Geography, Politics and Economic Development

Someone asked me the other day what I saw as the biggest challenge facing economic development. After thinking for a moment, I replied that it was "managing geography and politics."

What do I mean? In simple terms, economic development is "place advocacy". Actually, it is advocating the economic interests of places in what is seen as a competitive environment where resources and opportunities are limited.

What's the problem? The problem is that we have become overly wedded to geographic and political boundaries, which has limited our ability to develop opportunities for people and businesses. Plain and simple, we pay too much attention to our boundaries and allow them to define our possibilities.

Some economic developers, like Rick Weddle, have talked about "seamless economic development." I like the notion, but even Rick admits that we are a ways from being able to truly look beyond our self-imposed borders.

I have suggested that EDO's need to work within broader national and global networks, which could be organized around shared interests. There is some evidence this is happening, but progress is slow because we continue to use "old goals and old performance metrics" to measure the success of the new approaches. Maybe economic development needs to explore new goals that focus squarely on building upon our economic interdependence and developing positive-sum, rather than zero-sum, opportunities.

I'd like to hear about your ideas in this regard. Who is doing anything that remotely relates to this idea?

Please email me if you have ideas. Thank you.