UP: Madison developers. Madison has proposed several new initiatives to make the city more developer-friendly. They include forming a staff design team to give early feedback on proposals and using technology to streamline the review process. Delora Newton, executive vice president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, praises the initiatives as an "attitudinal shift," adding, "It doesn't mean you're going to have bad projects getting through, but it means you're working together to get projects done."
DOWN: Corn crop. This summer's severe drought has threatened to destroy much of the area's corn crop. The lack of moisture has disabled the pollination process. "It's pretty dire," Joe Speich, an agronomist with Landmark Services Cooperative, tells the Wisconsin State Journal.
