Demand

While I have argued that the United States as a whole needs to focus on productivity, individual communities within the country often face demand shortages. There are many retail stores, providers of services and manufacturers which have a lot of down time because they have so few customers.

lack of demand is a big problem for the 'Inner Cities' which typically have the empty properties available for stores and the people available to work but which don't have enough customers buying their products and services to allow for more and larger businesses.

Whole industries such as the Art Industry face the problem of more productivity than there are customers.

Improving demand for a communities businesses can involve; helping existing businesses to better promote themselves, helping to attract new businesses which will attract additional customers to an area, beautifying a community, attracting new residents to a community, and or promoting the community as a destination.

Helping existing businesses to better promote themselves.

When a community has engaged and active businesses programs which provide businesses with marketing support and training can be the best means of bringing additional customers to a community. Keep in mind when helping businesses promote themselves that the goal of economic development isn't to create five star restaurants or fancy pants establishments, the goal is to improve the quality of life. This means that low cost dollar stores, thrift stores, and other similar establishments can at times be more important to a community than any nice restaurant would. Japan, Taiwan, the nations known as the 'Asian Tigers,' and China all grew their economies by starting with the creation of cheaper products which created the wealth, knowledge, and infrastructure necessary to create other products. 

Business Attraction

Often times after demand falls within a community business engagement does as well and this lack of business engagement causes demand to fall further. In addition the business apathy created by this cycle of falling demand means that local businesses may not be interested in help increasing demand for their products, or worse may be interested but will make very little real effort to help themselves, expecting the development organization to do the bulk of the work. When this occurs business attraction is often the best option for increasing demand within a community.

Attracting new businesses to a region, especially one which faces serious blight and has a lot of businesses leave it in the past is very challenging. Many of the steps involved in this are similar to those involved in marketing and require;

Demographic/Psychographic Reviews - Appeals to attract businesses and entrepreneurs need to be targeted to be successful. Remember that any move to a new location requires that the move make sense for both a persons businesses and the person themselves.

Comparative Advantages - When pitching a region to a business you must explain the advantages of moving their business to that region over another. This means that before businesses can be attracted advantages for various types of businesses must be found or made.

Promoting the Region - Perhaps the most difficult part of promoting a region to prospective businesses and business owners is knowing who to contact. One solution to this problem for neighborhood economic development organizations is to reach out to entrepreneurs by offering therm workshops on how to start the businesses you are trying to attract.
When promoting a region always remember to be specific, people are bombarded by hundreds even thousands of messages a day so you need to speak specifically to the individuals you want by saying the type of business you want. Often times the more specific you can be the more likely you will be to get someones attention.