Wish you were here with us! Cities, states and other government entities are busily promoting themselves as providers of top-notch infrastructure, labor, tax and job incentives and more. Companies interested in saving money are in a great position to reap some of the rewards.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Trends in financial industry

In the late 1990s, local authorities decided that land along Interstate 94 in Charleston Township, near Kalamazoo, Mich., would become a landfill, a notion that proved troublesome to neighboring Eaton Corp. As a direct result, Eaton's Heavy Truck Component Research and Engineering Headquarters, which employed 600 highly skilled workers, threatened to relocate.

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In stepped Southwest Michigan First, a local economic development agency. To keep Eaton from leaving, it acquired the land and forestalled the landfill plan. Then the agency earmarked the property for a new commercial facility, and entered into a contest with three other states for Target Corp.'s proposed 1.35 million-square-foot regional distribution center.

Collaborating with public and private entities in Kalamazoo County and the State of Michigan, Southwest Michigan First "developed an aggressive incentive package and provided comprehensive development services, including road improvements, sewer extension, the creation of a new municipal water system for Charleston Township and the remediation of 10 acres of wetlands," the agency notes on its Web site. Not long afterward, in the fall of 2000, Target awarded the $100 million project to Charleston Township; by early 2004 the project had created more than 650 jobs, with the eventual expectation of nearly 1,000 new jobs.

Not many local agencies can kill two birds with one stone: keep an existing employer and add a new one, both prime tenants. But cities, regional authorities and states are engaged in pitched battles to decide the future of their individual areas, and see economic growth as vital as oxygen. So, they are hawking their wares like merchants in a crowded souk--tax abatements, job training credits, property tax credits and more. They're also touting everything from quality of life and cost of living issues to the education level of the local workforce and infrastructure issues like highways and airports.

For companies looking to expand or relocate, the time may never be riper than it is now. Corporate expansion slowed markedly in the recent downturn, and localities are hungry to snag some of the growth that economists now say is building. Local governments are also working hard to keep the companies they have, doing expansion and retention surveys to assess employer satisfaction, and will react quickly to appeals to match incentives offered from outside the area.

"The overall trend is for more and more programs, and more sophistication. In...