The City of Evansville exists in a competitive world. Like industry, we need to benchmark other successful cities to measure ourselves. For us to grow and prosper, we need an attractive city, culturally diverse with good schools and safe attractive neighborhoods that lead to a dynamic downtown. We compete with other cities for industry, entertainment and residents. I see long term initiatives in annexation and infrastructure development, downtown revitalization, regional partnerships both public and private, transportation improvements, and high technology investment.
Annexation is necessary for the City of Evansville to grow and develop.
Similar Indiana cities such as Bloomington, Lafayette and Terre Haute have grown by annexing outlying developed land. It's Evansville's turn. We are in the process of initiating the fiscal studies necessary to move this process forward. I've mentioned downtown revitalization as a necessity to improve our area's quality of life. Another way to elevate quality of life for our citizens is to seek transportation linkage.