On state and local economic policy

Both of these articles are form Governing Magazine. The first investigates whether private efforts to spur economic development are preferable to public efforts and finds mixed results. The second questions a standard line made about cities, that they are economic entities oriented towards growth, but growth can upset existing power structures - so there can be resistance to it.  

- Welcome to Jobs Inc., Where States Have Little Say in Economic Development.

Go down the list and every apparent advantage of privatization seems to have an equal and opposite downside as well. Proponents claim that private economic development corporations are more responsive, but looser rules open up the possibility that they’ll cut corners in dubious ways. And they may not be more nimble at all, since new entities add their own layers of bureaucracy to the mix. The privatized entities typically are more flexible when it comes to managing their own personnel, but there have already been examples of staff being grossly overpaid as a result.

In short, while it might make sense to give development officials a leash longer than is the norm for government work, that approach offers no guarantee of success. “There is no evidence that privatizing economic development either helps or hurts economic development,” Timothy Bartik, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says flatly.

- Do Cities Really Want Economic Development?

. . . economic struggle can be a cultural unifier in a community that people tacitly want to hold onto in order to preserve civic cohesion.

Jane Jacobs took it even further. As she noted in The Economy of Cities, “Economic development, whenever and wherever it occurs, is profoundly subversive of the status quo.” And it isn’t hard to figure out that even in cities and states with serious problems, many people inside the system are benefiting from the status quo.

They have political power, an inside track on government contracts, a nice gig at a civic organization or nonprofit, and so on. All of these people, who are disproportionately in the power broker class of most places, potentially stand to lose if economic decline is reversed. That’s not to say they are evil, but they all have an interest to protect.