He believes that just as states provide incentives to lure plants or office complexes, developing a competent work force can be an economic development tool, particularly in today's tenuous economy.

Bronx Acorn is calling for smaller class sizes for kindergarten through third grade, incentives to lure better teachers and principals and expanded after-school programs.

State and city government, he said, should use billions of dollars in Liberty Bonds, tax breaks and rent incentives to lure businesses to ground zero and Lower Manhattan.

What incentives will lure tenants again?

On Friday, Mrs. Clinton spoke of how the Administration plan would stress financial incentives and tax credits to lure medical workers to rural areas.

These incentives, in addition to encouraging a degree of participation, also lured those whose primary interests were not the common good to the Ujamaa villages.

To many states, economic development means tax rebates and other costly incentives to lure businesses away from their neighbors - "smokestack chasing," it is called.

Property-tax abatements and other economic incentives have lured the builders and their billions in investment over the two decades.

He noted that the Beijing authorities were dangling rich incentives, like cheap land and tax breaks, to lure semiconductor producers from Taiwan and elsewhere.

To Mr. Schuman, delays increase the possibility that Hempstead will have to sweeten incentives to lure developers.