North San Joaquin Valley Assessment Project
In 2013, the Center for Business and Policy Research (CBPR) received a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Agency to produce the “North San Joaquin Valley (NSJV) Regional Assessment.” Advancing understanding about the NSJV, the project provided an unprecedented assessment of the region’s competitiveness, employment, and growth through a series of technical reports and a culminating event in November 2014. That Assessment identified three key elements that define the NSJV as a distinct region:
- Intra‐regional linkages among the NSJV counties: In addition to similar economic systems and markets facilitating linkages, the NSJV counties are united through intra-regional commuting and migration.
- Growing inter‐regional linkages with the San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Sacramento Area: While possessing distinct economic systems and socio-economic structures, the regions are strongly linked through commuting and migration patterns.
- Increasing Distinction from the South San Joaquin Valley (SSJV): Despite similar socio-economic structures, the NSJV and SSJV have very little employment interchange, limited commuting, and migration connections, different inter-regional linkages, and some distinct areas of comparative advantage.