As John Schmid reported, "The work of the Water Council has become global in its nature and the organization wants to jettison anything that smacks of provincialism," Executive Director Dean Amhaus said. Hence, they've dropped Milwaukee from the formerly titled Milwaukee Water Council.
Yes, all the companies that are members of the Water Council, those businesses which have benefited from Milwaukee's water, those same ones whom want see the "water hub" idea take-off, they just don't want to mention or give any indication that they are actually in Milwaukee.
Let's not forget this idea of a Milwaukee "water hub" and it's transformational economic powers are dubious. Nonetheless, being a Milwaukee initiative involving Milwaukee water, the fact that it's located in Milwaukee should be one of the focal points. Especially if the initiative is being sold as a catalyst for economic development in the Milwaukee area.
In 2009, UWM also launched the second key initiative in its entrepreneurial aspiration to become the driver of economic development in Milwaukee: a School of Freshwater Sciences. During the preceding two years, Milwaukee’s civic leadership had coalesced behind a regional economic development strategy, led by 69 business executives who organized something called the “Milwaukee 7 Water Council,” to “brand itself as the global capital of freshwater research”...
Curiously, no one in Milwaukee has done the comparative research on the water sector in other metropolitan areas that would be necessary to confirm whether a uniquely large “cluster” of water companies is located in the region...
Of the 40 global water companies listed by a Goldman Sachs report as generating the highest revenues none have their U.S. headquarters in Milwaukee...
What about the locations of all U.S. plants and offices –not simply headquarters-- for global “top 40” water companies? Over 50 metro areas are home to at least one U.S. plant or office of the global water “top 40.” What’s more, as in the case of headquarters noted above, the vast majority of these facilities are located in the suburbs, exurbs, and small towns of metropolitan areas, generally not in the central cities. Thus, as suggested earlier, this suggests that the economics of clustering and agglomeration may not be at a premium in the fragmented water technology industry, and that no one place is likely to emerge as a“Silicon Valley” of water...
The Milwaukee region supposedly is already home to a vibrant and growing water sector, comprising somewhere between 76 and 120 “water-related” companies (including local branches of five of the world’s 11 largest water companies). According to water boosters, these numbers are larger “than in any other city in the United States”; they confirm that Milwaukee is “already a leader in water technology”; and they confer on the region significant “first-mover” advantages in the race to become the “Silicon Valley” of water...
But, whether we look at headquarters locations, offices and plants, patents, or certain occupations, the Milwaukee region is hardly a “unique” presence in the industry, or even a “first-mover” in attempting to promote water technology as a local economic development strategy...
Several regions, in the U.S. and abroad, do seem to have a leg up in growing and attracting water technology companies, but the industry doesn’t appear to exhibit a clustering that remotely resembles a “Silicon Valley.” And to the extent that there is a nascent Silicon Valley of water out there, Minneapolis, Toronto, Israel, or Singapore all seem like better bets at this point than does Milwaukee.
So, we've gone through all this trouble and money to brand Milwaukee a "water hub," but now the powers that be would like everyone to just focus on the water and forget about Milwaukee. That's not right.
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