6. Good jobs, competitive business atmospheres, new customers and spikiness come from lower taxes and better business environments. Electing pro-business, tax-cutting conservatives is a good start.

Note: Barack Obama is the antithesis of what is mentioned above.

@ Anon - it's interesting, because Madison, for instance, is quite liberal politically, and we're listed on the top city lists consistently, but certainly I believe we have more work to do. I feel many economic development plans don't focus on community deveolpment issues, and perhaps it is this piecemeal approach that allows neither area to grow spikes? I don't know the answer, but it's certainly interesting to discuss! Thanks for the comment.

@ jaywigley - I tend to agree here. In today's economy, we're going to have to constantly be changing and be open to new perspectives in order to succeed. Those who use only what worked in the past won't move forward.

Rebecca, you make a good case for why young people are an important demographic in cities and your points illustrate your argument well. I'd like to learn more about why you think that cities are ignoring us in economic development plans. Is this because young people are not directly involved in this sort of planning? I think it's an interesting observation...

@ Norcross - I think you'd enjoy reading some of Richard Florida's new writings. He argues that this notion that the world is flat and that we don't require a "space to call home" is wrong, and in reality, place is extremely important, and the world is instead spiky. This backs up the other part of your arguement that it's important to be near family.

If people can work from anywhere, why do they continue to work in certain places? Place is a huge determinant of many other things, and cities should realize and act like they're important. And they should also realize that a big reason of why they're important is because of young talent. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!

@ Jaclyn - It comes from the fact that I read my city's recently-completed economic development plan on Tuesday night.

It's the first one they've completed since I was born (1983), fifty pages (I can't believe I actually read the whole thing), and neglects young people in my opinion. It was interesting to me that we met with a city representative to ensure that young people and entrepreneurship specifically were involved in the plan, but it didn't turn out that way. To be fair, the city did offer to hold a special listening session for young people, but it would have cost $2500, and the timing was rushed. They also have community-wide listening sessions coming up, so I will be at those.

So yes, how can we get young people more involved in the planning? Bigger efforts need to be made on both the city's and the young people's end. Whew! Sorry for the rant.

Anyway, I don't think my city is alone. Cities all over the country and the world are clamoring to be bigger, better, but there aren't a ton of cities that concentrate on catering to young people as a viable economic development strategy. That should change.

When looking at economic development in the cities I believe you also have to balance that development with making funds available for the arts, social activities, libraries, parks, etc. You want to attract talented workers and they want a work - life balance that includes quality of life activities within the city or close to the city. Probably off topic for an economic development post but I don't think you can look at economic development in a vacuum either since as you say it starts with human capital.