Unless your town is based on a retirement economy, it's essential to attract young talent. Do you know what's important to them, and how they choose where to live and work, or are you depending on decades-old Chamber of Commerce strategies written by old folks? Set up a "listening station," who is someone engaged with college students or other young talent seeking to provide useful things for them. The simple question "what do you need" can produce a flood of insight.

evening crowd within and around bar & grill in Glenwood Park, Atlanta

Cool Factor

Old business attractors were natural resources, rivers, ocean ports, and major highway intersections, but those mean a lot more today to those doing the hiring than those looking for employment. Cool Factor is one of the highest standards for young talent, and it affects many choices they make, especially the choice of where to live. They don't usually even start with a job location today. Instead they find a cool place to live which they can afford, then look for a job near where they're living with wages high enough to pay the rent.

Because they tend to value experiences far above stuff, their consumption of stuff like that which their parents own is much lower, making cool places to live somewhat more affordable. And "getting transferred" was so 20th Century, when company loyalty mattered most of all, but that's such a quaint concept today, and rarely comes into play with young talent. So don't count on corporate loyalty to entice them to a location with a branch office of the company where they work today.

corporate office building deeply setback into turf-covered landscape

Office Parks

Want to attract college grads? Your chances are zero for jobs in an office park. Or anything that looks even remotely like an office park. You must have urbanity with many connections to interesting places & people so that your place, new or old, has the vibe of a highly creative setting where an unplanned conversation ends up tipping the balance toward innovation.

Here are a few indicators of office parks vs. urbanism: 1. Are there big lawns in front of the buildings? If so, that's a dead giveaway of an office park. 2. The second indicator is similar: are there parking lots in front of the buildings? That's another dead giveaway. 3. What's the character of the buildings? If it's big, boxy corporate architecture with too much metal and glass and no hint of regional architectural heritage, that's another bad sign. 4. How far do you have to drive to get from the main thoroughfare to the buildings? The answer should be pretty much zero because Main Streets don't require driveways to get to them; they're right in the middle of everything. And if you need a bit of motivation to avoid the curse of office parks, Google "death of office parks;" I got almost a half-billion hits last time I checked.

young talent inventing stuff in Makeshop Miami, a maker space west of downtown

Founders

College grads aren't the only focus. Other young talent is skipping university altogether, unwilling to take on the 6-figure student loan debt of their older siblings. Gen Z was born from 1997 to 2012, give or take a few years according to who you're reading. They're also known as iGen for their tech-savvy ways, but also known to some as the Founders generation because they're founding their own ventures at very young ages; often when they're still in high school.

That's because emerging things they're interested in today won't be in books for 10 years or in curricula for 20, so they start-up and become pioneers. And then they write those books in 10 years and teach those classes in 20 years, skipping tuition and textbook purchases and jumping straight to the income-producing side of those equations.

Wanda Mouzon photographing an incubator suite at Tyler Station, Dallas

Incubators

If you want to attract the new wave of slightly older entrepreneurs who will also help transform business in coming decades, they want exactly the urbanity & connectivity of college grads, plus incubation places. So learn and get great at downtown incubation, which starts with underutilized or vacant buildings the entrepreneurs' customers can get to easily.

The bar for incubator spaces is very low: a roof that (mostly) doesn't leak, electricity, water, and functioning restrooms. Heating/cooling is necessary in most places, but some incubator spaces in mild climates don't require it.

This is just the beginning. Over the next several weeks, check back here for the Downtown Top Ten. These are the ten things it's essential to get right to have a thriving town center or neighborhood center that's attractive to young talent. And while there's a lot of good advice out there today, these ten things don't include any of the common advice, but rather things most people aren't talking about… but should be.

Downtown Top Ten Series Posts

#10 - Start a Yard

#9 - Bring the Carts & Sheds

#8 - Incubate & Pop Up

#7 - Complete Street Tree Network

#6 - Recruit & Cultivate Local Businesses

#5 - Manage Mixed-Use Expectations