The Ripple Effect: New Development = Job Creation

The Ripple Effect: New Development = Job Creation

Pretend for a moment you want to build a new house. What do you need?

Raw materials, certainly. Foundation, wood, brick, glass, etc. You’ll need labor, too. Someone has to design the place, transport your raw materials, and assemble them into something that won’t tip over when the big bad wolf comes around.
Yet another someone will have to come by to inspect it and double-check that your house is wolf-proof. In turn, someone will have to record that information, and keep it. And for every “someone” in the process, expect a team of people to support them, to keep them honest, to make sure everything is done safely and legally.

You can probably tell where this hypothetical ends up. Even a build as relatively simple as a single residential dwelling helps create a host of jobs – many of them good-paying jobs that help sustain a strong middle-class lifestyle. And after you move into the neighborhood you’ll need furniture, groceries, transportation, and entertainment – which all equals more jobs!

Beyond the housing metaphor, the impact of a new commercial, industrial, and standard office development on job creation reaches far beyond new construction. As new companies move into that new construction they bring opportunity. Or, as an economist might call them: jobs, jobs, and – you guessed it! – more jobs.

These days it’s rare to build just one new home, or one new industrial building. Communities that have room to grow do so on a grander scale. Because of that, these new large developments can take years to build out and the seemingly “temporary” construction jobs at the base of it all end up providing employment opportunities for decades.

From an economic standpoint, new development projects, whether residential, commercial (or both) can give a big boost to a local economy. But if you’re not an economist, that good news may ring hollow. Maybe you already have a decent-paying job that’s not too far away, and maybe you lament the new development for its perceived impact on your town’s vistas, culture, or overall quality of life.

Those of you in that camp, consider this: More good, local jobs means more opportunity for others in the community to succeed. And when enough of your neighbors join you in that golden circle of success, the community begins to not just demand more, but provide an even higher quality of life for all.

You alone may can’t foot the bill to fund that new hyperloop right to the heart of downtown, or widen that highway to ease the burden of traffic, or build that new school to reduce class sizes, but as a successful, growing community, you can afford it.

Yes – new development means more jobs. And yes – more jobs means more growth. But smart growth can be GOOD and feeds into a strong economy. When it comes to not just making your community bigger, but better, it’s the kind of economy-positive development we should strive to achieve.

Based on our 2017 Annual Report:

• 73% of local jobs were categorized under our target clusters
• 31 new and expanding companies called SCV “home”
• 2,197 new high-quality jobs were created locally

Now, let’s go out and build that metaphorical house!

LEARN MORE about current development and job creation trends as well as forecasted targets…

READ ON for even more reasons to be optimistic about community growth…

The Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation (SCVEDC) is a unique private / public partnership representing the united effort of regional industry and government leaders. The SCVEDC utilizes an integrated approach to attracting, retaining and expanding a diversity of businesses in the Santa Clarita Valley, especially those in key industry clusters, by offering competitive business services and other resources.