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Despite the lowest unemployment rate in 25 years, the economic recovery of the 1990s has brought a Treadmill Economy running faster with minimal gain. With low productivity growth, surprisingly little growth in wages and a long-term slowdown in economic growth since the 1970s, the United States continues to experience increasing inequality. What forces are at work shaping these trends and can they be modified or reversed on the local, state and regional levels? How have these trends both shaped and been influenced by social and business policies concerning poverty and welfare, local and urban development, technology and economic development, changes in work organization and labor-management relations, domestic investment and international competition? This seminar course will bring local and national experts on these issues to present their findings and discuss their view of future prospects for local and regional social and economic development policy.