Housing boom drives strong economy-employment surge
By ALAN J. ORTBALS

   This past year, at least the first 10 months of it, was a very good year for job growth in Southwestern Illinois as 17,000 more people were employed in October than in December of 2004. This represented a 5.4 percent increase in employment and produced a corresponding 1 percent decline in unemployment.
   Experts point to a residential building boom and growing confidence as the base reasons for the surge.
   "There's a lot of growth in construction and housing development," said Vicki Niederhofer, labor market economist with the Illinois Department of Employment Security. "Every time a new subdivision is built, you have a lot of ancillary development - new retail centers spring up. If you drive down Frank Scott Parkway to Shiloh, for example, and hit Green Mount Road, you can almost see it unfolding in front of your eyes."
   Sean Flower, president of American Heritage Homes, isn't surprised. He said the Home Builders Association of Greater St. Louis did a study about a year ago that showed the economic impact on the community of each new home built was about $5,000 per year. In part, that impact is due to the ripple effect that new housing and an expanding population has on the economy.
   "We've been involved in some mixed-use, residential-commercial development and we find that commercial users do not go somewhere unless there's a pretty [continue]