* I have several friends who live (or lived) in Austin, Texas. One of them told me on my last visit why he moved to Austin from San Antonio, just down the road.

In San Antonio, he said, the local government was always in your business. Unlike in Austin, everything was top-down. The town was just too involved with the art and music scene, to the point of dominance. Street festivals, he said, were organized from the top, which tended to prevent new ideas from emerging and kept old ideas in place long after their prime.

* Illinois, and particularly Chicago, have the very same problem. We’re just way too top-down oriented here.

For a good example of how top-down we are, just look at the Chicago firestorm over food trucks. From January…

Six months after the city passed an ordinance placing new regulations on the industry granting truck owners the ability to prepare food inside their vehicles, only one of Chicago’s 126 mobile food dispensers have received a license to cook on board. In other major cities, food trucks have been cooking fresh food onboard for years, according to local officials.

Austin, population 820,000, has over 1,000 food trucks. The market is probably over-saturated, but that’s capitalism, man. Survival of the fittest.

* What does Mayor Emauel do to promote local music? He wants to develop special “entertainment districts.” There’s nothing at all organic about that…

“If I were an artist, I would want to move anywhere else than Chicago,” [Paul Natkin, a longtime concert photographer and executive director of the Chicago Music Commission] said, explaining that he knew struggling artists who were fined for not having a business license under former Mayor Richard M. Daley. That sort of bureaucracy, he added, hurts the music industry as well.

“Chicago’s kind of known worldwide as one of the hardest places to get a license to open a business,” Natkin said. “It’s a daunting task to open a venue or open up a record store — or any kind of business in Chicago.”

* In Springfield, where I now live, the mayor has opposed allowing downtown music festivals to stay open past 9:30 pm - on the weekends, for Pete’s sake.

* And it’s not just art and music. As Natkin noted above, it’s difficult to start almost any business in Illinois, and it’s very expensive to keep one going. Workers’ comp costs are killing some of our employers, for example, but nothing is being done to deal with it. Yes, Mayor Emanuel has loosened countless goofy Chicago regulations. He’s to be commended for that. More, please.

Our entrepreneurship rates are the 47th worst in the nation..

This is a huge problem and it absolutely has to be addressed. For the most part, we need to just get the heck out of the way.

* That being said, Gov. Rick Perry can bite me. His high-profile visit this week is basically just a publicity stunt, planned to coincide with a speech to a bioscience convention. Biotech is one of this state’s major bright spots. From a Gov. Pat Quinn press release…

“The Economic Engine of Biotechnology in Illinois” shows the Midwest Super Cluster, which includes Illinois and the surrounding eight-state region, surpasses California and the East Coast in biotechnology-related employment, number of establishments and research and development expenditures. Its four key findings are:

* Within the Midwest Super Cluster there are more than 16,800 biotechnology establishments employing more than 377,900 people. By comparison, California has 7,500 biotechnology establishments that employ 230,000 people, and the East Coast cluster employs 253,000 among its approximately 7,100 biotechnology establishments.
* The overall economic output of Illinois’ biotechnology industry is more than $98.6 billion with 81,000 direct jobs and more than 3,500 biotechnology companies in the state. In fact, Illinois residents employed by biotechnology companies earn up to 91 percent more than the average Illinois resident. The biotechnology industry in Illinois has demonstrated the strongest revenue growth in recent years among all of the states analyzed in this [Ernst & Young LLP] study, an average annual growth of 13.3 percent.
* During the past decade, the top seven universities in Illinois have steadily increased their research and development expenditures, creating new opportunities for biotech startups. Expenditures have nearly doubled since 2001, growing from $727 million to more than $1.3 billion.
* The ability to secure early-stage funding is spurring innovation and growth among startup biotechnology companies in Illinois. Venture capital funding in Illinois has seen a 209 percent increase between 2009 and 2012.

Nurture, offer funding options if needed, deploy the universities where necessary and then get out of the way of the people who know what they’re doing. We don’t need to deregulate to the point where our fertilizer plants are exploding. But we need to let the people of this tremendous state put their fantastic minds to work on what they do best and stop being an impediment.

* Related…

* Rahm Emanuel Welcomes Rick Perry To Chicago: I Hope ‘He Remembers All 3 Of His Reasons For Coming’

* Texas governor trying to lure Illinos business

* Perry: It’s not poaching jobs, it’s just competition

* Tribune Editorial: The Illinois jobs crisis - A recovering nation leaves a Midwest laggard behind. No wonder Perry’s poaching.

* Roger Keats: Texas offers best opportunity for long term businesses

* The True State of the Texas Economy

* Rutherford: Businesses should stay in Illinois, create healthier biz environment