First, I want to point out that candidate Knox gets the official "you’re so money" award for being the first Democrat in Philadelphia history to use the word "productivity" in the way that it was intended to be applied to economic development thinking. Without endorsing Knox, I recommend that other elected officials and candidates for office follow his lead and research how productivity drives competitiveness and supports high and growing wages. Get it, preach it.

In keeping with the theme of harnessing Philadelphia's entrepreneurial potential - in every corner of the city - as the most pressing issue on our agenda, I am going to ignore Knox's sections on violence, education, and fighting addiction and skip right to "Upgrading Philadelphia’s Workforce." Other than K-12 public education, obviously vitally important to our economy, this seems to be his only economic development thinking to-date. (Mr. Knox, you’ve know that you would be running for how long now? Get with the program.)

Also, in fairness to candidates Fattah and Nutter, who seem to be leading the way as it relates to fairly exhaustive (which, note, does not necessarily always mean good) policy ideas, Knox’s "On the Issues" section seems to be less "I am passionate about these issues, and my ideas represent the results of many sleepless nights poring over them" and more "My staff threw some ideas on my website because people at YPP pointed out I am the only Democratic candidate without ideas online."

The centerpiece of candidate Knox’s economic development strategy thus far is workforce development, specifically, skills development designed to enhance the environment for Philadelphia companies looking to create and sustain high productivity. This is excellent, and other candidates should take note. As I pointed out in one of my posts on candidate Fattah’s small business plan, he literally ignores labor force productivity, and should be hit in the head with a bell for such a terrible oversight.

Despite infusing productivity into the debate, however, candidate Knox seems to lack the kind of clarity of vision and passion for entrepreneurship that would allow him to be the agent of change and inspiration as it relates to Philadelphia's generally sour focus on the power of entrepreneurship and the trillions of dollars of market opportunity up for grabs around the world. This is a shame, because of all the candidates currently in the race, Knox is the only one - and the first person in a while - to be able to stand up in front of a crowd of entrepreneurs in Frankford and say "I've been there."

Furthermore, and in fairness to the criticism leveled at candidate Fattah last week, it should also be noted that Knox’s ideas lack any sort of underlying statistical backbone. It seems that candidates are either adverse to or incapable of conducting any statistical analysis to inform their ideas. I’d love to know why, as most of these candidates have either been in a leadership position in the region and had access to data, or – in Knox’s case – known they would be running for mayor for a long, long time.

Knox’s most attractive idea is to offer training to Philadelphia’s existing workforce through the Community College of Philadelphia. He surmises that CCP can serve "as a partner to companies moving to the region by training Philadelphians for specific jobs before these companies arrive." He plans to make CCP’s Corporate College "more affordable for employees and employers and offer free job training to city workers."

These are steps in the right direction, but I am not sure why we just cannot allow Philadelphians (or our employers) to apply some percentage of our wage tax accrual towards our next level of education at any Philadelphia-based institution. Why restrict employers’ and residents’ choices, when we can allow them to be free and nimble about where, when, and why they pursue educational opportunity. Simply put, while I agree that CCP is a sufficient resource to address the problems of our unskilled labor force, I’d like to see us get more aggressive in our response. Investments designed to improve the quality of our labor force create the conditions that will allow Philadelphia companies to create high productivity. High productivity allows us to support high and growing wages.