Water audits offer detailed information to targeted classes of users.   An audit includes a customer-specific on-site survey of water usage patterns and specific recommendations for increasing water efficiency.  It may also involved distributing and/or installing water-saving devices.  Audits can be conducted for both indoor and outdoor use for residential and nonresidential customers.

In order to achieve fundamental changes in patterns of water use in the region, residents and businesses must have a greater awareness about the region’s water resources, the impacts of excessive water use, and the need for conservation.  Customers must understand how their actions affect the natural environment and how conservation measures can save them money.  Pricing structures, technology, outdoor use restrictions, and development standards all depend on the water user for their effectiveness.  Without an educated consumer who is aware of cause, effect, and solutio

In order to make the existing commuter rail network more useful, the region needs to develop local transit services that connect employment and housing to commuter rail stations.  These connections would serve local residents, employees, shoppers, visitors, and tourists.  Such services could also connect destinations to each other, increasing transportation options even for those users who are not riding the train.  Employers and businesses have strong incentives to support transit services because they can provide transit access to their location for a much larger population

Micro-businesses and sole proprietorships generally have little need for conventional office and industrial spaces.  Many work out of their own home or studios; others share office space with other small businesses.  A new generation of “virtual” business incubators (such as the Enterprise Center at Salem State College) serve as resource facilities where member businesses access services, meeting space, and training, without necessarily having their desk at that location.  

One key step to supporting small businesses is to acknowledge their importance in economic development plans.  Many economic development professionals are focused on attracting or retaining corporate employers, which provide economic benefits that are easy to define.  Support for small businesses and entrepreneurs is often harder to define, and it may be harder to measure the outcomes.  

Marketing and information are critical to ensuring that the development community invests in areas consistent with MetroFuture.  Various public agencies, quasi-public organizations, and public/private partnerships provide statewide and national marketing to priority development sites and other designated locations.  Examples include the Massachusetts Office of Business Development, the Massachusetts Alliance for Economic Development, MassDevelopment, and municipal economic development departments.  

Productive relationships between municipalities and the development community attract economic investment and the opportunity for meaningful growth to Metro Boston.  These relationships should be encouraged. Long-term prosperity depends on it.  Where the permitting process brings satisfactory results, the applicants, the public, and the economy stand to benefit.  MetroFuture recommends that municipalities adopt a set of best practices that can make permitting more predictable, equitable, cost effective, and efficient.  

For a variety of reasons, many immigrants do not use conventional financial institutions.  They may lack a social security number, be unfamiliar with institutions, or face language barriers.  There are immediate and quantifiable costs to being “unbanked”:  unbanked individuals pay more for basic financial transactions such as cashing a check and paying bills.

If older workers are to have more options available at retirement age, they must begin planning and saving for retirement.  There are a variety of employer-driven opportunities to increase participation in retirement saving programs. 

23.a    The Office of the State Treasurer and Executive Office of Elder Affairs should develop a new initiative to increase financial literacy for older workers
23.b    Employers should increase access to voluntary retirement saving programs

Employers must adopt new practices to help retain older workers.  Flexible work arrangements may appeal to older adults who no longer wish to work traditional full-time schedules, either because of additional personal obligations (such as the need to care for aging parents or spouses or to help with grandchildren), worsening health, declining physical energy or stamina, or a preference to sacrifice some income for more control over their time without giving up paid employment entirely.