19 Things Economic Developers Need to Know This Week
The stories Dane thinks you need to see. September 18, 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 # 213 - Econ dev news from 80 economic development executives and organizations in 27 states.
2) Podcast 190: New Jersey’s Bold Playbook with Kathleen Coviello - "The surprising way New Jersey is doing economic development"
3) 18 New Economic Development Jobs This Week - From $41,194 - $198,519
4) 17 Things Economic Developers Need to Know This Week - The stories Dane thinks you need to see. September 11, 2025 edition.
5) Sitehunt is a modern site-selection platform built by economic developers to make property search, data enrichment, and RFI responses faster and easier.
Unlike yesterday's tools that require heavy manual input, Sitehunt combines advanced GIS, AI-powered property intelligence, and automated RFI processing in an intuitive, Zillow-style interface that works seamlessly across devices.
Most amazingly: It transforms incomplete property listings into fully enriched, market-ready sites and generates polished proposals in minutes instead of days.
6) The top work-from-home metros:
How San Francisco residents go to work:
Here's more: The great shift to remote work has entered a new normal.
7) Long-term unemployed accounted for 25.7 percent of all unemployed people in August 2025:
8) The percentage of Americans saying college is "very important" has fallen to 35%:
9) Against a backdrop of international tariffs, including significant agricultural import taxes, America is facing a beef deficit:
10) Talent is geographically distributed, but opportunity is not: A place-based economic development strategy to foster rural U.S. prosperity - Equitable Growth
11) Jeff Siegler (author of Your City is Sick): Stop treating cities like theme parks.
12) In 1997, only 2% of people had used the internet. Today, 28% of adults are constantly online:
13) Fun political sociology fact: The Thai government subsidizes Thai restaurants in the US as a form of pro-Thailand propaganda:
Is there a lesson for economic developers here? I think so.
14) The majority (73%) of Americans believe AI will reduce the total number of jobs in the United States over the next 10 years.
Something to think about: Is our job as economic developers to make sure that they have jobs, or have a higher quality of life?
