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For much of the past two decades, St. Charles County has boomed.

With a surge of new homes and new residents from the Missouri River out to Wentzville, it became one of the fastest-growing places in the Midwest, and an engine of the St. Louis-area economy.

But things have changed. All that construction has ground to a crawl. And when the building picks up, many say, it’ll be slower, more measured.

And that has the county’s economic development gurus seeking new ways to keep St. Charles County growing.

"We’re kind of in a different ballgame than we’ve been in before," said Greg Prestemon, chief executive of the Economic Development Center of St. Charles County. "We haven’t been used to this kind of situation."

It’s a challenge St. Charles County shares, to varying degrees, with other fast-growing parts of the region, from Jefferson County to the fringes of the Metro East. As the housing boom and growth that came with it fade, maintaining even some of that momentum means a shift toward luring good jobs, not just new homes.

Unemployment has soared in St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin counties in the past year, faster than the region as a whole. Retail sales, and the precious sales tax revenue that comes with them, have stagnated or declined. Home construction has slowed dramatically, and construction jobs — more plentiful in outlying counties — have evaporated.

That’s a significant shift from much of the past decade, when new subdivisions sprang up and sold out across St. Peters, O’Fallon and Wentzville. Retailers followed and, in some cases, Prestemon notes, big employers did too, attracted by the work force that was attracted to the housing. It won’t be so easy anymore.

"Our job base is not going to be housing-led in the near future," he said. "We’re going to have to work smarter."

To deal with these changes, Prestemon’s group is launching a series of summits this year to discuss challenges facing the county. Their first topic: jobs.

Today more than half of working St. Charles County residents hold jobs outside the county. With gas costs high, until recently, and commute times growing, county leaders say they recognize the importance of giving people a chance to work closer to home, and to woo high-paying employers.

That has officials trying to lure industries such as biotech, research and financial services and talking up sites like the Missouri Research Park in Weldon Spring and Premier 370 Business Park, a massive plot of land in St. Peters that recently landed its first tenant, a trucking company.

The Premier 370 site is a great opportunity, said Julie Powers, director of planning, community and economic development for St. Peters. She envisions a mix of light factories and office space, which is relatively sparse in St. Charles County compared to other parts of the region.

"We’re really hopeful that it will attract businesses that will bring in decent-paying jobs," Powers said.

That’s the hope in Jefferson County, too, where growth has slowed "to a snail’s pace," said Rosie Buchanan, assistant executive director of the Economic Development Corp no fax cash loans. there.

"We still have homes going up, just at a much slower rate. We still have businesses moving here, just at a much slower rate," she said. "What we’ve seen in the last six months is probably a quarter of what we typically see."

That’s the story all over, local economic development experts say. It’s not that growth has come to a full stop. But it’s in a much lower gear.

In Jefferson County, nearly two-thirds of workers commute for their jobs, and it has been hard hit by cuts elsewhere. The idling of Chrysler’s Fenton van plant, where nearly half the workers lived in Jefferson County, hurt a lot, Buchanan said.

"Our unemployment rate took a jump," she said.

Still, there is growth in pockets, and road projects — such as the just-opened stretch of Highway 21 in Hillsboro — continue, leaving a good sign for the future.

"We look at that as a jump on the game when things do pick back up," Buchanan said.

Across the river in Illinois, a few big industrial projects are making a big difference, said Patrick McKeehan, executive director of the Leadership Council of Southwestern Illinois.

Even if home construction has fallen off, the $3.6 billion expansion of the ConocoPhillips refinery, and big projects at Scott Air Force Base and United States Steel in Granite City, are keeping things somewhat stable.

"That’s a lot of dollars flowing through the community," Mc

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