Regional Economic Development

The region’s water agencies are proposing a mammoth project to pump groundwater from rural parts of the state, spending millions paying homeowners to tear out their lawns to reduce consumption and praying that the states will work out a deal.

Typically, an IAF-approved company gets a few thousand dollars per job that is created and that pays a certain level above the county median wage where the expansion or relocation occurs. The companies get the money after the jobs are created and must commit to keeping the operations in Utah at least five years.

Historic dependence on resource extraction industries, like mining, oil and gas development
and the wood products industry, are shown to be associated with the slowest long-term growth
rates. Diverse economies, especially those with – dependence on the high-end service industries,
like finance, real estate and business services, grow the fastest.

The EDC, says Eliassen, also is changing the way it recruits employers. Rather than using a shotgun approach, the agency now targets six industry clusters, and is putting its resources into finding willing recruits that fit into them. They include: financial services, advanced manufacturing, logistics (warehousing and distribution), information technology, health and biomedical, and higher education and research and development.

"Dr. Thomas Clark, Kentucky’s foremost historian …, recently said that the central question in assuring a brighter future for Kentucky is the wise investments in preparing its people to be capable and adaptable in a demanding technological age. This calls for wise and courageous leadership to recognize this fact."

Walshok said California has an an atmosphere that encourages change and innovation, much of which stems from a ‘pioneer spirit’ that people who moved out west brought with them — a desire to make fresh start. This exists as a contrast to Wisconsin, an older, more insular society that doesn’t encourage as much innovation.

By overlaying access to airports, automobile commuter distances and public lands on the same map, Rasker said the study pointed to “three Wests”–those that have access to urban markets by car, those that have access to urban markets by air and all the rest.

"We’ve got to continually build an awareness that we are out there, with things to do," Drake said. "We’re trying to convey a sense of place."

Perched on the easternmost edge of Oregon timber country, where scattered mountain ranges fade into the high desert, the hamlet of Lakeview is an apparition. All indications suggest that it should be dead and gone,…

A metropolitan region does not have formal institutional structures such as nations, states, and cities, but it is a system that can be conceptualized and studied as a whole. The study of metropolitan areas too…