Over the past year we have benchmarked more than 20 metropolitan areas and visited 3 similar regions to consider how our region can most effectively address its economic development challenges. Our conclusion is that economic development strategies funded by multi-year, multi-million dollar campaigns are now becoming standard in regions across the United States and throughout the world. These regional efforts follow the research that shows that up to 80% of any community job growth is generated by the businesses already located there (The Job Generation Process by David Birch, president, Cognetics). Over 70% of new jobs created in Ohio throughout the 1990s were generated by existing firms; and even in South Carolina, a state known for business attraction, over 70% of job growth and new investment dollars during the 1990s were generated from firms expanding within the state (Executive Pulse 2005). However, while business retention and expansion are the primary drivers in determining a region's economic health, attraction and business creation efforts also play a prominent role.