Executive Director Thoughts

March 19 - Why is Downtown Important

Why is Downtown Important? We'll provide some answers to this question in our article about how important a downtown environment is to any community.

When people think about your community, they often think about your downtown. It reflects how your community sees itself, what it values, and how it wants to move into the future. This sense of identity attracts visitors, entrepreneurs, and investors. Further, identity leads to stronger place attachment. Those communities where there is a stronger place attachment have higher levels of community appreciation, a sense of well-being and economic growth.

Downtowns are the lifeblood of our communities. In small towns across the country, downtown plays a critical role in bringing residents together to shop, socialize, and share the collective experience of living in rural America-- whether it is over a cup of coffee at the local gas station or lunch in the café. In an increasingly digital age, downtowns play a critical role in connecting residents and creating a sense of community.

Downtown is your central business district. People are employed there, businesses operate there, and new ventures are.... Read more....

March 1 - Why are Regional Economic Development Partnerships so Important?

Why are regional economic development partnerships so important?

Naturally, we all care most about what develops in our own communities. But most communities do not have all the homes, population, commerce, or services available to self-sustain. Communities have situations which help form a landing spot for a business which still needs the region to shore up some local shortcomings. Therefore, we need to participate regionally with all our strengths to provide the most complete economy, regionally and therefore locally.
New Boston has a strong and diverse economy for a community of approximately 5,000. However, not everyone is able to work or complete all their shopping in New Boston. New Boston is a part of the Texarkana demographic region which encompasses 260,000 population within 50-miles from Texarkana, 995,000 within 75-miles and 13,000,000 within 200-miles. These numbers help New Boston by being a part of the “region.” Businesses need critical mass numbers.
We are reliant upon other close by and regional communities to have varying jobs, services, and products available. This demands our Northeast Texas Region works together and partners to improve the regional and therefore local economic ecosystem.
For example, a large manufacturing or industrial Read more.....

February 14 - Why Shopping Local is Important

Why is shopping locally so important?

Quite simply, it encourages prosperity and improves the quality of life where it means the most, in New Boston. In a world where people are feeling less impactful, a way to contribute to improving one’s quality of life and improving our surroundings, is by “voting with one’s dollars.”The following are reasons why you should, before leaving New Boston or shopping on-line to buy a product, eating or using a service outside of New Boston, ask your self can I get this in our community?
Keep Money Local: Sales taxes fund our community and help provide vital services such as police and fire protection, street repairs, economic/community development, and parks. Shop locally, the 1.5% sales tax levied for the local city government services helps improve New Boston, not other cities.

Shopping at local small businesses has a larger Read more...

February 1st - What is Economic Development

What is local economic development? How does New Boston go about economic development?

As you read on, these two questions which will be answered in this article. Local economic development in the most succinct definition is a process that aims to improve a community’s economic well-being and quality of life; it involves encouraging business growth, creating jobs, and increasing investments in a local area. To perform the preceding actions, New Boston citizens have voted to tax themselves one half percent for two different economic development corporations (EDC) to head up our local economic development efforts.
These two different EDCs are the Special Industrial Development Corporation (SIDC) and Community Development Corporation (CDC). SIDC was formed in 1990 and is a Type A corporation. CDC was adopted in 2017 and is a Type B corporation. Type A EDCs are for industrial and manufacturing development incentivization. Type B EDCs are for more retail, quality of life projects and can incentivize manufacturing. These two EDCs in New Boston use tax dollars to recruit new businesses, work with existing businesses to keep them in our community or to expand, provide quality of life projects such as parks and splash pads.
Texas has been blessed with an economic miracle Read more...