Economic Development Administration Update

Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade is a new feature on the Economic Development Administration (EDA) website (www.doc.gov/eda) at the Economic Development Information Clearinghouse. This feature provides resources on a number of different topics, including business incentives, entrepreneurship and business development, smart growth, technology-led development, brownfields, planning, defense conversion, comprehensive economic development strategies and more.

Reclamation and Economic Regeneration of Brownfields

This 2000 review, by Peter B. Meyer and H. Wade Van Landingham at E.P. Systems Group, identifies common themes and distills lessons from more than a decade of intense efforts by practitioners to redevelop brownfields properties. Focusing on redevelopment for commercial and industrial purposes, it examines the role of local, state and federal economic development organizations in promoting redevelopment.

This report demystifies the mass of legal, technical and often contradictory or out-of-date writings on the brownfields issue. The goal is to inform the local economic development organization or municipal agency charged with economic and/or community development in an area of potentially contaminated sites.

Federal and state agencies have worked to stimulate new economic development organization efforts on brownfields regeneration. These organizations see economic potential in brownfields redevelopment and have responded to local agencies’ perceptions of such projects as “impossible” or difficult, and thus low priority, activities. This review will assist economic development organizations in understanding, but not exaggerating, the problems and the broad-ranging community benefits associated with brownfield projects. This review should help to identify workable approaches to potential land contamination issues, point to the best practices of successful brownfield redevelopers and identify sources available for economic development organizations about to launch or expand their own brownfields efforts.

The NADO Research Foundation will release Reclaiming Rural America’s Brownfields: Alternatives to Abandoned Property on April 24, 2001. The May issue of the Digest will include information about the report.

Changing Work Organization in Small Manufacturers: Challenges for Economic Development

This 2000 review, by Nikolas Theodore and Rachel Weber of the University of Illinois at Chicago, examines changing employment practices among small and medium-sized manufacturers. It considers changes in hiring practices, employment security and retention, and career ladders. It also considers the implications of these changes for economic development policy. This working paper reviews the growing literature on the changing employment practices of small and medium-sized manufacturers. Specifically, it examines the literature in four areas: hiring practices, employment security and retention, career ladders, and economic development policy.

Observers disagree about the extent to which restructuring has taken place in smaller firms, the nature of workplace change, and the impact of this change on employees. The policy arena is just as contentious; a variety of strategies have been proposed to provide employment opportunities, particularly for low-income populations. By synthesizing the research to date and evaluating the key debates in this area, this literature review will assist economic development practitioners in making the leap to workforce issues.

Competitive Regionalism: Beyond Individual Competition

This 2000 report, by Linda McCarthy of the University of Toledo, examines the emerging trend of neighboring towns and cities acting in cooperation to encourage economic development in their region, rather than trying to lure jobs from one another. It includes examples from both the United States and Europe. This report focuses on public-sector efforts at regional cooperation to achieve economic development rather than on the cooperative strategies of private-sector firms within particular regions. This focus on regional cooperative efforts to achieve urban economic development precludes discussion of the efficiency and equity of the provision of public services, such as fire and emergency response systems, by individual local jurisdictions in a politically fragmented region versus cooperatively at a regional scale.

Internet Based Commerce: Implications for Rural Communities

Authored by John C. Leatherman at Kansas State University, this 2000 report examines how Internet based commerce is likely to affect rural economies. It identifies challenges to rural economies, including tribal lands. It describes strategies available to rural communities to facilitate electronic commerce.

Many people have expressed concern about the “digital divide” that exists between various socioeconomic groups and places. Among those places currently lagging in the diffusion and use of advanced information technologies are rural communities. This report presents a review of available literature and considers the prospects and implications of the rural digital divide. Rural economic characteristics, telecommunications infrastructure and leadership capacity are evaluated in light of the emerging information-intensive economic realities. Challenges for the rural public sector also are considered, given the growth of electronic commerce and what it may mean to rural public finance. Finally, adaptive strategies are outlined to help close the information technology gap that exists for many rural communities.

For more information, contact EDA at (202) 482-5081 or visit www.doc.gov/eda to download the reports.

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