ABSTRACT
Local economies are dramatically different across the United States. Corporate real estate executives and site-location consultants are paid to find the best sites across the country for their businesses or their clients to house a new office or a new facility. Preparing the municipal product for potential economic development prospects will involve different issues in different communities. The professional economic developer will be adept at resolving, to the extent possible, any barriers to corporate site location that may arise. The community that wants to be able to attract the best of this future workforce will need to ensure that their current product properly reflects the needs and interests of this next generation of workers. They may also need, however, to ensure that the future product reflects their future needs in order to retain the companies and these large portions of the future workforce. Economic development professionals market their communities as products in ways similar to corporate marketing.
