Bill Fulton's new book, Romancing The Smokestack: How Cities and States Pursue Prosperity. is a lively compendium of economic development columns from Governing magazine that covers the good, the bad, and the ugly about how economic development is practiced in the United States. To buy the book, just go here: https://www.createspace.com/3477293

It's a quick read -- but informative and entertaining -- on such topics as how Federal Express. runs its middle-of-the-night operations in Memphis, the challenge of retaining manufacturing in America, the retail wars among cities in California, and whether cities need population growth in order to increase prosperity. This collection of some 60 columns over a 15-year period shows how economic development has evolved during that time -- and provides insight to cities, regional agencies, and states about what works and what doesn't.