Mayor: Sustainability is Fishers’ Greatest Challenge

(photo courtesy OneZone)

The mayor of Fishers says one of the biggest issues facing the city is sustainability. In his State of the City address Wednesday, Scott Fadness said there are some parts of the city that are already heading toward the "direction of urban decay." He says the city plans on investing early and reinvesting often to maintain its vibrancy.

"When Fishers is no longer the new and shiny object that it once was, how does Fishers continue to sustain itself? How do we continue to have good jobs here? How do we have a tax base?" said Fadness. "Those types of challenges aren’t here today but they’re going to be here and if we don’t start making decisions today to deal with those issues, then we’re going to have a real challenge."

Fadness says Fishers is unique because it has found an intersection between what residents want and what businesses need. He also says the city’s relationship with Indianapolis is getting better than it had been previously. He says Indianapolis metropolitan area is not succeeding at the rate it should be.

"Fishers and Carmel, we can talk about our success individually, but collectively as a region, we have a lot of work to do and we need to be leaders in our own right in that pursuit. From my perspective, Fishers should be as engaged as possible in the discussion about where this metropolitan area goes."

The mayor also touted the recently-announced Indiana IoT Lab-Fishers. He said all of the consumers of the Internet of Things are in Indiana and the city must "pivot our economy" toward supporting the IoT sector in an effort to sustain jobs in Fishers and throughout the state.

You can view a replay of the State of the City address by clicking here.