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In the weeks since George Floyd's death, a few times I've heard community voices call out economic development as one of the many local institutions that have failed them, demanding that funding be diverted FROM such activities.
"Isn't that backwards?" I first thought. Thread:
"Isn't that backwards?" I first thought. Thread:
Many of us like to consider economic development a noble profession. It's especially easy for those of us ensconced in think tanks. We've effectively shifted the field's narrative towards inclusion. But narrative isn't practice. On the ground #econdev is still pretty grubby.
For all the lofty rhetoric, economic development is still more about the deal than the people. It's about the new, not the progress. And it has grown terribly, recklessly expensive--with scandalously little to show for it.
#Econdev is the banner under which white elephants parade. Vanity projects led by overwhelmingly white local growth coalitions. Stadiums. Convention centers. Headquarters. "There's no money!" residents are told. Until a cool half-bil is conjured up for some colossus.
For low-income communities, it has done little to solve for chronic disinvestment and little to bring economic opportunity to the places where it's scarcest. All those tax abatements robbed Jamal's future to line Bob's retirement portfolio.
To be sure, economic development can't solve everything. It's not the school district. It must swim upstream against many unfavorable macro trends.
But at its most extreme, economic development has been reduced to an arm of real estate finance. It has been reoriented to serve businesses--one of the country's many institutions that seem to have forgotten that people are the point of it all.
How to fix it? I don't know yet. Like so many other aspects of American life in 2020, a period of introspection followed by careful listening and then creative experimentation seems to make sense.
Economic development's imperfection is widely shared. Workforce development still struggles to be effective. Community development remains much too antagonistic towards the mainstream economy through which the only real path to prosperity passes.
Some reinvented fusion of the three--economic, community, and workforce development--is what an #inclusivegrowth agenda probably needs. Some places are trying it. Legions of terrific, thoughtful people are ready to make it happen.
Maybe, hopefully, the pandemic will be the shock that galvanizes all the pieces together effectively.
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