Understanding the Economic Development Gap
On Tuesday October 25th, the Initiative on Cities (IOC) welcomed students, faculty and staff to Understanding the Economic Development Gap, the first Urban Seminar for the fall 2016 semester. The Seminar examined why some cities have experienced an economic development boom while others have stagnated.
Moderated by Boston University Professor of Economics and IOC Advisory Board member Robert Margo, the panel featured:
- Anne Gatling Haynes – Director of the Transformative Development Initiative, MassDevelopment and Adjunct Professor, Department of City Planning and Urban Affairs, Boston University
- Lily Song – Senior Research Associate, Harvard Graduate School of Design and Adjunct Professor, Department of City Planning and Urban Affairs, Boston University
Anne Gatling Haynes works at MassDevelopment, the state’s economic development and finance agency dedicated to working with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There, she leads the Transformative Development Initiative (TDI), a place-based development program for Gateway Cities designed to enhance local public-private engagement and community identity, stimulate an improved quality of life for local residents, and spur increased investment and economic activity. Massachusetts defines Gateway Cities as midsize urban centers that anchor regional economies but have struggled to maintain or regain lost economic vitality.
Lily Song is Senior Research Associate with the Transforming Urban Transport-Role of Political Leadership (TUT-POL) project at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on the relations between urban sustainability and livability initiatives, sociospatial inequality, and race and class politics in American cities and other postcolonial urban areas. Her projects— which topically span building energy retrofits, sustainable urban transport, and informal street vending among others— are motivated by the common question of how historically marginalized and disenfranchised urban inhabitants and communities can drive transformative urban policy and governance in collaboration with differently situated and abled partners.
People-Based vs. Place-Based Policy
Professor Margo began the discussion with the planner’s dilemma: what is better, people- or place-based policy? He explained that from the perspective of urban economics, we often see failures in place-based programs—so-called enterprise zones—and yet place-based initiatives remain exceedingly popular.
Both Anne Haynes and Lily Song acknowledged the widespread attractiveness of place-based initiatives to rejuvenate struggling urban economies, but stressed that place alone is not enough. “The history of American community development has been about physical regeneration, about place-based redevelopment, not about workforce investment or economic development,” said Song.
Song’s projects in Cleveland and Los Angeles focus on both people and place. “[These projects] are place-based because they identify neighborhoods but they are also people-based because they focus on wealth creation and workforce training,” she said. “People might have a motivation to move once they secure better jobs but people-based programs encourage them to reinvest.” Community reinvestment can re-weave a city back together socially and culturally but also economically as reinvestment initiatives create and sustain job growth. People want to be in places that have value and when they perceive that private business and government entities care about their community.
“People are emotionally connected to places if they can be part of things changing,” said Haynes. “They can make economic transformation more permanent.”
Equity and Community Engagement
When a community develops, “equity has to be front and center,” argued Haynes. She explained that MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative works with cities, not for them, to create lasting relationships. It involves a two-pronged approach: 1) emphasizing self-empowerment and 2) bringing folks to the table. “The civic structure of these cities is often small,” Haynes explained, “so folks taking ownership of projects is a game changer.” For example, in summer of 2016, MassDevelopment partnered with the company Patronicity and the Town of Framingham to crowd fund “place-making” projects like art installations, bike trails or farmer’s markets. MassDevelopment used the platform to identify projects that the community cared about and matched the funds raised by the community to bring those projects to completion.
“[Planning] is not just a place for governments,” Song said. Particularly when elected leaders are on the ballot every two years, community and bureaucratic leadership are what propel projects forward. Song emphasized the importance of “re-pitching” ideas through different mayoral administrations.
Power of Anchor Institutions and Cross Sector Leadership
In her work with the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland, Song forged partnerships across sectors through the help of anchor institutions like universities and hospitals, especially in impoverished communities. The Initiative brought together private and public sector leaders from The Cleveland Foundation, Kent State University and the City of Cleveland to focus on transit-oriented development and employer-assisted housing with the goal of encouraging employees of local nonprofits to return to neighborhoods. This program later expanded to include middle-wage job creation and workforce training.
Involving anchor institutions in development work is critical but the challenge is that some places don’t consider themselves institutions. For example, community centers and co-ops often don’t put themselves in the same category as large colleges or cultural institutions. Haynes emphasized the importance of framing alternative agendas to find community partners and ensuring that institutions participate in the development process to achieve “co-learning,” where community members, the private sector and government entities can collaborative together to find mutually beneficial solutions to their problems.
Both Haynes and Song stressed the importance of strong civic leadership from both elected officials within government and unelected leaders in the community. “We need to re-message valuable assets and bring new people to the table,” Haynes said. Involving the entire community in efforts to propel projects forward is critical and can improve efforts in involving folks who are often left out of development decisions.
Moving forward, Professor Margo, Haynes and Song agree that working with already available resources in cities—including physical assets, development programming and the community—is the best way to predict success. “These cities are already on track for redevelopment,” explained Song. “They need a push and the political will to move forward.” By providing cities with further means to fund new efforts and sustain existing ones, and offering guidance through political and social leadership, struggling cities can reinvest in people and places in their communities that allow them to keep pace with 21st century progress.