Governments should expand learning and work opportunities for all workers by investing in broadband and entrepreneurship hubs. This would entail investing in a comprehensive approach to fostering innovation, using local institutions and infrastructure and accessing investment capital to help the entrepreneurial economy thrive in all communities, including rural areas.

Policymakers should expand place-based policies for economic development to support struggling regional or local economies, with a focus on strategies that create and leverage resources that can be shared across employers and regions. Infrastructure investments, such as improving rural broadband and pursuing universal high-speed wireless connectivity, are key to improving the competitiveness of local economies and businesses, and supporting entrepreneurship and workforce participation.

Policymakers should use projections of education demand to inform workforce development planning. Proprietary analytical information and college administrative data can also be linked with state wage records in the process of retaining and attracting employers and industries to the state. Employer demand for talent has elevated the importance of workers with specific skills gained through postsecondary education and training.

Employers should provide workers with relocation vouchers to encourage geographic labor mobility. Since job churn spurred by technology and automation may reduce work in some areas and create it in others, reallocation vouchers enable workers to move to where the jobs are.

State governments should incentivize companies to locate their R&D projects in their regions through intellectual property protections and tax breaks. Sector-specific tax incentives can be offered to companies to create jobs in these underemployed regions, though they should include provisions to ensure that companies deliver on their promise of job creation (including evaluation criteria and the possibility of withdrawal and reimbursement of incentives). Consistent support for private-sector R&D is critical for maintaining leadership in innovation and technology and for creating high-skill opportunities for workers.

Governments need to attract human capital to distressed regions—places in which the cost of housing can be attractive to recent college graduates looking to start families. The provision of low-cost housing or student-loan forgiveness can be an effective incentive for moving to smaller or older industrial cities and towns.

Municipal and state governments should cooperate with other states’ and municipalities' licensing qualifications to make it possible for workers to move around and enter different job markets with transferable credentials. Many jobs are going unfilled because of restrictions related to credentialing, mobility, and hiring practices: one study suggested that licensing restrictions resulted in teachers near the Oregon border in Washington State being three times as likely to move teaching jobs elsewhere in Washington as to make the much shorter move across the border to teach in Oregon. The lack of cross-state cooperation in recognizing these credentials is a major obstacle to mobility.

Governments should promote the development of affordable housing in urban periphery communities. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development defines households spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing as “cost burdened” and estimates that some 12 million households spend over 50 percent of their income on housing. This problem is especially severe in the suburbs, where more Americans live below the poverty line than in the urban core. Investing in affordable housing in Urban Periphery communities can make residence in the community attractive and accessible to people who work in the metro center.

Governments should provide incentives for businesses to invest funds, expedite approvals, and promote new technologies so that communities can gain widespread access to broadband. For example, states can attract investment and entrepreneurs through small initiatives with municipally owned companies. Broadband creates more opportunities for remote work, distance learning, and telemedicine. Currently, New Jersey ranks first in the country in broadband access.

Businesses should take measures to attract residents and businesses by investing in the development of walkable communities with live-work-play spaces. Mixed-use spaces attract economic activity and residents by placing residential developments, businesses, and recreation in close proximity.

Governments should invest in urban development initiatives that make possible the development of museums, restaurants, and arts-related business enterprises in new locations. Possible strategies include developing attractive living options, building educational partnerships, subsidizing living or office spaces for tenants in creative fields, and offering incentives for relocation that would attract and retain jobs and people from the urban core. Such investments in quality of life would help to position new cities and communities as hubs for job creation and economic development.