Abstract
Leading Economic Development is an effective primer for new leaders or entry-level professionals interested in, intrigued by, or responsible for economic development at a variety of scales. Although the book draws primarily from the author’s experience as a university president and by implication the role of “institutions” (broadly conceptualized) in the development process, the book can be used to inform the everyday practices of actors in neighborhoods or the strategies of entire states. Indeed, the book’s core themes address the challenges facing cities, states, nongovernmental organizations/institutions (such as universities), regional development authorities, and the private sector as “places” struggle to compete for capital investment and endeavor to identify strategies that reconfigure (or merely stall) the “zero-sum” dynamics of uneven development. To accomplish this, the text surveys the theories and dynamics that inform local growth: workforce development, economic clusters, amenities/cultural assets, place-branding, globalization, innovation, venture capital, and the functional as well as relational dynamics of the elusive “triple helix.”
The book’s structure is familiar and effectively organized into four parts: Orientation & Concepts (chapters 1 and 2); Processes Impacting Economic Development (chapters 3-6); Relationships, Partnerships & Collaboration: The “Triple Helix” for Economic Development (chapters 7-9); and The Future of Economic Development (chapters 10-12). In addition, Johnson includes a glossary (particularly useful when deciphering acronyms), detailed notes, and comprehensive index, as well as a brief introduction and conclusion. Although the book is structured as an academic work, the tone and style is intentionally accessible to unfamiliar readers and peppered with useful anecdotes of successful and some less successful attempts to apply general theories in place.
Although the tool kit analogy is useful, Johnson’s most interesting contribution is to provide academics with real-world insights into how local leaders adopt, distill, transform, and contort the more conceptual contributions of prominent “pop” scholars such as Porter and Florida—as well as less visible folks like Saxenian and Etzkowitz in situ. Needless to say, the works of these colleagues and others have and arguably will continue to drive the local logic and bandwagon of economic development—clusters, knowledge economies, and creative classes.
To be honest and from the perspective of a researcher who has investigated clusters (high-tech and no-tech), economic development in peripheral regions, and the dynamics of uneven development, I was reminded once again that the realities of uneven development on the ground can be brutal. The good news is that this book underscores that leaders (or at least most leaders) have a sincere interest to not only serve their communities but also to improve them. To accomplish these deceptively simple objectives, practitioners have culled a vast academic literature and endeavored to make sense of it to conclude that it is necessary to (a) embed firms in place (firm retention) and (b) recruit/retain talent (workforce). To embed firms in place and recruit talent, the primary strategies that have gained policy traction focus on “specialization” (clusters) rooted in sustained innovation (triple helix) and “differentiation” (place branding). If successful, this basic and familiar strategy yields economic growth, new start-ups, and recruits new external capital; yet, as Johnson notes, the Gordian knot facing leaders is the reality of hyper-competition within and between places that occurs at multiple scales and is informed by macrolevel processes situated well beyond the grasp of local leaders.
Whereas it would be easy to abandon comprehensive, sustained, and expensive strategic investments and opt for a responsive (not necessarily reactive) approach informed by politics, the strength of Johnson’s book is its optimism and the importance placed on leadership—not policy, mechanics, or bidding wars. To that end, leaders must see economic development “. . . from the vantage point of where it is heading rather than where it has been” (pp. 15-16) while being mindful that it is a process driven by the timetable of industry—not election cycles or 5-year contracts. This message is the book’s most important contribution to the broader community of civic and elected leaders—look beyond the horizon and identify a sustainable local investment strategy (i.e., critical infrastructures and local amenities) that creates a coherent “place” with a comparative and competitive advantage for an industry or collection of allied industries. It is not easy, but this book clarifies the complex and moves beyond the basic politics of “jobs” in an effort to encourage a more intentional discussion of economic development across all sectors and spaces.