Thoughts on Economic Development

I recently came across two articles in the Winter 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association regarding economic development.  They take completely different directions, but both touch on concepts that may be worth exploring.  You can find them in PDF format on the project wiki.

The issues raised in these two articles are worthy of a general discussion:

• The New Firm Entry article discusses the differences in how new businesses form and grow in urban, suburban and rural areas.  As might be suspected, the primary constraint on new business growth in a rural area is the size of its potential market.  But this article also gives a good overview of local economic development theory in its introductory discussion.
• The Vernacular Culture article discusses the economic value of a neighborhood identity.  Although the study focuses on neighborhoods in urban areas, there are a number of concepts that appear to transfer to our situation – centered on the idea that local culture is an economically valuable asset for neighborhood business.

Together, they build a general idea of how we might approach two questions:

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of rural areas in the creation and survival of new businesses?
2. How does local culture and a sense of place contribute to the local economy?

I've set up a discussion page on the project wiki for this subject.  If you want to participate, click on the "discussion" tab at the top of the page.

Posted by Dave Johnson in Research

Project Wiki Added

We've started a project wiki, which will eventually be the place where the Working Groups will assemble and edit their research results and statements of ideals.  Nigel and I will assemble the guidelines for project research and post them there early in 2009 in preparation for the Welcome Event.  This space will function in much the same way as the Wikipedia.

A link to the wiki has been added to the navigation bar at the top of every page.

Posted by Dave Johnson in Documentation, Project, Research, Site Notes

Thinking Outside the Box Canyon: Presentations

The creation of the RSVP was based on an event was held at the Mt Village Conference Center called "Thinking Outside the Box Canyon" on March 17, 2007.  The event was fairly well-documented: 

• A video of the presentation is available at Telluride WebTV.

Copies of the Powerpoint presentations made by both Jonathan Schechter of the Charture Institute in Jackson Hole and Dave Riley, CEO of Telluride Ski and Golf are also available in pdf format (needs Adobe Reader).

• Jonathan's presentation is available in either full page format or in 3 slides/page format. 
• Dave's presentation is available in either full page format or in 4 slides/page format.

Also, Jonathan Schechter's presentation to CAST (Colorado Association of Ski Towns) is on the Mt Village Town website.  This presentation is roughly the same information as the presentation to the Box Canyon event.

A news coverage summary for the event will be in a separate post. There will be more discussion about the event later, but this post is just to make the information available.

Posted by Dave Johnson in Documentation, Research

Strategic Planning: Basic Resources

One of the major theoretical sources for the design of the RSVP process is large body of knowledge known as Strategic Management or Strategic Planning, among other related names.  It is a fairly well established set of conceptual tools used to provide a guide in how to proceed as an organization.  Strategic Planning provides a framework for an organization to answer three basic questions:  Where are we now?  Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

There will be some more detailed discussions of this subject later, but for now I just want to make some general information available for anyone who is interested.  I found one site in particular, the Free Management Library, that provides an excellent set of basic articles on Strategic Planning.

The Library appears to be a minimally-managed wiki-type set-up, allowing users to add articles, so there is not any sort of peer or jury review of the information, but at the very least, it echos most of what I have learned about the subject and provides a lot of recommendations for other resources.  And it's certainly a better resource than the Wikipedia entry for Strategic Planning.

Posted by Dave Johnson in Research