Why the Focus on History?

A friend asked me last night why I was giving so much attention to the "past" in the ED Futures' series on business and industry history. He commented that too many communities he works with try to live in the past, instead of living in the present and planning for their future.

I replied that I agreed 100% with him that communities need to live in the "present," and should give attention to shaping their future. The present is actually "ever present." It's always the present. The "past" and the "future" are temporal concepts. Nothing more. Communities that are "fully present" are those most likely to succeed.

Now, why the historical focus on business and industries? Simply it gives us an opportunity to watch the movie that a specific industry or company represents. A look at history can help us understand why things are the way they are today; that is why we have the present we have now. As economic developers, we need to be more "mindful" of the present and power that lies in it. History can help us access that power.

Here is a statement about the value of history from Tulane University's History Department: "The true value of history lies in what it tells us about the world in which we live. At birth we enter a world which we did not create, and which we come to understand only in part, and then only gradually. With time, in our own day, our awareness of that world extends beyond household, neighborhood and region to encompass many other parts of the world. But even the most distant parts of the world represent only that portion of humanity which is presently alive. All aspects of our existence are products of much longer periods of development, and their continuity and change remain only dimly evident to us until we begin to learn something about the past." That kind of sums up what I am trying to say."