WHY?

Small and local businesses are critical to economic development for several reasons including, these businesses’ ability to generate a market by contracting local services and employees, to provide a unique character to a neighborhood or community, and to develop a local class of entrepreneurs.

THE ASSESSMENT

The 2007 National Establishment Time-Series (NETS) Database contains annual time-series information and a wide variety of fields for more than 32 million establishments, from January 1990 to January 2006. The NETS database, together with InfoUSA and ACNielsen data, to be obtained by Social Compact, will serve as the basis for detailed business environment assessments for the District of Columbia as a whole and for each District neighborhood.  These assessments will contain, at a minimum, a thorough analysis of the following business characteristics:

• a. Ownership (gender, ethnicity), age, size, and industry
• b. Health & Performance
• c. Life cycles and relocation patterns from 1989 to 2005
• d. Geographic reach (Local vs. national businesses)
• e. Headquarter location (District vs. other)

Business environment assessments will also include information on the following factors:

• a. Average rents (further subdivided by corner vs. interior locations and high rush hour traffic vs. low traffic areas) in a neighborhood.
• b. Top performing industries (based on business revenues)
• c. Most prevalent industries (based on total number of businesses)

Furthermore, Social Compact will utilize the aforementioned datasets to develop detailed profiles of small and local businesses throughout the District. Each of these profiles will include a series of descriptive maps, charts and tables.

These business environment assessments will provide timely information related to current business development initiatives in Washington, DC. For example, profiles of local businesses can be used to inform the growing “Buy Local” campaign sponsored by the Latino Economic Development Corporation (LEDC). Similarly, real-time assessments of rental values at the neighborhood level lend a powerful tool to local entrepreneurs’ site selection throughout District neighborhoods.

Over the next six to eight months, Social Compact will work to expand its website capabilities. Upon completion of this process, the business environment data will be uploaded to the website into a user friendly application that will enable stakeholders to query and map corresponding indicators based on their needs and areas of interest.

The business environment assessment process will be automated, at no additional cost, to allow for future assessments as new data becomes available.