The Four Pitfalls of Local Economic Development

Abstract

This article is an assertion of the fundamental need for local economic development to serve the purposes and respect the dynamics of human community, and the role of development professionals in clarifying that for communities. The author uses one community as a negative example to identify four ways in which the purposes and dynamics of human community must drive development: development of shared vision as a base, not just techniques; leadership that relies on group learning, not co-option or control; a sustained focus on process, not individual events; and an address of the roots of problems, not symptoms. The argument is based, not on the dictates of social science, but on the pragmatism of effectiveness.