"If there's a parking spot, people will go there," said Mr. Rowland.

Mr. Rowland also stated that a town like Watertown needs to focus on what its niche is, and what's coming for future business, at the Thursday, October 15, Watertown Economic Development Commission meeting.

To sell the Watertown area, Watertown needs to tell its story - which is that its quality of life is second to none.

"You need to harness that, and get the story out," Mr. Rowland said. "When a company is looking to move its business, nine times out of 10 the deciding factor is quality of life."

Mr. Rowland also said Watertown's proximity to Oxford Airport, its location near Route 8 and Interstate 84, its affordability, its safety, its skilled and loyal workforce, and its location between Boston and New York City make it an ideal location for business.

The best way to get that story out is to have residents willing to "tell Watertown's story" when they are visiting other areas of the country.

"There are 250,000 people in the immediate area," said Mr. Rowland. "They belong to organizations, associations and trade groups, and are going all over the country. They should go sell our community. No one will solve our local tax problems; we need to solve them ourselves."

Mr. Rowland sees three areas of growth for Watertown and Waterbury - education, health care and green technologies.

With tuitions the way they currently are, and the businesses that grow up around schools, Mr. Rowland said that education was always a good bet for a town.

"Have you seen tuitions lately?" asked Mr. Rowland. "Universities say they are 'tightening the purse strings' when they 'only' have an eight percent increase."

Health care is another important area of growth, according to Mr. Rowland, as the health care industry has "a bottomless pit for a budget." Mr. Rowland also stated that in Waterbury, many small private businesses such as MRI companies and other professional services have sprung up around Waterbury Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital.

Green technologies are good for towns because of how much support they are receiving from the federal government.

"The good news is, the feds can't spend enough money in this area, such as wind, solar and geo-thermal technologies," Mr. Rowland said. "Government needs to work with small companies on moving into technologies that are close to what they are already doing, to help them expand."

According to Mr. Rowland, there is a $36 billion dollar stimulus bill for green technologies, $5 million alone for the weatherization of one million low-income homes.

"I don't know about you, but I'd like to get in on some of that," said Mr. Rowland.

Mr. Rowland also pointed to $6 billion for energy-related technologies, $4 billion to retrofit goverment buildings and $11 billion to modernize the energy grid in Connecticut.

"The biggest complaint from many small businesses is that they gotta get their guys working to avoid layoffs," Mr. Rowland said. "Smart people are going to figure out how to utilize some of those federal dollars."

Many towns and states are "trying to jump in front of" start-up companies working in new technologies.

"Everyone wants instant results, but that doesn't happen," said Mr. Rowland.

Mr. Rowland also warned against urban blight, which he called "cancer."

"Cancer is growing in many downtowns," said Mr. Rowland, who pointed out 24 pawn shops in one six-block area of Bridgeport. "In some areas, the cancer is growing quicker than the economic development."

For retaining business, Mr. Rowland recommended being willing to invest in those companies. Mr. Rowland related that when Phizer was planning on relocating its corporate headquarters when Mr. Rowland was still governor, it wasn't originally looking at Groton, where it eventually landed. Phizer's board of directors stated they needed to be able to utilize their corporate helicopter and pointed to the lack of a helipad in the area.

"We built that helipad," said Mr. Rowland. "For 10,000 jobs, we figured it was worth it."