Creating Resilient Local Economies

Providing a coherent and clear narrative, Creating Resilient Economies offers a theoretical analysis of resilience and provides guidance to policymakers with regards to fostering more resilient economies and people. It adeptly illustrates how resilience thinking can offer the opportunity to re-frame economic development policy and practice and provides a clear evidence base of the cultural, economic, political and social conditions that shape the adaptability, flexibility and responsiveness to crises in their many forms.

This book looks at how to build more resilience into socio-economic networks within local communities. Understanding the relationships between attachment to place, complex systems and patterns of knowledge creation is not straightforward, but these relationships are emerging as the challenges that we face in bridging the gap between the social worlds that we inhabit and an emerging digital world. These issues have been brought into even sharper focus through changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, forced familiarity with communication technologies is driving globalisation forwards, whilst on the other, the crisis has created awareness of dependencies and heightened desires for more local solutions. Plenty of books have been written about the rise of digital networks and the decline of local communities. This book takes a radical approach by identifying how these trends fit together and provides examples of how digital networks can be made to work for the local as well as the global economy. Using a case study approach, the book offers a clear-sighted view of the role of relational capital in specific places and organisations and shows the transformational impact that they can have at a micro level. The book deliberately seeks to shake up preconceived ideas and is ideal for strategy practitioners and policy makers within governments and NGOs involved in connecting local to wider network economies.

Reinventing economic development as if small business mattered In cities and towns across the nation, economic development is at a crossroads. A growing body of evidence has proven that its current cornerstone—incentives to attract and retain large, globally mobile businesses—is a dead end. Even those programs that focus on local business, through buy-local initiatives, for example, depend on ongoing support from government or philanthropy. The entire practice of economic development has become ineffective and unaffordable and is in need of a makeover. The Local Economy Solution suggests an alternative approach in which states and cities nurture a new generation of special kinds of businesses that help local businesses grow. These cutting-edge companies, which Shuman calls “pollinator businesses,” are creating jobs and the conditions for future economic growth, and doing so in self-financing ways. Pollinator businesses are especially important to communities that are struggling to lift themselves up in a period of economic austerity, when municipal budgets are being slashed. They also promote locally owned businesses that increase local self-reliance and evince high labor and environmental standards. The book includes nearly two dozen case studies of successful pollinator businesses that are creatively facilitating business and neighborhood improvements, entrepreneurship, local purchasing, local investing, and profitable business partnerships. Examples include Main Street Genome (which provides invaluable data to improve local business performance), Supportland (which is developing a powerful loyalty card for local businesses), and Fledge (a business accelerator that finances itself through royalty payments). It also shows how the right kinds of public policy can encourage the spread of pollinator businesses at virtually no cost.

A taboo-shattering book, How Local Resilience Creates Sustainable Societies sets out how visionary national and local leaders can transform unsustainable societies as they attempt to recover from an age of austerity. By eliminating the culture of dependency in a socially and environmentally progressive way, the book shows how to transcend the political and social spectrum and even unify people around a common purpose. It does this by examining how leaders can make smarter interventions within complex systems to prevent the high cost of social and environmental failure arising from our current economic model. The book explores a number of contemporary themes (e.g. green economy, sustainable urban development, banking reform, equality and democratic renewal) and draws on a wealth of global case learning (e.g. Amsterdam, Brighton, Cape Town, Madison, Matara and Toyama).

The future of northern British Columbia, a vast, resource-rich region of vibrant cultures and diverse communities, could be either driven by a narrow economic agenda or guided by innovative, place-based solutions that seek to build viable communities and resilient local and regional economies. Investing in Place is about creating the foundations for renewing northern British Columbia’s rural and small-town economies. Markey, Halseth, and Manson argue that renewal is not about nostalgic reliance on the policies and economic strategies of the past – rather, it is about building a pragmatic and innovative vision for development, one that acknowledges both the opportunities and the challenges posed by resource development and global and technological change. For policy-makers and residents alike the path to renewal lies in place-based development, which consists of people working together at all levels of the community and region to take advantage of local opportunities in a sustainable, responsible way.

How do we create more economic opportunities in the low-income communities of the developing world? How can these communities build greater resilience against economic uncertainties, natural disasters, wars, and the growing threats of climate change? This book reviews the research literature of economic development in low-income communities of the developing world—from rural villages to neighborhoods in the largest cities on earth. This book is unique in gathering, organizing, and synthesizing research on economic development at the community level, across the developing world, drawing from multiple disciplines, publications, methodologies, regions, and countries. Part I provides an overview and context of the many challenges facing the developing world today, as well as the often-heated debates over what "development" is and how to make it happen. Part II reviews the extensive research literature in major fields of community economic development including education and human capital, overcoming the "curse of natural resources," entrepreneurship and micro-finance, tourism, and sustainability. The audience includes undergraduate students interested in development and sustainability, graduate students and other young researchers in a wide range of disciplines who are finding their own focuses, and established researchers who wish to expand their agendas. An expanded bibliography accompanies the book as a downloadable supplement.

“[The authors] argue that with more integration and cooperation between businesses, governments and communities, a more sustainable economy is possible.” —The Environmental Magazine We find ourselves between a rock and a hot place—compelled by the intertwined forces of peak oil and climate change to reinvent our economic life at a much more local and regional scale. The Resilience Imperative argues for a major SEE (social, ecological, economic) change as a prerequisite for replacing the paradigm of limitless economic growth with a more decentralized, cooperative, steady-state economy. The authors present a comprehensive series of strategic questions within the broad areas of: Energy sufficiency Local food systems Interest-free financing Affordable housing and land reform Sustainable community development Each section is complemented by case studies of pioneering community initiatives rounded out by a discussion of transition factors and resilience reflections. With a focus on securing and sustaining change, this provocative book challenges deeply embedded cultural assumptions. Profoundly hopeful and inspiring, The Resilience Imperative affirms the possibilities of positive change as it is shaped by individuals, communities, and institutions learning to live within our ecological limits. “Resilience is the watchword for our dawning era of economic and environmental instability . . . The Resilience Imperative is exactly what’s needed to get us moving in the right direction.” —Richard Heinberg, author of Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival “Exceptionally valuable—in vision, in strategic understanding, in concrete ways to build forward. A handbook for a morally meaningful and sustainable future!” —Gar Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism