December 13, 2012 09:33 PM UTC

Go West, Entrepreneur

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• by: PTF

( – promoted by ClubTwitty)

American author Horace Greeley said back in 1865, “Go West, young man”, advising those in crowded eastern cities to head westward for new frontiers and employment opportunities.  In their recent report, “West Is Best: Protected Lands Promote Jobs and Higher Incomes,” that’s exactly what Headwaters Economics, an independent nonpartisan research firm, found to be true for today’s job seekers.

The full report can be found at https://headwaterseconomics.org… but it’s the colorful and compact infographic summarizing the report that remarkably says it all on one page for job-seekers, businesses and policy makers.

Top-line, the infographic reveals that the West’s popular national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and other public lands offer its growing high-tech and services industries a competitive advantage, which is a major reason why the western economy has outperformed the rest of the U.S. economy in key measures of growth — employment, population, and personal income — during the last four decades.

Communities near protected lands, not only benefit from increased tourism, but also attract businesses that want the quality of life offered by outstanding river, mountain and forest recreational opportunities.   As a result, employment in the West has grown by 152 percent since 1970, nearly double that of employment growth nationally.  Even more astonishing, towns near national parks and wilderness areas have enjoyed a 350 percent job growth in the same period.

The infographic is also posted on the Headwaters Economics website:

https://headwaterseconomics.org…