Focus on Being a Great Town and Everybody Wins

I have been doing a series of columns on approaches I have seen communities similar to Steamboat Springs take toward economic development. I did this series because I was growing weary of the fear based rhetoric from both sides with strong opinions surrounding the retention and/or expansion of Triple Crown Sports.

Decisions made in an atmosphere of fear typically turn out to be poor ones. Call me naive but I believe that knowledge and experience are the beginnings of wisdom. Wisdom is sorely needed in this situation to make sure as a community that we do not make decisions based in fear of what might happen and find out later those decisions had long-range unintended consequences.

There are essentially three approaches I have seen communities take when developing an economic development strategy. Each has different goals.

By Scott Ford

Full Story: http://www.thesteamboatlocal.net/article.php?id=606

Economic Gardening: http://littletongov.org/bia/economicgardening/econdev.asp