{"id":3421,"date":"2015-03-16T15:48:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T15:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journal.c2er.org\/?p=3421"},"modified":"2018-04-30T21:55:07","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T01:55:07","slug":"what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-local-economic-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal.c2er.org\/2015\/03\/what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-local-economic-development\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Heck is Going On with Local Economic Development?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Local<\/a>

Local Economic Development Policy-making<\/p><\/div>\n

State and local economic developers are my principal focus. I try to\u00a0add value to this clientele\u00a0by reviewing old\u00a0classics and new books\/research, culling out how they might\u00a0benefit those of us who work in the trenches.<\/p>\n

But, every so often I try to sneak in something different.<\/p>\n

I’m amazed how little is written about what goes on at the state and local levels.<\/p>\n

OK–there is the usual flood of blogs describing new policy issues, incredibly brilliant programs, and cutting-edge economic development strategies. But there is precious little about what it is like to work in sub-state economic development. Most of us work in a community or at the state level and our daily professional lives are a lot more complicated than simply “creating jobs\/clusters”, “preparing knowledge-based workers” or “developing disruptive entrepreneurs”.\u00a0 There is seldom anyone who writes about how things get done locally and how a local economic developer can function effectively. That is what this issue is about.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0work within agencies, chambers\u00a0and departments\u00a0, are accountable to somebody, and must cope with their external world. Many of us feel isolated,\u00a0yet we\u00a0are constantly surrounded by a host of “relevant and significant others” with whom we collide and cooperate depending on the day of the week.\u00a0 Most of our time and effort, almost all of our sleepless nights, are spent trying to figure out how to deal with these dynamics, while serving our community’s needs and keeping our paycheck. They call this the world of policy implementation.\u00a0But, like maintenance and infrastructure, policy\u00a0implementation draws little, frankly no, attention\u00a0from the powers-that-be who are fixated on making new policies and programs. No one offers a convention or workshop on grubbing around in the hinterlands operating a program, or carrying out someone else’s policy strategy.<\/p>\n

Anyway, enough with the whining, pour yourself a bourbon,\u00a0and let’s take a stab at putting some form into what it’s like to work in economic development at the local level. This issue will start at the beginning and try to put some context into how local agencies and program implementation fits into the overall scheme of things within the economic development profession. So we pose three introductory questions and try to develop a perspective, an order, or context. This is only meant to be the initial introduction of this topic–later issues will follow.<\/p>\n

The three questions are: (1) Are all economic developers pretty much identical–that is do they think alike and do the same kinds of things? Answer: NO; (2) What are some of the more important\u00a0dynamics of working at the state and local levels? Answer: we will list several, including something called “onionization”; (3) How does onionization shape our work and policy environment? Answer: A Lot!<\/p>\n

In the Beginning was the World<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A Public Hearing: Isn’t Democracy Fun<\/p><\/div>\n

First, not all economic developers think alike or do the same type of things.<\/p>\n

Whoever you are, or wherever you work, you should not assume that all economic developers see economic development in the same way you do–they may, in fact, be intensely opposed to your version of economic development. Some economic developers may be your worst enemies. Broadly speaking there are two different ways to work in economic development–two “worlds” of economic development.<\/p>\n

There is a “Policy” world and then there is a “Practitioner” world. A few (like myself) overlap both worlds–hybrids that fit in neither. But most of us work pretty exclusively in one or the other. Your resume determines which world you, the reader, belongs to. Each world approaches economic development in its distinctive way, with different values and even different goals. There is a distinctive mentality associated with each world. That mentality often reflects the different education, training and work experience prevalent in each world. All of these differences between the two worlds\u00a0create what at times seems like a wall that separates us. Friends or not, we each approach economic development in our own style. I may be wrong, but I think neither world really understands the other.<\/p>\n

Numerically, most of us are Practitioners. Most of us who work for an economic development organization in a state or community are Practitioners. Practitioners manage or implement programs, tools (revolving loan funds, for example). Many Practitioners work at the state and local level, but draw their paychecks, directly or indirectly, from the federal government (SBA EDA, HUD, MEP, NIST\u00a0and WIA types, for example). At minimum they\u00a0have to cope with faceless, faraway bureaucrats and go\u00a0face-to-face with people in the community.<\/p>\n

Practitioners tend to\u00a0share one characteristic that\u00a0distinguishes them from Policy World types–they are directly accountable to their communities for their efforts, programs, actions\u00a0and initiatives.\u00a0The Practitioner\u00a0is the one left holding the bag. Things are personal in the Practitioner World. It matters if someone gets out of bed mad. In the Practitioner World some people are just plain nuts. Some leaders won’t lead, others are micro-managers,\u00a0and others distracted, conflicted, or passive. Everybody has an agenda, or at least an angle. Things can change by the hour–or they never change. What goes on in the Practitioner World ain’t completely rational or predictable. For example, everything can change with an election.<\/p>\n

Elections cause “silly seasons” (the period during an election when political candidates and the media say and do stuff that makes little sense). And then, after an election everything changes, even if it doesn’t.<\/p>\n

Practitioners come from all sorts of background, education, occupations and past work experience. Often economic development is a way station to another job. Either that or they’re a civil servant who will be carried out of the office by the retirement director or the undertaker.\u00a0The Practitioner World is full of forms, process, acronyms, and meetings. It is very process-oriented. A defining characteristic of a Practitioner is they are on the “firing line”. If\u00a0Practitioners screw up, they get fired, yelled at,\u00a0or their EDO loses some funding. They are in the room with the auditor; they make the appeal to the legislature; they conduct\u00a0public hearings, and close deals. It’s the Practitioner’s\u00a0name in the newspaper.<\/p>\n

The Practitioner World is a “bottoms-up” world–the only thing that counts is what is within eyesight. The Practitioner works in the trenches. From the perspective of the Policy World, however, Practitioners work in the provinces and backwaters.<\/p>\n

And now the Policy World.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we work for a university, a think tank, a planning department,\u00a0or research institute, it is quite likely we are full-fledged Policy World types. Policy-types deal with ideas, strategies, evaluation, and planning. A policy-type can draw her paycheck from a state or local government, but they are staff, apart from the programmatic firing line. \u00a0The Policy World thinks great thoughts and write\/talk in broad strokes. Some Policy World types work at local levels. Probably, most work at the national or state\u00a0levels. Policy-types mostly look at economic development from a “top-down”, nation-wide, state-wide, system-wide perspective. Individual elements (your community, for example) are collapsed into a national average, or a metropolitan area median.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Physical Landscape of Rational Decision-Making<\/p><\/div>\n

They talk about things the Practitioner cannot physically touch–like a cluster, or a brand, or an economic base, or GNP. They rage about issues that are cosmic and timeless (think competitiveness or\u00a0inequality). They, and their analysis (because that is what they do),\u00a0are not generally tied to a specific community or state. They use databases of fifty states and one hundred metropolitan areas. They use “indicators” and attach unrealistic meanings to them. To them correlation\u00a0equals a fact;\u00a0the numbers are what the numbers are. Their reference point\u00a0is the Bureau of the Census or BLS, not the mayor’s or governor’s office.<\/p>\n

Economic development for them\u00a0is “rational”. You can control your fate through data analysis. They use theories, models, footnotes, talk about methodologies incessantly; they toss out “outliers”, and often write in math, tables \u00a0and algorithms. Typically Policy World types work out of a specialized cloister, an academic\u00a0discipline or department (economics, urban studies, policy analysis, school of business, institute). They do seldom reach outside\u00a0to another cloister, which they typically regard as full of a Cro-Magnon fools.\u00a0They write abstracts, not press releases.\u00a0Typically, the policy type specializes in a specific set programs, skills, strategies, or tools (tax-exempt financing, e.g.). Anything outside their specialty\u00a0may\u00a0not be\u00a0considered as economic development. They are educated, and they usually work in an “educational” environment, often have lifetime tenure. They spend their day sitting at a computer.<\/p>\n

The point behind all this two worlds stuff is that no matter where you work in economic development there is a parallel universe where everything is the opposite. Your professional “friend” in the “other” world is likely to be your worst enemy. Should it be any surprise to anybody that the worlds do not define economic development in the same way. They pursue different goals and have a different frame of reference. Each talks a different language and someone very different than\u00a0you\u00a0signs their paycheck. One world\u00a0is forever condemned to be parochial; the other is inherently fuzzy-minded and floating in the clouds. These two worlds exist. There’s nothing you can do to change it. So let’s start dealing with it productively.<\/p>\n

Important Dynamics of Sub-State Economic Development<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Sovereign<\/a>

Sovereign Presiding Over his Structure<\/p><\/div>\n

Next, I promised to list\u00a0key dynamics\u00a0of sub-state economic development. By dynamics I mean those “forces”and “drivers” that rock our local economic development boat.\u00a0These dynamics are things we need to know and to appreciate if we want to be around for the next paycheck. The following\u00a0are some\u00a0that seem important to start out with. I have included a brief description of each with a brilliant insight or two. My intention is that in the future\u00a0on a irregular basis I will return to this topic, pick out a couple of dynamics and\u00a0figure them out.<\/p>\n