Downey’s economic development plans bring to light that employment centers do more than just supply jobs, they also effect other support industries, the housing market, and also the community image. Both cities are concerned in large with job creation. A key component for this in the city of Downey comes from a large shopping center called Downey Landing. They focus on job creation in three key economic sectors, which are medical, retail service, and entertainment according to their economic development plan. Downey Landing already has plenty of employment opportunities, and they are also planning on expanding the site providing more opportunities for both potential employees and consumers. From a more economic viewpoint, retail sales also need to create the optimum direct revenue for cities through sales tax collected by the State and redistributed to cities. Also to be considered are the quality of the jobs being provided and not just the quantity. This means that employment opportunities should be obtainable at varying levels of education and income levels. Downey’s economic strategy focuses on development of employment sectors outside of retail that include medical, professional, light industrial, and public agencies because of the need for these varying education and income …show more content…
Residents expressed to the city of South Gate a desire to move away from a heavy manufacturing economy and wants to attract more “green technology”. Making companies more focused on developing more environmentally friendly products, technologies and processes could provide a major source of employment for residents while creating an opportunity for South Gate to increase its base of more highly skilled labor. South Gate also wants to make its pool of workers more skilled, stable, and productive. An enhanced workforce makes them more eligible for sales, health care, teaching, maintenance operations, and transportation related occupations. This leads to the need for an increase in educational attainment, which is also important to the city of Downey. South Gate’s residents’ educational attainment levels are lower than Los Angeles County overall according to their development plans. They acknowledge that cities with residents that have higher education attainment levels usually enjoy more stable economies that have more chance of growing economically. Since education has such a distinct correlation to earning ability bettering education attainment levels would be best for economic