An Alternative Approach to Urban Economic Development

Abstract

Urban political economy scholarship demonstrates the economic dependence of cities. Cities have responded by pursuing urban economic development strategies. Such strategies often do not successfully address this dependency problem, however. In contrast, an alternative strategy for decreasing a city's economic dependence by increasing its economic self-reliance is offered. A model of this alternative approach—a self-reliance strategy for urban economic development—is first sketched. Then its feasibility is assessed through a case study. A discussion of the empirical analysis and the future prospects of this alternative strategy is presented in the final section.