19 Things Economic Developers Need to Know This Week
The stories Dane thinks you need to see. June 19, 2025 edition.
Welcome to this week's issue of What Economic Developers Need to Know This Week, where we explore the evolving dynamics of our economy.
This week we have 19 tools, stories, graphics, charts and videos that I think you'll find informative, useful, inspiring, and perhaps even humorous. Some are economic development related directly, and some only indirectly. 🤔
If you're wondering what to do with the info in this newsletter, send something to your board members. It will make you look good!
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1) Economic Development and Developers in the News # 200 - Econ dev news from 94 economic development executives and organizations in 26 states.
2) 2026-Ready Economic Development - Why smart economic development teams are skipping 2025 and jumping straight to 2026 technology.
3) Podcast Episode 178 - Reinventing Shop Local Initiatives with Sophia Zheng - Shop local rewards: Because everyone loves getting stuff for free.
4) 13 New Economic Development Jobs This Week - In 8 states, from $31 - $250,000
5) 24 Things Economic Developers Need to Know This Week - The stories Dane thinks you need to see. June 12, 2025 edition.
6) FDI: Which countries invest in the U.S. the most?
7) Making sense of recession probabilities: In late April, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced the preliminary estimate of gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2025, which showed GDP declined 0.3%. Even prior to this, Google web searches of the term “recession” hit peak popularity. News articles mentioning recession often cited market analysts’ “probability of recession.” How do economists and Wall Street analysts generate these so-called recession probabilities, and what do they mean?
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8) Trade between China and the US is collapsing:
9) AT&T Stadium is changing to ‘Dallas Stadium’ for World Cup. Not so fast, says Arlington. "We're not a suburb of Dallas!" What is a suburb?
10) An analysis of Tulsa, Oklahoma's program to attract remote tech worker residents by paying them $10,000. The analysis found that benefits of the program outweighed the costs 3 or 4 to 1: new residents spent more at local retailers, attracted more high-tech companies, and in some cases started their own companies.
11) What percentage of each state is forested:
12) What a difference age makes (Single male to female ratio ages 20-39 vs 40-64):
13) 150 years of corn, wheat, and soy yields in America:
14) The most and least expensive US states:
15) According to the latest data from the New York Fed, the unemployment rate for recent college grads (aged 22–27) rose to 5.8% in March, the highest level in nearly four years. It's also ~1.5x higher than the rate for the general workforce, breaking a decades-long trend where new grads typically had lower unemployment rates.
16) People aren't nostalgic for the 2000s, '90s, '80s, 70s, 60s, etc. Their nostalgic for their youth:
17) A majority of parents wish social media apps didn't exist. A few detest bicycles, radio, and newspapers:
18) Housing affordability by county:
In counties with low population but a lot of scenic beauty, median income is probably low but median housing costs are probably high due to the presence of expensive vacation homes.
19) On why we don't build things anymore: Japan and the birth of modern shipbuilding. How Japan invented modern shipbuilding, and conquered the shipbuilding industry in the process:
During WWII, the US constructed an unprecedented shipbuilding machine. By assembling ships from welded, prefabricated blocks, the US built a huge number of cargo ships incredibly quickly, overwhelming Germany's u-boats and helping to win the war. But when the war was over, this shipbuilding machine was dismantled. At the height of the war the US was producing nearly 90% of the world's ships. By the 1950s, it produced just over 2%.
But the lessons from the US's shipbuilding machine weren't forgotten, they were brought to Japan.
20) Sitehunt: I'm thrilled to welcome Hampton Roads Alliance as our newest Sitehunt client in Virginia! They now have the ability to leverage Sitehunt's property enrichment technology and AI-driven RFI tools to accelerate their economic development wins.
