In my latest HBR column I share observations from my recent whirlwind trip to Kentucky to explore innovation and entrepreneurship in the Bluegrass Region.

My friend, Eric Patrick Marr, a passionate social entrepreneur, has been working to promote entrepreneurship in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. At his invitation, I went this week to the state’s two largest cities, Lexington and Louisville, to talk with local entrepreneurs and community leaders about what it takes to spur more innovation and entrepreneurship in a region.

It’s a goal that nearly every locale seems to have these days, but here there’s a particular sense of urgency given the recent election of new mayors in both towns. Lexington Mayor Jim Gray and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer are both first-time office holders coming to public service directly from successful private sector business careers. Both new mayors ran and won on economic development platforms. Like me, they believe it’s vital to think about the challenge of fostering entrepreneurship and innovation at the level of the city — and that their cities have the potential to lead the way by becoming innovation hotspots.

Each has a deep and rich economic heritage to draw on — and to overcome — in that quest. Louisville’s economic legacy is that of a classic industrial-era city; Lexington, only 75 miles north, has a predominantly agrarian heritage, centered on the region’s many beautiful and expansive horse farms. In both cities, even as people take pride in the past, some worry that it hasn’t equipped them to build new engines of regional prosperity and job creation. It’s a concern I see in cities in every mature economy that once lived in high-growth prosperity but no longer do. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,they yearn to get back to it, but think it might take something magical, the economic equivalent of ruby red slipper, to effect the change.

Continue reading my HBR column here.