How do communities bring people and their businesses / professions back to their hometowns?

Resources and Existing Programs:

• HomeTown Competitiveness (HTC) program, www.htcnebraska.org
• Montana Associated Technology Roundtables, www.MATR.net
• Bring Back the Kids, http://www.bringbackthekids.com/main
• Come Home Montana,  http://www.comehomemontana.org
• Come Home is a way for the local communities to publicize their best attributes to entice those who used to live their as well as those looking for a different living environment.

• Montana Jobs Network (MJN), www.montana-jobs.net
• Boomtown Institute, www.boomtowninstitute.com
• American Independent Business Alliance, http://amiba.net/about_ibas.html
• Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, www.livingeconomies.org
• Institute for Local Self Reliance - Reviving Locally Owned Businesses, www.newrules.org/retail/index.php
• New Economics, www.neweconomics.org/gen/tools_top.aspx
• New American Dream - Conscious Consumers, www.newdream.org/make/action/organizer.php
• Oakland Unwrapped! http://www.oaklandunwrapped.org

Ideas:

• “Farmsourcing” or developing the jobs for people to come home to. Urban companies develop divisions or small offices in rural communities.  www.cbdd.wsu.edu/initiatives/ework/whatis.html 
• Build new primary companies base on innovation, rather than focusing on attracting existing businesses.  Businesses begin small and simple, because of the labor force and allied professions, but they will be knowledge based and have regional or national markets.  As these new primary jobs start to backfill the existing commodity industries, then the secondary retail/service jobs will start to grow.
• Economic Gardening:  changing the fundamental structure of the local economy to support families, which subsequently brings in new businesses.  Done in Littleton, CO.  http://www.littletongov.org/bia/economicgardening/default.asp
• Understand that retail is the toughest area of all to make work in a small community.  Unfortunately, retail is often the measuring stick of how a community looks and feels to its residents and visitors
• Taking over a transitioning business in a declining rural economy requires pure faith in and passion for rural communities.  Helping rural communities is all about people.  Rural revitalization is just as much if not more about organizational efficiency and capacity / team building as it is about economics.
• Encourage “Shop at Home.”  Keep local dollars re-circulating locally.  This includes supporting local hometown businesses instead of corporate retail, even if it is located in your own community.  When travel time and expense is considered, shopping locally actually may be quite comparable to driving a longer distance to a discount store in another town.  Studies done on this topic can be found at www.civiceconomics.com; see especially Gunnison and Andersonville studies.
• A mass high school reunion may create interest in returning to hometowns.  A 1997 project called Project Back Home targeted former North Dakota residents who may have an interest in returning to rural North Dakota towns as entrepreneurs, employees, industrial developers, investors, tourists or retirees. 
• Encourage business owners to pass their businesses on to the next generation.
• Develop a community scholarship program that would pay for specialized training, like medical school, for students who agree to return to the community and open a practice for a specified period of time, like 5 years.
• Spokane, WA, although neither small nor rural, mails postcards to alumni, past residents and other people with ties to the community to lure them back to the shorter commute, beautiful scenery surrounding the city and the 8+ colleges within the community.

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