We had lunch with two rural economic development managers that work for the state at Scholz Garten, near the capitol building. They discussed the various challenges that rural areas encounter during different stages of their development and what the state does to assist these small municipalities. In the US, 80% of people live in urban cities, while 20% of the population lives rurally. Unlike large cities which, for the most part, are maxed out on the sales taxes that they can charge, smaller cities lie in counties that do not have a vast array of public spending. It is therefore up to the cities to decide how much they should tax their citizens in order to fund the ongoing development of the city and its infrastructure. Going after large corporations and attracting businesses to small towns is a major expense that does not always produce results. Cities must choose to focus on a few of Texas’ core sectors of business: aerospace and defense, advanced technology, bio-tech, energy, information and computer technology, and oil and refining. The general consensus of our discussion was that rural areas are often best served by using money that they would otherwise allocate for attracting big business by using these funds to help support local people and businesses. There are a variety of state programs that exist to aid cities in attracting economic development and small cities should focus on using this state funding to chase outside investment.
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