Win the People; Win the Ecosystem

Economic development. There, that's this month's topic. I couldn't think of a good hook for something that just sounds so exciting, but stick with me and let me make a case for it.

Hearing anything close to "econ" might be triggering and bring back bad memories from mandatory classes in high school and college. It certainly does for me. I've always had an analytical mind, but something about all the supply and demand graphs I could never keep straight. Truthfully, I hated econ and wanted to be as far away from it as possible.

But fast forward and here I am, having accidentally stumbled into the outskirts of the world of economic development and even writing an article about it. Now, economic development isn't exactly the same thing as the econ I was sitting through in a lecture hall, but they share enough DNA that past-me would still be suspicious. So why am I doing this? Because once you get past the name, I think it's one of the most underdiscussed pieces of the innovation equation.

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It's Just a Competition

The way I see it, economic development is one big competition. And because we're a naturally competitive society, that framing should feel familiar pretty quickly.

Think about how many decisions you make that have a quiet competition running in the background. Where do you go on vacation? Do you buy an Apple or a Samsung? Where do you live, where do you send your kids to school, what city do you build your career in? Behind every one of those decisions, someone is trying to get you to pick their option. Sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's happening without you realizing it. You are the target, and the fight for your decision is constant.

Economic development works the same way, just with different players and much higher stakes. Instead of companies competing for your wallet, it is cities, states, and regions competing for businesses deciding where to operate, talent deciding where to plant roots, and capital deciding where to flow. And yes, there are actual people sitting at desks in big corporate buildings whose entire job is to win those decisions against other people sitting in their own big corporate buildings somewhere else.

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What the Pitch Actually Looks Like

New roads, expanded transit, updated school systems, workforce training programs, tax incentives, redeveloped neighborhoods. These aren't just government projects happening in the background, but the output of that competition I mentioned earlier; improvements a place makes because it has to in order to stay in the running.

We've all seen the headlines: A major corporation announces it's relocating its headquarters to a new city. A state lands a billion dollar manufacturing facility. A region cracks a national "best places to live" ranking. A governor holds a press conference about thousands of new jobs coming to the area.

It's always clear it's a big deal, there's usually a lot of zeros involved and someone important is shaking hands or holding a shovel in front of a camera. But it's also pretty easy to scroll past it thinking "okay, cool, so what does that mean for me?"

The thing is, all of it falls under the same umbrella. The billion dollar headquarters announcement and the new bike lane downtown are both economic development. The workforce training program at the community college and the "Top 10 Cities for Young Professionals" ranking that your state's commerce department definitely had nothing to do with are both economic development. 

But across all of it, the common thread is the same: improve quality of life, because that's what people are actually chasing when they make these decisions.

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What the Competition Is Really For

Higher wages, more recreation, smoother transportation, better neighborhoods, more job opportunities. These aren't random priorities, they're the dimensions of an arms race where every city and state is trying to move the needle simultaneously, because quality of life is the core factor behind almost every decision a person makes about where to live, work, and build. That's how good communities happen, and it starts at the most basic civilian level long before it ever shows up in an economic report.

And the competition itself is a healthy thing. A city that stops investing loses ground to one that doesn't, and that pressure forces everyone to keep improving. The floor rises for everyone involved, which is one of the better outcomes a competitive system can produce.

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Why It Matters for Innovation

Most ecosystem conversations tend to stop at what a place can offer a business, the tax incentives, the talent pipeline, the access to capital. Those things matter, but it's an incomplete picture.

Founders didn't stop being people when they started a company. They're running the same quality of life calculations as everyone else, deciding where to raise their kids, where to spend their weekends, whether the city feels like somewhere worth putting down roots. They care if there's a trail to bike on Saturday morning. They care if their kids are going to a good school. You have to win the person before you win the company.

And winning them once isn't enough. A founder who builds something successful in a city that can't back it up with quality of life will eventually leave, and they'll take their network, their capital, and their next company with them. Attraction without retention is a leaky bucket.

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The Prize Is People

Economic development is easy to dismiss as political noise, rankings nobody asked for, and press releases from industries that feel far removed from daily life.

But underneath all of it, the prize being competed for is people, not companies, not capital, not headlines, but people and the quality of life they're chasing. Win the person, and the rest tends to follow. The company, the investment, the ecosystem. That idea feels like it gets lost sometimes in the race to put out the next big announcement, and I think it's the most important thing to keep at the center of this conversation.

The Midwest has a real case to make. The affordability, the universities, the work ethic, the open space to build something without the weight of doing it somewhere already maxed out. What holds it back is that economic development by nature is a government adjacent machine, and government adjacent machines don't move fast or take big swings very often. The bold, creative, people first approach that actually wins people over is exactly the kind of thing that's hardest to push through that system. But the regions that figure out how to do it anyway, that build places people want to be rather than just places people end up, are the ones people will choose, and keep choosing.

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‍Sebastian Penix is the Entrepreneur Ecosystem Navigator for the Central Indiana SBDC, based at Butler University’s Lacy School of Business. He is also the founder of Heartland Valley, a platform spotlighting startups and innovation across the Midwest. His work focuses on building connection, visibility, and momentum within the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.