Aurora, county shine when looking at regional data

Last month I had the opportunity to participate in a regional economic development planning session called 6 Regions One Nebraska with several other individuals from Aurora. This is a new initiative that gathered community leaders from across the central region to learn about area demographics, discuss common challenges, identify assets in the region and pinpoint goals for the future. 
While we participated in the central region gathering, similar groups are meeting in all six regions across the state on this regional development initiative organized by the governor’s office, Nebraska Department of Economic Development and the Nebraska State Chamber. A previous article in the Aurora News-Register shared more details about the initiative, so I want to focus on some of my takeaways from the event.  
Considering the demographic data that we analyzed at the start of the meeting, Hamilton County fared better than most counties in the region for several different data points. For example, when looking at population change from 2010 to 2022 the central region had an average decrease of  negative 2.9 percent while Hamilton County increased by 2.6 percent. When looking at the places where people work, outside of counties that have metropolitan and micropolitan areas, Hamilton County was the second highest county with 377 establishments and industries within a range of 74-424 establishments in similarly sized counties.  
In the areas of education, housing costs and childcare, Hamilton County was in line with the other counties in the region. For education, this means most residents have completed high school or some college without earning a degree. On the housing side, Hamilton County is in the middle of the group when it comes to vacancy rates. Our low housing stock increases home values, which makes homeownership less attainable for residents in our county, since we have the third highest median housing value in the region.    
On the childcare front, we are faring okay as a county but struggling as a region. Hamilton County has the second lowest percentage of “all parents” in the labor force at 63.9 percent. Additionally, the number of licensed childcare providers in our county has held steady over the past five years with 231 providers. However, across the region there are 23,744 children under the age of 6 and there are only 14,653 spots available in licensed childcare facilities. This adds stress to the workforce, especially since those counties where 80-94 percent of all parents are working.    
After reviewing this data, discussion followed on challenges and assets of the area and the central region decided to focus efforts on housing, business support and childcare. With the goals identified, community leaders from across the region will continue to work together in the months and years to come to find solutions for our challenges as we work to strengthen our region, while other regions across the state do the same with their goals.   
Here are two overarching takeaways that I have from participating in this event that I think are important to share. The challenges that Aurora and Hamilton County face are not unique to only our community. Most communities across the region and the state are seeing the same types of challenges, we just don’t know about those challenges because we aren’t involved in their community.  
The second takeaway is that Aurora and Hamilton County still has a lot of positive progress and is a leader when compared to our peers in the areas of resident attraction, business development, housing and childcare. As with any type of development and community growth, there is always room for improvement, but we can consider ourselves among the leaders of the region and that is something to be proud of.   
 KELSEY BERGEN serves as executive director of the Aurora Development Corporation. She can be reached at kelsey@growaurora.com