Under what conditions does industrial reinvestment contribute to the revitalization of distressed central-city neighborhoods? This paper compares the redevelopment of the Greater Conner District in Detroit, Michigan, which is home to the largest Stellantis automotive assembly complex in North America, with that of the East Windsor District in Windsor, Ontario, which is similarly cut through and encircled by automotive factories. Thanks to significant reinvestment from the early 1990s onward, both districts have retained thousands of advanced manufacturing jobs after previously suffering deindustrialization. Both are touted as economic development success stories. Yet whereas East Windsor has stabilized as a community, Greater Conner has suffered ongoing abandonment. This paper compares the history of economic and community development initiatives in the two districts, including investments at the community, local, state/provincial, and federal levels, to explain why East Windsor's residential and commercial areas have fared significantly better than those of Greater Conner.

There is a breadth of research on the association between economic development (EcD) investments and economic growth, but less studied is how community development (CD) investments can contribute to neighborhood and regional prosperity. This paper explores how the growing pool of CD resources, namely Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) investments and New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) allocations, target low-to-moderate income neighborhoods and contribute to broader economic development efforts. Using census tract-level data collected by the CDFI Fund from 2012 to 2021, the authors investigate the scope of CDFI investments and NMTC allocations on business and employment growth in those tracts. The authors find that these CD investments are strongly focused in the intended geographic areas of distressed and underserved census tracts and are associated with business growth in tracts that receive funding. These patterns are strong for CDFI support, but more uncertain for NMTCs.

Traditional economic development and community development prioritize different strategies for improving community well-being, and they are often housed in different agencies at state and local levels. Although it may be beneficial to integrate these efforts, small communities may find it difficult to do so. The authors present case studies based on interviews with practitioners and observers of two micropolitan centers and one town that have taken steps to integrate some aspects of economic development with community development—specifically downtown revitalization. The issues precipitating these actions are explained, as well as a description of what the communities have done thus far to address them. The authors describe the process of organizing these responses, including how opposition was addressed, and some results to date. Recommendations for local actors and state governments are provided, to further the practice of integrating economic and community development in small cities and towns.

The transition to clean energy needs rapid workforce development. Short-term retraining can fulfill workforce development needs for many clean energy occupations in the Occupational Information Network (ONET) database. The authors assessed the utility of unsupervised clustering to cluster clean energy occupations for resource-efficient retraining. Occupations to retrain using text similarity-based occupational similarity metrics are also identified. The authors found that the network-based approach to organizing occupations using text similarity can identify more occupations to retrain compared to standard occupational groupings, thus improving trainees’ employability and job quality prospects. This study demonstrates the utility of the ONET database as a reconnaissance framework for clean energy workforce development programs with equity and justice considerations. These approaches can also be adapted to workforce development for different sets of occupations to identify other occupations for retraining and designing cluster-wise workforce training programs.

Over the past several years, state and local governments, along with supportive community organizations, have shifted their focus from exclusively targeting businesses and jobs to prioritizing people. Increasingly, communities are asking, “What can we do to make this a better place to live and work?” Using data from U.S. counties, the author estimates a Carlino-Mills partial adjustment equilibrium model by decade from 1970 to 2020. The findings suggest that, while there is evidence supporting the notions that people follow jobs as well as jobs following people, increasingly the data tend to suggest jobs following people is more prevalent. This finding reinforces the importance of attracting and retaining residents alongside the traditional focus on business and job growth.

This paper explores the impact of the growth in e-commerce and the landmark Wayfair ruling on the politics of land fiscalization in California. Through analysis of city revenue data, the author demonstrates that sales tax revenue for cities with a concentration of e-commerce distribution warehouses has increased substantially since the Wayfair ruling. In California, online retailers, such as Amazon, are required to pay sales tax to a local jurisdiction based on the location of the fulfillment center. Several cities in California have utilized tax incentives to attract e-commerce companies to their jurisdiction. Tension between cities that benefit from these new sales tax regulations and those that feel disadvantaged by it has emerged, raising broader questions regarding regional inequality. Achieving an equitable distribution of sales tax revenue remains a challenge for states with an origin-based local sales tax (such as California) as well as states with a destination-based local sales tax.

This article builds on existing research focusing on the intersection of environmental sustainability and economic development while also contributing to a better understanding of the federal economic development landscape. Two major parts of this research work to understand federal economic development spending from 2003 to 2023 and how well environmental sustainability has been integrated into two of the largest programs. The findings reveal that the federal government has been a significant player in economic development, with more than $450 billion in average annual outlays during the study period. However, the two programs studied show minimal integration of environmental sustainability considerations. This research also highlights significant policy and implementation fragmentation in federal economic development spending.

While prior scholarship examines the relationship between community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and economic development, little is known about their effectiveness and impact on cultivating inclusive urban entrepreneurship. The authors contend that greater attention directed toward young firms’ persistent needs for early resource acquisition, coupled with increased emphasis on the activity among business owners from minoritized groups, can extend the extant literature in a more inclusive manner. To do so, the authors trace the diffusion of CDFIs across the United States between 2013 and 2021 to examine their association with underrepresented minority-owned and/or young firms. One finding is that the presence of CDFIs bolsters the share of minoritized firms at the city level. Further, the authors find that this positive relationship holds for young firms owned by minoritized groups. The empirical results are contextualized with a case study of a nonprofit community bank seeking CDFI certification. This example highlights the importance of providing business assistance and financial capital to urban entrepreneurs.