Looking in, Leveraging, and Locking: An Asset-Based Framework for Economic Development Policy and Practice

SUMMARY It is clear that urban economic development practices in Ontario tend to cluster in certain classifications. The most widely and consistently used practices are in the area of marketing. On average, nine out of eleven techniques are practised by the cities surveyed. Governance tools and infrastructure investments are also fairly widely employed, with an average of six out of ten uniformly used. Governmental regulations, land and property management activities, and financial tools are less widely employed, with averages of five of thirteen, four of eleven, and two of twelve techniques practised by all cities respectively. In total, cities in Ontario employ an average of twenty-five out of fifty-seven economic development techniques listed. The ten most widely practised techniques across all categories are identified in Table 6. Again, marketing activities figure predominantly. However, landbased incentives and initiatives such as land acquisition, industrial zoning and industrial parks, and infrastructure improvements also are important. Based on these findings, it appears that cities in Ontario offer a range of economic development incentives which conforms closely to those widely practised by other cities. Marketing, site acquisition, and infrastructure improvement are among the most commonly used techniques according to literature. Indeed, because much of the literature focuses on cities in the United States, this research also suggests that similar economic development incentives are offered by cities in Canada and the United States. However, financial incentives such as tax abatements, loans, and loan guarantees are notable by their absence in Ontario cities. Does the limitation on bonuses affect economic development practices in the other categories? In other words, what appears to be the result of provincial restrictions on bonuses? Based on survey results and personal interviews with a small sample of economic development officials in Ontario, it does seem that restrictions have had some impact. While common techniques do centre in the marketing and land based areas, it appears that Ontario cities are also more likely to use more innovative means of attracting economic development. For example, business incubators and training programs are utilized by over 25 per cent of the cities. Thus these techniques, often promoted in the literature as more advantageous to cities, seem to be used more widely in Ontario than in many other cities. Regulations to limit or control certain facets of development also seem more prevalent than easing governmental regulations to promote development. Finally, some innovative techniques such as awards for research and development are also evident. While many economic development officials acknowledge that provincial restrictions limit their ability to compete with other cities, particularly those in the United States (52 per cent agree), they are split over whether such restrictions are too extreme (40 per cent feel they are too restricted, 43 per cent feel that they are not). In interviews it was often suggested that such limitations do reduce the inter-city competition for development which often drives economic development policies in cities that are allowed to offer tax abatements and other incentives. Further research is warranted to explore more fully the effect of restrictions on economic development bonuses. If such limitations regularly result in practices that are judged to be effective in promoting economic development, then such policies as those contained in the Municipal Act appear promising.

Economic development practitioners have traditionally acted in isolation from their local counterparts, such as community organizations, businesses, and other municipal agencies. This type of economic development practice hinders practitioners’ ability to access available resources in their local economy and effectively undertake economic development. Local practitioners in Ontario, Canada, are no exception, as they typically engage in siloed economic development practices, characterized by a general lack of intra-local collaboration. The aim of this paper is to determine if the COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated local practitioners’ economic development practices in Ontario towards intra-local collaboration. To do so, thirty-seven in-depth interviews were conducted with senior local development practitioners in Ontario during the pandemic. The findings indicate that intra-local collaboration had been occurring in localities to a limited extent prior to the pandemic, but has since been intensified, despite several barriers. The gravitation towards intra-local collaboration was motivated by the tremendous challenges brought about by the pandemic, but underpinned by the realization that effective economic development cannot be undertaken in isolation, requiring collective engagement by local actors. During the pandemic, the practitioners intensified their intra-local collaborative practices to increase their access to available local resources, enhance their learning of best practices and acquisition of knowledge, and address common issues faced by various local actors.

A faltering national economy and declining leadership by the federal government in the 1980s fostered a flurry of economic development activity at the local level—in both urban and rural areas. This activity stimulated extensive research on the process of economic development in urban areas. Much less has been written, however, about the same in rural areas. In this paper we examine the practice of economic development in rural areas. Drawing on case studies of economic development activities in six rural Illinois communities, we identify who participates in economic development decision making, how economic development is pursued, and whose interests are served by economic development programs in rural areas. Based on the findings of these case studies, we offer a critical review of the practice of economic development in rural areas. We conclude by describing differences between urban and rural communities that cause differences in the practice of economic development.

This book offers insights into the process and the practice of local economic development. Bridging the gap between theory and practice it demonstrates the relevance of theory to inform local strategic planning in the context of widespread disparities in regional economic performance. The book summarizes the core theories of economic development, applies each of these to professional practice, and provides detailed commentary on them. This updated second edition includes more recent contributions - regional innovation, agglomeration and dynamic theories – and presents the major ideas that inform economic development strategic planning, particularly in the United States and Canada. The text offers theoretical insights that help explain why some regions thrive while others languish and why metropolitan economies often rise and fall over time. Without theory, economic developers can only do what is politically feasible. This text, however, provides them with a logical tool for thinking about development and establishing an independent basis from which to build the local consensus needed for evidence-based action undertaken in the public interest. Offering valuable perspectives on both the process and the practice of local and regional economic development, this book will be useful for both current and future economic developers to think more profoundly and confidently about their local economy.

The stability of dynamics of economic phenomena in the regional economy is associated with the general level of economic development of the country. The most important studies are based on the results of the analyses of the economy of developed countries. The article formulates conclusions on the relationship between economic differentiation and economic stability, as well as between instability and economic growth. Research of regional development should be based on a comprehensive and comprehensive definition of the management object – the region. Therefore, the authors emphasize that studying the economic development of regions is of particular relevance in modern economic conditions, when decentralization processes are taking place in Ukraine. To study the status of Ukraine’s economy at the regional level, it is proposed to implement a methodology based on the methods of synthesis and gradual specifying. To formalize the results of the practical application of the proposed research methodology, generally accepted indicators of the dynamics of certain directions of the country’s economy development were used. The use of dynamics indicators allowed to identify, on the one hand, long-term tendencies and trends of individual elements, and on the other hand, short-term changes in the processes of economic growth and development. The use of the built regression model can be used in forecasting GDP values per capita within the framework of the regional economic development policy. The authors demonstrate that an analysis of the similarity of dynamics of indicators of the economy of regions (correlation) and the dynamics of results of their economic activity, calculated according to the GRP indicator per capita, should be applied when substantiating the provisions of the regional economic development policy. It is recommended to build the policy of economic development of the regions taking into account the experience of the above-mentioned regions in the sphere of economic development. An interdependence is identified, which indicates an increase in the share of the resource economy and a decrease in the share of the science-intensity economy, the development of which contributes to the welfare of the country’s population.

Innovation is the wellspring of new ideas, businesses, and solutions to the challenges of everyday life. Less of a focus, perhaps due to its negative connotations, is risk. While it is broadly understood that risk is essential to return, there is a great deal of effort given to reducing risk through the institutionalization of economic action; from systematizing innovation processes to creating universal “best practices” for success. In a contrarian voice, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book Antifragile catalyzed debate about the hidden risks of these institutional attempts to remove risk in everything from medicine to computers, governments to social systems. At the heart of this debate is his criticism of the human impulse to control human behavior and action using statistical techniques as support, with the unintended result of exposing entire human systems—organizations, communities, and nation states—to the effects of black swans. Black swans are rare events with outsized, totally unexpected outcomes. They can be very negative, as in a stock market crash, or very positive, as in the development of new, disruptive technologies and ideas that improve lifestyles. Thus, Taleb asks how organizations, communities, and societies can organize themselves to benefit rather than suffer from uncertainty and disorder, embracing shocks and stressors as the necessary fuel for productive, creative new ideas. This benefit from disorder is called antifragility, and it describes perpetual improvement because of noncatastrophic (and sometimes catastrophic) disorder, standing in stark contrast to resilience, which is the phenomenon of bouncing back to a previous state of normality. While economic and community development practice seeks to find common ground across diverse actors and development strategies, a lesser focus has been on ways to embrace complexity, randomness, individuality, autonomy, and innovation as drivers of growth and development—while also respecting and building a sense of community connectedness from the illusion of disconnected action. In this chapter, we examine ways that antifragility as innovation might influence economic and community development strategy and practice for the better, while demonstrating its grounding in other theories of community and development science and practice. We present evidence of antifragility as innovation and its effects on social systems drawing from multiple applied research projects, mainly in the rural development space. And we investigate not only the social strategies supporting antifragile action but also individual strategies, behaviors, and action steps that contribute to a more antifragile innovation environment.

Abstract. Unconventional oil and gas extraction efforts have raised the specter of the resource curse in affected communities, as has been demonstrated in other industries or geographies. Yet because these developments in unconventional extraction industries are so new, data for analysis is limited. This study examines recent activity in the Eagle Ford Shale area of South Texas with a time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) approach using data collected from 14 actively producing counties over a four year period from 2008-2011. Results indicate that the number of completed oil and gas wells has had a positive impact on per-capita income to-date. Previous research suggests that communities in South Texas have the opportunity to overcome the resource curse, but that it will require good local governance and thoughtful long-term planning.1. IntroductionRecent unconventional oil and gas exploration in the United States has produced unexpected benefits in the balance of trade and global energy security. The impacts are also being felt at the community level in several parts of the U.S. One such area is the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, which has historically been among the poorest areas in the state.The Eagle Ford is a unique formation; whereas most shale oil and gas fields are predominantly either oil or gas, Eagle Ford contains significant quantities of oil, gas, and condensate. As such, the recent boom in energy production presents an interesting case study about how local communities are addressing the opportunities and challenges. This study will take a very preliminary look at the shale oil and gas field in the Eagle Ford in South Texas in order to assess the prospect of the resource curse in the early stages of development.2. Theoretical frameworkThe relatively recent development of unconventional oil and gas fields in the United States has prompted research on economic impacts. Extant literature suggests that recent shale oil and gas exploration, while limited, can be examined in the context of the resource curse theoretical framework. Much research has been performed at the international level on the curse of natural resources, which proposes that resource-abundant countries have stagnated in terms of economic growth (Sachs and Warner, 1995, 2001). Other studies have focused on within-country impacts of resource abundance (Michaels, 2010; Weber, 2012). Whether researchers look across or within countries, it is difficult to find a clear validation of the resource curse theory (Brunnschweiler and Bulte, 2006; Torvik, 2009; Michaels, 2010; James and Aadland, 2011). The resource curse is cited frequently in the literature, which suggests that there is an inverse correlation between natural resource abundance and long-term economic growth (Mikesell, 1997). Yet the tendency for slower growth effects is not uniform across nations, states, or even counties, where the least amount of research has been done (Peach and Starbuck, 2011). While a significant number of the cases examined in the literature show some kind of negative impacts regarding the resource curse, there are enough successes to suggest that factors other than mineral resource abundance alone are at work.There is often a divide between economic development theory and practice. Further, despite a regional emphasis in the literature, development in the real world tends to be highly subject to more localized political boundaries (Currid-Halkett and Stolarick, 2011). The approach in this article will be to attempt to shed light on economic development and the resource curse by analyzing the applicable data that are available at the local level for the 14 counties most actively producing oil and gas in the Eagle Ford in South Texas.The limited number of counties makes a combination of time-series and cross-sectional analysis attractive from the standpoint of number of observations and corresponding degrees of freedom. Four years of data from 2008-2011 for 14 counties yields 56 total observations. …

This article explores various aspects of the conventional wisdom regarding local economic development policy and policy making. Much widely accepted knowledge about why and how local governments approach economic development is based on a fairly narrow array of methodological approaches. And the conclusions often suffer from the limitations inherent in their respective methodologies. This may mean that what we think we know about local economic development might be reasonably accurate, but it does not quite reflect actual local dynamics. Yes, the conventional wisdom is true, but.... Using data from a large survey database of Canadian and U.S. cities along with findings from nine case studies in medium-size and smaller cities in both nations, the authors challenge a number of accepted truths and present an alternative civic culture framework for better understanding economic development policy making.

Standing before exasperated delegates on June 12, 1992, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, President George H. W. Bush spoke in vague terms. “We believe that the road to Rio must point toward both environmental protection and economic growth, environment and development,” the president proclaimed. “By now it's clear: To sustain development, we must protect the environment. And to protect the environment, we must sustain development.” President Bush's words left many onlookers baffled. On the one hand, Bush spoke the language of sustainability, noting the interrelationship between economic development and environmental protection. Soon after his speech, the president signed the conference's formal declaration, which proclaimed “sustainable development” as the discursive framework for the United Nations' development policies. He acknowledged the need to integrate environmental protection into all economic development policies. On the other hand, President Bush did not attempt to describe exactly how that process would occur. He also rejected many of the formal conventions on the table in Rio. The president refused to sign a treaty on biodiversity protection, and he only agreed to support an agreement on global climate change that came without any binding stipulations. Although the president had accepted the necessity of crafting environmentally friendly approaches to development, it was clear that full cooperation and significant concrete measures remained out of reach. The gulf between the president's rhetoric and actions revealed two salient aspects of how the relationship between environmentalism and economic development had evolved over the previous decades. As President Bush's speech indicated, the conference legitimized the use of sustainability rhetoric to acknowledge the link between environmental protection and economic development, which major environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had been promoting for over a decade. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, many policy makers conceived of environmental protection and economic policy as separate policy domains; by 1992, every government leader acknowledged the interconnectedness of the two concepts and every leader spoke of “sustainable development.” In some respects, NGOs such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had succeeded beyond their expectations in popularizing the sustainability concept.

Regional collaboration has been suggested as a more effective way to promote economic development than competitive approaches. In Ontario, despite attempts by the provincial government to encourage regional collaboration, research finds that municipalities are still engaging in inter‐territorial competition. In this article, we conducted interviews with thirty‐seven practitioners to determine if economic development practices in Ontario have shifted towards more collaborative approaches during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The article finds that regional collaboration, as an economic development practice, has intensified in the province during the recent pandemic. Practitioners noted three reasons for engaging in regional collaboration: pool resources, reduce duplication, and complete regionally task‐oriented goals.

Chapter One - The rise of high-tech economy and the changing economic development practices

D.T. Greenwood R.P.F. Holt Local Economic Development in the 21 st Century: Quality of Life and Sustainability 2010 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. New York 205 pp.

In the United States, the rise in income inequality and downward intergenerational social mobility since the 1970s represent twin problems facing community and economic development today. This paper proposes a Structure of Labor theory to apply at the local and regional level to address these development challenges. The objective is to provide a simple local approach to development that maximizes upward economic mobility and enables individuals and communities to achieve their development goals in the 21st century development landscape of the United States. The proposed theory fuses free-enterprise principles with state-planned dirigiste efforts to maximize the best of both theoretical perspectives. After reviewing pertinent literature and articulating the Structure of Labor theory, the latter sections of the paper explicate its implications for community and economic development practice.

The US-American urban economist Richard Florida introduced the concept of the creative class in the early 2000s. The creative class concept and its associated creative class theory are based on Florida’s observations of Pittsburgh’s economic transformation from an industrial to a creative economy and subsequent research on metropolitan areas in the United States. The creative class represents a growing occupational class that is paid to think and create, and to solve problems, and is highly skilled in comparison to the working class and service class who apply physical and routine skills to their work. According to Florida, the creative class comprises one-third to 50 percent of the workforce and at least half of all wages and salaries in postindustrial economies. The associated creative class theory builds on theories of agglomeration (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article “Agglomeration”) and argues that the creative class clusters in urban areas with certain quality of place characteristics that offer inspiration, experiences, opportunities to meet, and serendipitous encounters with a diverse set of creative people. Places possessing these qualities are believed to be more competitive in attracting and retaining the creative class, and hence in generating innovation and economic growth. The introduction of the creative class concept and creative class theory has caused a critical debate and conversation across academic disciplines, including urban geography, economic geography, regional and urban economics, urban planning, urban sociology, architecture, public policy, and management. Criticism has mainly focused on the definition of the creative class, occupations as a measure for human capital, effects on economic growth, impacts on urban and economic policies, and associations with economic, social, and spatial inequalities in cities. Scholars across disciplines have tried and tested the concept and theory in metropolitan regions in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, and expanded the spatial focus beyond large cities to midsize and smaller cities as well as rural areas. Florida himself has stayed engaged in the debate and has been developing his thinking since the inception of the creative class concept and creative class theory in the early 2000s. The concept of the creative class is widely cited and has become a key reference for any work about the creative and knowledge economy. More recently, the concept has been accepted into the conceptual repertoire and canon across social sciences. Beyond the academy, the concept of the creative class and creative class theory have influenced urban and economic development policies and practices around the world.

Information and knowledge have emerged as the central strategic factors of economic and social progress. Under the traditional model of development, the transfer of monetary capital and technical know-how from the developed to the developing countries is stipulated to aid economic development and, as a result, the eradication of poverty in the latter. However, the evidence over the past few decades shows that, not only have such policies been ineffective in fulfilling their objectives, they are increasingly peripheral in realising sustainable economic development and prosperity in developing countries. In the new knowledge-based global economy, investment in human capital will be critical in ensuring national growth and competitiveness. Under the new model, the pace of human and knowledge capital development driven by ICTs (information and communication technologies) will determine the pace of economic development.