St. Louis has the Gateway Arch; Seattle has the Space Needle. So when Dayton, Ohio, began redeveloping its waterfront as an urban park three years ago, civic leaders decided on a fountain as the defining landmark for their downtown skyline.

Walt Disney World and other Orlando theme parks and resorts cut their tax bills each year by claiming they are farming enterprises, in a scheme that two Florida counties say comes straight out of Fantasyland.

States are pushing a bow wave of operating deficits ahead of them in hopes that fiscal conditions may brighten.

It's a county plant, but city officials will have some say in how it looks. That's because the site Fulton County officials chose for a new sewage plant is at the eastern entrance to Roswell, Georgia, and Roswell doesn't think a sewage plant makes a good first impression on visitors or prospective businesses.

Budget crises have some states cutting back on tax breaks for attracting and retaining businesses. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is proposing a one-year hiatus for a $38 million incentive program aimed at luring businesses to the state.