Assignment Four (Option "A"): Economic Development Policies

Remember: select EITHER Option 4A OR 4B.

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modified: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 3:39 PM

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Short Essay/Report. [suggested length: 8 - 12 pages, double-spaced, not counting the bibliography. I would encourage you to use graphics, tables, conceptual maps, etc. where helpful. This need not be just a straight narrative text.]

One observes a wide variety of (sometimes conflicting) elements that may be crucial to creating and sustaining a healthy local economy: a friendly business climate; agglomeration economies; clustering of synergetic firms; a good offering of local amenities to attract a highly educated workforce; low-cost labor and land; a tight network of innovative firms; aggressive economic development tools (e.g., IRBs, TIFs); proximity to universities, research parks, airports, etc.; active neighborhood-based involvement; protectionism; free-trade; to name just a few. (To develop a list of possible ED strategies, scan through the syllabus topics and the list at the bottom of the page.) One might understand these policies in terms of dichotomous alternatives: e.g., top-down vs. bottom-up; supply- vs. demand side; exogenous vs. endogenous; people vs. place vs. firm-based; command-and-control vs. market incentive; neo-liberal vs. social democratic; export-base vs. local-base; human- vs. natural- vs. social- vs. financial-capital based; etc.)

Your task is to survey the local and/or regional economic development policies and programs in your two case study locations (from Assignments 1-3). Given the relatively short length of the assignment, do NOT simply create an exhaustive listing of all the policies. Instead, provide the reader with a useful overview of the most important, innovative and/or interesting programs for each city. Help the reader see both the characteristics of the city's ED policy approaches and the major differences or similarities across the two cities. That is, provide a useful mix of description (of individual policies), synthesis (distilling and clustering the major policies by type), analysis (critiquing the goals and priorities of the policies) and comparison (across your two case study cities).

A bit of advice: if a large city has a large and complex array of policies, you might quickly note the range of major programs and then select 1-3 specific programs for deeper elaboration.

A few possible questions/issues to consider (you certainly need not address all of these; they are merely suggestions). This will vary depending on the geographic/national context of your cases.

• Does the city seem to place more emphasis on attracting large outside firms or encouraging home-grown local firms?
• Is local/regional economic development policy merely an extension of national policy, or are local policies separate and distinct?
• Does the city sell itself more as a high-end, high-wage location or as a low-cost, low-wage location?
• Are TIFs (tax increment financing districts) a big part of their efforts?
• Do they seem to be focusing more on attracting firms or labor?
• Is cluster development an explicit part of their efforts?
• Is infrastructure development framed as an economic development issue?
• Does the city seem to be targeting a specific type of firm or sector (e.g., biotech, tourism, health care, software, etc.) or are their efforts agnostic as far as sectors?
• What is the role of place marketing/place branding?
• Were social equity or environmental sustainability priorities integrated into the economic development efforts?
• What broader economic development assumptions did the effort draw upon (e.g., export-base theory, multipliers, linkages, human capital development, reducing "barriers to entry", etc.)?
• Were the programs generic or instead tailored specifically to the community's local characteristics (e.g., amenities, history, strengths, challenges, etc.)?
• NOTE: if you are examining cities outside the United States, there may be fascinating and crucial strategies and political issues that are different from the above list. You are encouraged to understand each city's economic development politics in its own context.
• etc.

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Note: You may find it easier to give an overall summary of a smaller city's economic development strategy (such as for Ypsilanti), but better to focus on a few specific programs in a larger and more complex city (such as Los Angeles).

A partial list of economic development policies & strategies

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