Economic Development Strategies

Economic development strategies are concerted approaches on the part of a city or county to influence the direction of private sector investment toward opportunities that can lead to sustained economic growth within or supportive of that jurisdiction.

Sustained economic growth can provide sufficient incomes for the local labor force, profitable business opportunities for employers and tax revenues for maintaining an infrastructure to support this continued growth. There are many initiatives that you can support to encourage investments where the community feels they are needed the most.

There are three overarching strategy approaches used to enhance local economic development. They are:

• Business Retention and Expansion - enhancing existing businesses
• Business Attraction – luring in new businesses
• Business Start-ups - encouraging the growth of new businesses

A major tool to implement economic development strategies is “redevelopment”.