Last month, a group of 27 business leaders from the Quad Cities sent a letter to the chairpersons of the area's four largest economic-development entities. That, in itself, is noteworthy, but the letter is full of curious features:

The Quad City Development Group announced last week that a feature film by the Italian brothers Antonio and Pupi Avati will be partially shot in the Quad Cities this year, with an expected local impact of several hundred thousand dollars.

Last month, the public got a peek at four finalists for the design of the Interstate 74 bridge over the Mississippi River, and it was an important milestone. For the first time, people could actually visualize what the new bridge might look like, eight years after it first became one the area's top transportation priorities.

 

I'd like to write a column about how Davenport is marketing itself. But any discussion about the marketing of Davenport needs to be preceded by a discussion of what's being marketed. That's because we have to fix any company's (or city's) infrastructure if we expect the masses to flock to it as a result of marketing.