Local Economic Development: Analysis and Practice

Book Description

More than ever before, local economic development issues are being shaped by market forces. Despite this, urban studies and public administration texts focusing on local economic development issues have glossed over or ignored this fundamental change. Now, in Local Economic Development, John P. Blair presents a comprehensive, accessible, and jargon-free text - one that offers both extensive coverage of economic concepts and the new market forces at work today. Topics addressed include regional growth and development, land use, metropolitan government and finance, housing, economic development strategies, and neighborhood development. Blending knowledge from a variety of disciplines (planning, political science, finance, sociology, and marketing) with a strong analytical approach, this is the ideal text for courses in local economic development as well as public finance, public administration, and policy studies and practitioners.

"I found that Local Economic Development well fills a need for a combined treatment of regional economic and planning issues at the undergraduate level. Its greater depth on topics in economics--its main strength--lends it more useful in survey courses in regional economics."

--Journal of Regional Science

"With its purpose being ''to present the economics of economic development in a manner accessible to both economists and noneconomists,'' this volume broadly describes regional development theories, economic development theories, economic development practices, and analytical techniques for assessing the performance of regional and local economies. . . . For those who have never been exposed to the field of economic development, this book is a user-friendly beginning."

--Choice

"This book represents an important progression and stands as another sign that as a field of study and work, local and regional economic development is a practice whose time has arrived."

--Journal of the American Planning Association

" Local Economic Development should be read by everyone seriously involved in the profession, for it embellishes one’s perspective of the subject in a refreshing way. Then, too, the book should be on the desk of everyone who believes economic development is little more than blue smoke and mirrors, especially if such individuals are politicals prone to change economic policy every time results are not immediate or administrations change. . . . If any single argument exists to dissuade impulsive action, perhaps those in such positions can find it here."

--Journal of Community Development Society

Customer Reviews:

Excellent community & economic development text.......2007-09-24

Blair's "Local Economic Development: Analysis and Practice" is clearly written and gives good, practical examples. The graphs are carefully explained, and even an economics beginner can understand this book. It is also well edited and professional.

Undergraduate Economics Textbook.......1999-01-20

Blair's Local Economic Development is an undergraduate level text on regional economics. In this regard, it automatically fills a need left by the now out-of-print An Introduction to Regional Economics by Edgar M. Hoover and Frank Giarratani. (Frank Giarratani tells me that no future editions are in the offing.) The title difference from the Hoover and Giarratani volume lends a more contemporary flavor to Local Economic Development. Indeed, it adds brief treatments of the following topics: housing and neighborhood development, local public finance, and planning perspectives.

Having taught (and in all academic practicality weaned) from Hoover's book, I find Blair's approach to the same subject matter refreshing. In the first chapter, he starts with a sketch of general economic principles_assumptions behind the behavior of individuals and firms; efficiency versus equity; market forces; and some causes of market inefficiencies_and moves quickly through a discussion of the notion of "region." The second chapter briefly edifies some critical economic principles in regional analysis: unemployment and low wages, externalities, and public choice. All of this is achieved in a mere 40 pages. I find such brief introductions necessary for undergraduate urban and regional studies courses, and wish that such a handy text would have been available when I first prepared my lectures. After this theoretical but pragmatic introductory material, Blair immediately hits core material to local political economics_business development. Here he draws as much from his own research experience in "industry targeting" as from the vast literature on industry location. Names like Weber and Hotelling fail to appear here but their main ideas do, however briefly. Most of the chapter is appropriately devoted to explaining such notions as "quality of life," "political climate," "business climate," and other factors thought to influence business location decisions, as well as to explaining the nature of the business location decision process itself. Chapter 4 deals with market areas and central place theory. As he does throughout much of the book, Blair discusses this material with the ultimate goal of providing a means of affecting local economic development through public policy. Hence, he focuses the chapter toward strategies for expanding a center's hinterland. In Chapters 3 and 4, Blair covers (perhaps indirectly) material on inter- and intraregional competition; in Chapter 5 "Understanding Economic Structure," he switches to a discussion of intraregional cohesive forces_agglomeration economies_and their measurement. As in previous chapters Blair does a good job on the main principles first developed by the likes of Walter Isard and as well as Edgar M. Hoover. In this case, however, I found at least one chink in the book's armor-the subject of Marshallian industrial districts (industrial complexes) are not well handled. Why did Detroit develop as a center for the world's auto industry? Why is it dispersing southward toward Birmingham, Alabama? Why are financial districts still relatively strong in major national urban centers? In summary, Blair fails to discuss the dynamics of agglomeration, specifically localization economies. He does not answer or bring up the subject of why some industries still bent on localizing while other are dispersing in an age with declining transactions and shipping costs.

In Chapters 6 and 7, Blair takes on the topics of regional development and its measurement. In these chapters he touches on export base theory, shift-share analysis, econometric modeling, and regional input-output analysis. He also discusses region importance-strength analysis, a critical component of industry targeting. Here I found that he may have missed a perfect opportunity to provide some structure via Saaty's analytical hierarchy to a method void of academic rigor. The analytical hierarchy approach is also a good lead into sensitivity analysis for students. Sensitivity of business location decisions to changes in the importance of regional characteristics would be an ideal and pragmatic application of this tool.

After returning to terse theoretical economic treatments of welfare economics and factor mobility, Local Economic Development turns to topics of land use, housing, and neighborhood development in Chapters 10 and 11. The section on housing is one of the best in the book, evenly covering all of the basic requirements in a mere 25 pages. The organization and content of the section on land use is less well developed. For a book that is oriented to practitioners, Blair gets bogged down in defining economic theories of land rent. Consequently, sharp transitions are required to and from the section entitled "The Land Development Process," most of which deals with project feasibility. In addition both the transition to and the discussion of government's potential role in development planning are left wanting.

The chapter on government is almost strictly a lesson on public taxation and the allocation of public goods, and less on ways in which government can induce local economic development. For this reason Chapter 12 was the most disappointing of the lot, despite its quality discussion of the more theoretical aspects of government finance. The most pragmatic piece in the chapter was a discussion of cost/benefit analyses.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Government Finance Review, published by Government Finance Officers Association on August 1, 1996. The length of the article is 464 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Local Economic Development: Analysis and Practice. (book reviews)
Author: Virginia Rutledge
Publication: Government Finance Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 1996
Publisher: Government Finance Officers Association
Volume: v12 Issue: n4 Page: p54(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Based upon classical and contemporary theory and empirical research, this book forms a sociological analysis of organizations, focusing on the impacts that organizations have upon individuals and society. Chapter topics include the nature of organizations, organizational structure, power and power outcomes, leadership, decision making, communication, change, organizational environments and interorganizational relationships, organizational theory, and organizational effectiveness. For individuals and industry professionals interested in the sociology of organizations and organizational behavior.

Customer Reviews:

I wish I could give it -1 stars.......2006-07-14

Do not get this book! It is confusing and boring. I had to buy this tiny book for a class taught, you guessed it, by Dr. Hall himself. It was painful and unclear (both the class and the book). Do not waste $62 on this book...unless you have to get it for the class, in which case I feel for you.

This is quite simply one of the worst "text books" I've read........2006-01-08

I have recently begun an Organizational Behavior class as part of my Masters Degree Program in which this book is used as the primary text. As I have read this book I have come to the belief that it should not be used as a text of any sort. It is much less of a text than it is a very poorly written book report. Granted as the description notes it does take a sociological standpoint, though my opinion of Sociologists is very low, being that they are extremely non-committal in stating or taking any position what so ever on a topic. At any rate, the book is 50% commentary and another 25% vague reference to the hundreds of various studies and papers written on the topics being discussed. As for the remaining 25%, the writer has scrounged the bottom of the vocabulary barrel in writing a book that has the reader continuously looking up words in an effort to translate the very few points the book ever actually makes. At the end of the day you are left with the idea that the entire book has been spent telling you that nothing is nothing and everything is everything nobody knows why.

Organizations: Structures, Processes, and Outcomes (8th Edition)

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incomprehensible
No worse book on the face of the planet

Organizations: Structures, Processes, and Outcomes (8th Edition)
Richard H. Hall
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
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Binding: Paperback

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Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth and development and a key agricultural input-but in excess it can lead to a host of problems for human and ecological health. Across the globe, distribution of fertilizer nitrogen is very uneven, with some areas subject to nitrogen pollution and others suffering from reduced soil fertility, diminished crop production, and other consequences of inadequate supply.

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In 1972, a young graduate student named Shirley Strum traveled to Kenya to study a troop of olive baboons (Papio anubis) nicknamed the Pumphouse Gang. Like our own ancestors, baboons had adapted to life on the African savannah, and Strum hoped that by observing baboon behavior, she could learn something about how early humans might have lived. Soon the baboons had won her heart as well as her mind, and Strum has been working with them ever since.

Vividly written and filled with fascinating insights, Almost Human chronicles the first fifteen years of Strum's fieldwork with the Pumphouse Gang. From the first paragraph, the reader is drawn along with Strum into the world of the baboons, learning about the tragedies and triumphs of their daily lives—and the lives of the scientists studying them. This edition includes a new introduction and epilogue that place Strum's research in the context of the current global conservation crisis and tell us what has happened to the Pumphouse Gang since the book was first published.

Customer Reviews:

YOU NEED THIS BOOK!.......2006-12-20

This is an engaging, honest and intriguing story documenting a scientist doing fieldwork/research on a baboon troop. Although vastly informative and fact-filled, it is written for a general reader and refreshingly free of jargon. Ms. Strum also allows feelings - her own and the baboons' - to enter into the picture, as George Schaller did in "Year of the Gorilla," although Ms. Strum writes with much more humor than Dr. Schaller. Her observations and theories about baboon behavior - especially the male/female relationships - are extraordinary and compelling. I've re-read this book twice, just for the pleasure it gives me, and I highly recommend it to anyone who finds this type of research fascinating. And a terrific companion piece is "A Primate's Memoir," by Robert Sapolsky, also a researcher among the baboons...

A SCIENTIST BECOMES A SAVIOUR.......2002-02-25

This book could not have come into my life at a more opportune time. As a Volunteer Wildlife Police Officer I am involved inter alia in investigation of illegal possession of all wild species. However I had developed a particular interest in and love for primates - notably here vervet monkeys and baboons which are the most commonly "kept" here. I had made it my goal to remove as many of these from private possession as humanly possible. In all cases we find these intensely sociable animals being kept on their own, and with their movements restricted to no more than a few feet. After confiscation I start the rehabilitation process myself and then pass them on to a large sanctuary in Lusaka where they are integrated into troops and start their new lives. However my ultimate goal was to return them to a totally free life in the wild. Shirley Strum's seminal and successful translocation of the "Pumphouse Gang" in Kenya therefore convinced me that we had a chance of doing the same with our individuals/troops. The difference being that the "Pumphouse Gang" had always lived free and ours not. Shirley Strum's greatest accolade should be that she went beyond being the objective observer to caring participant. If Strum had only been involved with the baboons as subjects of an intellectual exercise, she would have been no different to many other scientists many of whom are responsible for hideous acts of cruelty to our non-human relatives. Thankfully, when the "Pumphouse Gang" was at risk of destruction, she allowed her humanity to guide her and so committed herself to finding a solution to their plight which was successful. I must admit that as a layman, some of the anthropological observations went over my head! I do feel that this is an extremely important study for anyone involved with primates, and those involved in the anti-vivesection movement (certainly in Africa where baboons are used as laboratory animals) since as the title states - they are "almost human".

An important book of science and meta-science.......2001-08-03

Strum's account of her fieldwork is intensely interesting, as she looked past the "received wisdom" about baboon hierarchies and saw what was really going on. Of course baboons are not identical to humans - but the fundamental impulses of baboon behavior and their strategies for dealing with the their society and the world around them are similar to many things humans do; Strum claims no more than that.

Just as fascinating as her discoveries about baboons, however, is her account of the effort to get her field results heard within the closed shop of baboon studies. She ran into a problem that damages almost all the sciences: The experts who get to decide whether the results of your research get published in scientific journals are usually the very same people whose triumphant discoveries of twenty years ago your research is about to supercede or even contradict. Naturally they think your work is nonsense and do all they can to keep it from getting published - because if you are right, and prevail, then their great work is erased. This struggle has been faced by so many scientists that it's a wonder we ever advance human learning at all. The only things that get published quickly and easily are the results that confirm our preexisting views. Indeed, one sees quite a bit of baboon behavior among scientists - as among all other humans....

This was an important book for me, with insights that I have used in my own writing for years. I'm glad it's coming back into print in a new paperback edition. It's about time!

Almost Human: A Journey into the World of Baboons.......1999-12-18

This was a fascinating look at baboons society. It was also extraordinarily personal in perspective. The book was absorbing and easy to read science written in a very subjective voice. The author gets very emotionally involved in her subjects and lets that come through clearly. She presents a somewhat controversial approach to field work.

Wonderful-I felt like I was in the field with her.......1999-11-20

As someone who has studied primates in the field, I greatly related to this book. Studying primates is so rewarding and I enjoyed sharing her discoveries and her journey. It is an easy read, and you will not want to put it down. Kudos to Dr. Strum

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