I have lived and worked in some of the fastest growing City's in the US.  I am back in Syracuse because this is the town I grew up in and I wanted to be close to my family.  I am was also gambling that Syracuse would begin to grow.

I am no longer gambling.  I want to do something about it.

Syracuse has to do a major overhaul if it want's to start bringing hi-tech or any other market sector to the Central New York Region.  We need tax breaks for companies (face it, it is to DAMN expensive for any company to operate in New York [Unless you are in the big city]), incentives to keep companies here and training for our local work force. 

Most recently I lived and worked in San Francisco as a programmer.  Granted it was during the dot-com bubble.  But even when the bubble burst, there was a move to still bring in more business to San Fran and the surrounding areas.  Local town governments made deals with the companies for building, renovating and hiring.  The biggest program was the city sponsored training.  It was a low cost  way for local workforce to gain the knowledge needed to compete for the hi-tech jobs.

The theory is, you want to bring companies here?  Make it so that they can make money here.  When they make money they expand.  When they expand they hire more locals, when they hire more locals more money stays in the area.  This is not a hard thing to figure out.