"Job's Aren't Enough"

In about a month, I will be facilitating a segment on economic development during the Department of Strategic Initiative's planning retreat. I began my research into the world of Marana economic development by looking at their Economic Roadmap. I then came across an interesting article on what economic development is in a Governing magazine, September 2011 issue. It was written by William Fulton, and while it appears to be titled "A Lousy Job" in their magazine print, the title online is "Jobs Aren't Enough". You can read the article here (Personally, I think "Jobs Aren't Enough" seems to be the more appropriate title).

Fulton describes how many times, economic developers tend to focus on just creating more jobs. That many times economic development comes down to how many jobs are brought in, and politicians will go to lengths to take credit for the quanitative increases.

Of course, it isn't just about the quantity, it's about the quality of jobs that are being brought in. And while numbers are what is often used to assess jobs in a given location, true economic development depends on the overall increased quality of the community. Fulton says "ultimately, successful economic development can't be measured only by the number of jobs or even the number of high-paying jobs that have been created."

So what is effective economic development?

Fulton explains by describing the needs of certain professionals that extends beyond just having "jobs". Entrepreneurs, for example, require a network of resources such as financiers, lawyers, and strategists. Different types of people need different types of jobs; professional, technical, service, etc. These kinds of subtleties cannot be typically defined by the word "jobs", as it requires much more. Fulton describes these subtleties as measured by "venture capital available to local comapanies, skills in the workforce, the value of local philanthropic endowments, the number of startups, and overall household income".

In the end, Fulton explains that yes jobs are included in the formula of economic development, but the focus should be on the overall enduring prosperity of the community, and this involves a complex network of resources and job availabilities.

Economic Road Map

After reading this article, I was curious about how Fulton's ideas and principles related to how Marana has outlined their economic strategy in their road map. I was pleased to see that it wasn't off-base at all. For one, Marana has outlined five target industries and 9 activity centers that will cater to specific needs. This includes transportation and logistics, tourism, regional industry cluster support, environmental technology, and bio-medical sciences. All areas would require a large variety of jobs that would extend to blue/white collar/professional/technical positions, and utilizes the surrounding environment as efficiently as possible (existing commercial hubs, airport, freeway I10, etc).

Additionally, there is the new Marana business development center that is currently going through its planning stages, and would be a contributing factor in creating that network that would support  entrepreneurs in the community.

It is pretty clear that Marana has put more thought in their economic development than just "increasing the number of jobs". It is important to promote a system that can grow off of itself. This way, Fulton says, "you are much likelier to build a solid foundation for the future".