At a recent city council meeting in Marion Indiana, city leaders argued over how to spend the surplus cash in the budget.  Its not a problem municipal and state governments typically have during a recession, figuring out how to spend, instead of how to make cuts.   Marion leaders are trying not to be typical.  Losing a major employer in 2004 was a strong incentive.  ”We lost our Thompson consumer plant which made…television components.  Unemployment shot up to near 17% and we just figured it was time to go to work.” says mayor Wayne Seybold.  Going to work, meant using a “doing whatever it takes” mentality, to lure new business to the city of 30,000 people.  Seybold met with  company leaders around the United States and in China.  Over a 5 year period, city leaders have coaxed over 400 businesses to collectively invest over a billion dollars in Marion.  But probably the biggest coup was convincing General Motors not to pull out of the city.  Tax incentives helped seal the deal.

GM has a large stamping plant in Marion, and a similar plant in the nearby city of Mansfield, Ohio.  With GM needing to downsize, a battle of sorts emerged over which city would get to keep the jobs.  Marion won, which means hundreds of GM workers will soon be calling the central Indiana city home.    “In the midst of a recession its typical that the growth in one sector, the growth in one regional economy and the increase in jobs there will come at the expense of the contraction in economic activity and contraction of jobs in another ” says Indiana Wesleyan professor Tom Lehman.  ”That’s why we’re not jumping up and cheering real loud about this, because we know it’s at the expense of somebody else.” Seybold says      Economists determine those cities nationwide that tend to be on the winning end of the fight for growth, are the ones that have a more educated workforce, a greater diversity of population and local ammenities that attract culture and arts.  As the economy improves, experts say, there will be less of a need to pit city against city.  Growth in one place could then lead to growth in another. Watch Steve Brown’s Report here..{VignetteVideo assettitl=”Marion+Pkg” id=”D783019FC070AC8E26D7C0D85B4BE7F9″ width=”375″ aspectratio=”1.77″ height=”211″ autoplay=”on” }