Economic Development Is Not for Amateurs! shows forward-thinking leaders how to transform local, regional, or state economies and supercharge a community's revitalization effort to attract jobs, investment, and residents. Offering practical, real-world solutions, economic development experts Jay Garner and Ross Patten identify the steps that communities of all sizes can implement to create a roadmap for long-term economic success. This step-by-step guide to transform locations explains how to: Provide the certainty, simplicity, and speed necessary to build a strong business climate Sell voters on the investments necessary to attract and retain employers and jobs Create, identify, and reinforce your community's brand Build a resilient economy prepared for business closings, natural catastrophes, and stiff competition Help create irrefutable proof of a skilled workforce that is ready to work as well as a talent pipeline that is ready to fill the jobs of tomorrow Find the inevitable bottlenecks of investment in order to keep your momentum building Chapter titles include: Chapter 1: Effective Leadership = Community Prosperity Chapter 2: No Product, No Project(tm) Chapter 3: Market Regionally, Sell Locally Chapter 4: Is Your Labor Force Work Ready? Chapter 5: Grow Your Garden Chapter 6: Time Kills Deals Chapter 7: It's All About the Brand Chapter 8: Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will Each chapter has a bulleted summary of the key takeaways for quick reference and recall. Whether you are a newly elected or appointed leader wondering where to start or a long-term policymaker looking to model today's best practices, Economic Development Is Not for Amateurs! will show you the way. Bulk order purchasing: eBook: Amazon does not allow the modification of eBook fees. The cost for this book is $9.99. You can still buy it in bulk as an eBook and then provide a redemption code to selected recipients. When an entity buys multiple copies of a Kindle eBook on Amazon.com, Amazon creates a set of redemption links, one for each copy of the book. You can send these links to any reader who is in the same country where you bought the copies. Recipients can redeem the eBook from desktop or mobile browsers and download the eBook to registered devices. This eBook can only be read through a Kindle or a Kindle app. Any smart device or tablet, e.g. iPhone, iPad, can download the Kindle app and read this book. We use this app on our iPhone and iPad and it works great! Paperback: Amazon will print exactly how many were ordered and will ship to the customer. For paperback orders of 1-25 copies, the cost is $15.99 per copy plus shipping purchased directly through Amazon. Pricing: For orders of 26-50, $14.99 per copy, plus shipping & handling. The order will be shipped from the authors and can be signed if desired (by one author). Please contact either author for bulk orders of 26 or more. For orders of 51-100, $13.99 per copy, plus shipping & handling and can be signed if desired. For orders in excess of 101, $12.99 per copy, plus shipping & handling and can be signed if desired. Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Co-authors Jay Garner or Ross Patten can customize a speaking event and book signing for your group. Contact the authors at [email protected] for more information.

The step-by-step guide to turning any neighborhood around A weak local economy can be strengthened. A run-down neighborhood of boarded-up storefronts, litter-strewn sidewalks, high unemployment, and poorly-maintained housing can be transformed. An entire community can be lifted up. Mihailo (Mike) Temali knows this first-hand. He has spent nearly twenty years working in community-based economic development, helping cities as diverse as St. Paul, Minnesota, and Santiago, Chile. In this concrete, practical, jargon-free handbook, he describes a proven way to make any community a better place to live. Comprehensive, realistic, and easy-to-use If you don't already have a community economic development (CED) organization in place, Temali tells you how to set one up. Then he defines four pivot points that are crucial to neighborhood economies: 1) Revitalizing your commercial district; 2) Developing microbusinesses; 3) Developing your community workforce; and 4) Growing good neighborhood jobs. He explains how to choose your first pivot point, then guides you through the process of tackling each one. True stories of successful CED provide inspiration. Sidebars explore related issues: dealing with gentrification, finding potential partners, supporting microentrepreneurs, and more. Other CED professionals share their insights in "From the Field" notes. Appendices point you toward useful resources, show you how to use the Internet to research your regional economy, and include dozens of worksheets that will help you move from reading about CED to doing it. The Community Economic Development Handbook is precisely what you need to turn your neighborhood around!

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

We tend to associate small town economic development with the decline of the rural United States--empty houses, shuttered shops and rusting factories. A common diagnosis of sluggish small town recovery is their lack of lifestyle amenities that attract new residents and businesses. Yet many small towns have shown progress and potential in recent years. This collection of recent articles by experts presents stories of small-town America's struggle and describes innovations and practices behind successful revivals.

All too often local governments focus on economic development tactics without a strategy, seemingly throwing things against the wall waiting for something to stick. The BusinessFlare(R) Approach provides a base of understanding that helps local governments implement strategies and tactics that can improve their local economy and grow their tax base within the limitations of their resources. BusinessFlare is an approach that is based in the evaluation and adoption of strategies and tactics to improve six areas of economic development influence: investment drivers, common business climate themes, community connections, economic development values, opportunities and implementation. The former economic development director for Miami Beach, Kevin S. Crowder's BusinessFlare Approach is based on one of the most significant local economic development successes of the last thirty years and is presented in a way that is relevant to every community.Sales from this EBook support the BusinessFlare Academy, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting micro-entrepreneurship and providing economic development education for local elected officials.

Exploring the theories of local economic development that are relevant to dilemmas facing communities today, this third edition expands on issues such as the planning process, analytical techniques and high-technology strategies.