competitive. We wrote the plan, submitted it, and
were awarded the grant.” The TIGER monies will fund
the city’s reconstruction of State Street including pre-
liminary engineering services, environmental phase
services, traffic analysis, right-of-way/easement acqui-
sition, roadway design, construction, engineering, and
inspection. “That, most definitely, is going to boost our
economic redevelopment of State Street, so we are
also excited about that.”
While some parts of Jackson’s redevelopment are be-
ing financed by grants, other parts of its infrastructure
redevelopment are being mandated under a consent
decree that the city has received for violating sections
of the U.S. Clean Water Act and the Mississippi Air and
Water Pollution Control Law. “So, we have, probably,
$1.23 billion worth of infrastructure that we have to
do - roads, water, and sewer,” Davis says. “That’s
