Springfield business and civic leaders traveled to Indianapolis for a three-day community leadership visit last week focused on growth, housing and regional development.
The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce announced that a delegation of 87 private- and public-sector leaders visited Indianapolis from Oct. 6-8, according to a community announcement. The trip was the chamber's 32nd annual Community Leadership Visit, a program that has taken regional leaders to peer communities since 1994 to study best practices, build relationships and explore ideas that could benefit the Springfield region.
Chamber leaders selected Indianapolis because of its record of economic growth while maintaining relatively lower housing-cost pressures than many other
growing metropolitan areas.
According to the announcement, the Brookings Institution's Metro Monitor 2025 identified the Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metro area as one of 10 of the nation's 195 largest metros that posted strong growth and prosperity from 2013 to 2023 while keeping cost-of-living increases comparatively low. The announcement said those metros shared a common characteristic: housing supply expanded faster than population growth.
Indianapolis has continued adding housing despite affordability challenges tied to higher mortgage rates since 2022. The chamber said the region averaged about 12,000 permitted housing units annually from 2020 to 2025.
“Growth is only an advantage if the people who make it possible can afford to be part of it,” said Jessica Harmison-Olson, Springfield Chamber board chairman. “Affordability has long been one of Springfield’s strongest competitive advantages. Indy is demonstrating how a region can keep growing without giving that advantage away. That’s a lesson worth learning.”
Focus on housing, investment and quality of place
Organizers said this year's program examined regional alignment, strategic investment and quality of place.
Delegates were scheduled to hear from business, civic and nonprofit leaders from central Indiana about housing, workforce development, infrastructure, downtown public safety, homelessness, sports tourism and Indianapolis' Unigov governmental structure.
The consolidated city-county government model was adopted by Indianapolis and Marion County in 1970.
“Last year in Cincinnati, we saw how civic alignment and strategic investment can drive transformational progress,” said Chamber President Matt Morrow. “Our region’s growth and our housing supply are now the same conversation, and Indy shows what it takes to get both right. The point of the trip isn’t to come home and replicate Indy. Our goal is to learn how another growing region has tackled the same questions now in front of us.”
The chamber said previous leadership visits have led to collaborations and strategies that continue to influence the Springfield region.
More information about the trip is available at springfieldchamber.com/clvindy.
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This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield leaders visit Indianapolis to study housing growth
