What is Economic Development?

What is Economic Development? How does New Boston go about economic development? Feb 1, 2025

It is a great organized why to plan and build a community for everyone. As you read on, these two questions 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 in the last several decades which has made our economy the eighth largest in the world. Economists credit this economic miracle from the low taxes, a pro-business environment and local EDCs. New Boston is fortunate to have EDCs which have enabled us to have a diverse economy which protects us from economic downturns and provides a plethora of options for employment.
Our EDCs use tax dollars to provide incentives for businesses to come to New Boston, stay in our area or expand. Economic impact analyses are used to ensure the tax dollars provided to incentivize businesses have a positive return on the EDCs investment by improving the local economic ecosystem. Economic development agreements are signed to ensure the project implements the terms required to receive tax incentives. If they are not performed as agreed upon, clawbacks are used. Clawbacks are defined as a contractual provision that requires a company to return money to the government if it fails to meet the terms of a grant or subsidy agreement.
The SIDC and CDC Board of Directors are appointed by the City of New Boston City Council. The New Boston EDCs are officed out of the Three Boston’s Museum. Our EDCs meet monthly, the second Monday, 5:30 PM at the second floor of the Three Boston’s Museum. The website for economic development in New Boston is: www.newbostonsidc.com. Our Facebook page is under New Boston Special Industrial Development Corporation.
Over the next few weeks, there will be more attention to our website and social media in improving transparency and providing more information about our EDCs. Some main goals our Board of Director’s and staff have are to improve transparency, share with the public what we do and can do to improve our local economy while improving quality of life.
I would like to thank Publisher Kenny Mitchell for allowing me to generate information in the Bowie County Citizens Tribune beginning this week and weekly forthcoming to share what is occurring economically in the New Boston area. With this writing, we have established what local economic development is and how we function to improve our local economy. Next week, we will provide a summary of the recently generated Economic Development Plan for our community titled Forward New Boston.
Have an awesome week and remember, Shop New Boston First!