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<br />employment and income growth. This means that communities need to . <br />promote change and innovation, not retard it. <br />A New Goal: Get Prosperous, Not Bigger <br />As communities achieve low levels of unemployment in an era of fairly strong <br />economic growth, economic developers need to think more about quality <br />than quantity; more about getting prosperous than simply getting bigger <br />(e.g., more jobs and people). Most economies, both big and small, still see <br />getting bigger as the main goal of economic development. <br />In the last 20 years, the transitional period between the old and the new <br />economy, "getting big" made some sense because economic growth was slow <br />and unemployment high. However, even when local and regional economies <br />were weak, job growth was at best a means to two possible ends: raising the <br />average standard of living in the metropolitan area, or helping reduce <br />poverty by employing those at the fringes of the labor market. The first of . <br />these two goals is now more effectively achieved by focusing on income <br />growth per se and not job growth as a means, particularly with the <br />unemployment rate at around 5 percent. The second is now largely a matter <br />of structural or social reform, such as job training, K-12 improvement, and <br />solving the problem of spatial isolation in low-income, inner-city <br />neighborhoods. It is difficult to see how programs aimed at undifferentiated <br />job growth that are not focused on higher wages or higher-skill jobs can <br />provide more opportunities for the poor than already exist in most metro <br />economies, unless those areas are losing jobs or have high unemployment. <br />Unfortunately, in most places it is hard to reverse the "go for growth" <br />political juggernaut that remains on autopilot. A powerful growth coalition <br />exists in most metro areas (e.g., real estate developers, Chambers of <br />Commerce, newspapers and utilities, and economic development <br />professionals) that advocates getting bigger, even if the new jobs pay little <br />and the region is coping with the pains of growth. For example, economic . <br />Strategic Plan for Economic Development Page 6 of 25 <br />Final Draft - Ready for Release Subject to Council Approval and Adoption <br />