A diverse and abundant corpus of literature chronicles how recent global shifts are affecting cities and regions in the United States.  Some of the most notable of these trends include: 
 

• Increased mobility.  The deployment of high-speed communication, liberalized trade policies, and innovations in travel have accelerated the rate of globalization and created an economy characterized by the heightened mobility of goods, capital, and labor.  Such shifts are imposing dramatic competitive pressures on U.S. firms, leading to increases in out-sourcing and off-shoring in industries that were once the economic bedrock of cities and towns across the nation.
• Shift from a primarily manufacturing to a service based economy.  The American economy continues to restructure from one primarily based on manufacturing to one dominated by retail and services.  The trends are staggering:  between 1970 and 2000 manufacturing employment in the U.S. declined by 3 percent, while employment in service industries rose by over 200 percent.  While all areas of the country have been affected by this transformation, the decline of manufacturing has been particularly acute for the traditional industries of the Northeast and Midwest, as well as the low-wage manufacturing industries of the South and Southwest, and high-cost metropolitan regions of the Pacific region.  As once stable jobs in manufacturing evaporate, communities face the challenge of defining and establishing their niche within a new world economic order.  
•  Demand for high skilled workers.  The shift away from manufacturing is cultivating an economy where knowledge and innovation – rather than goods and services – have become the primary drivers of economic growth.  Currently, 28 percent of all US jobs require 2 years or more of post-secondary education.  During the next ten years, however, forecasts suggest that 37 percent of net new jobs created will require 2 years or more of post-secondary educational.   Awareness of the need for an educated, skilled, and flexible workforce is fostering new views of the linkages between economic development interests, institutions of higher education, and workforce development agencies.  Economic development, workforce development and education specialists are increasingly aware they must develop strategies that curb “brain drain” while also augmenting regional amenities and other assets that can attract a robust pool of highly skilled workers.
• Corporate restructuring and cluster development.  New technologies and improvements in transportation and information technology infrastructure are allowing firms to employ alternative business models as they respond to pressures from global competitors.  Where once industries located their headquarters, manufacturing, distribution and other activities in the same locale, today those functions are often geographically dispersed.   Economic developers (including local planners, developers, and leaders) must have a clear understanding of the geographic preferences of different kinds of firms and industries, the importance of regional assets in businesses’ location decisions, and the formation and development of industry clusters. 
• Quality of life concerns.  Highly skilled workers and innovation industries place a premium on local amenities and quality of living conditions.  In some regions of the country, particularly in the metro centers of the South, Southwest, West and Northeast, rapid population growth is increasing traffic congestion, escalating air and water pollution, and putting pressure on energy systems.  Such concerns are rarely contained within a single jurisdiction, and are difficult to solve in the highly fragmented political environments that characterize most regions.
• Extra-regional and global linkages.  Frequently in a nationally-integrated and increasingly globalized economy, the economic fate of a city or county is not determined by conditions and events within its immediate jurisdiction, but rather by its connections to economic activities elsewhere:  in neighboring jurisdictions, other regions in the U.S. both near and far, and in various production, finance and headquarters centers overseas.  

 These dynamics suggest there are real dangers to conceiving the practice of local, regional and state economic development in narrow, jurisdictional terms.  On the one hand, the high degree of industrial specialization and geographic concentration in the U.S. would seem to imply that some communities hold significant potential for economic prosperity while others do not.   On the other hand, areas that lack potential for indigenous growth at the municipal or county level can often be prosperous if they are fully integrated into neighboring economies.  In the end, the economy does not observe state and local geopolitical boundaries.  Fully capturing the potential of regional economic linkages demands that practitioners have a thorough knowledge of how regionalism and concepts that reveal the link between competitiveness and geography, such as industrial cluster analysis, can be used to maximize development opportunities in their communities.
 
While the body of literature discussing these trends is well known among academics and national thought leaders, these concepts have not been adequately translated and disseminated in an accessible and persuasive format to the very people charged with promoting local and regional economic prosperity.   The need for such translation is particularly necessary because most analyses on the implications of these changes have largely been abstract, technocratic, and seemingly irrelevant to local practitioners.