Economic gardening: Looking within rather than outside for Michigan’s recovery

Michigan Environmental Council (Garmon) - Michigan is, by right, obsessed with economic development. The convoluted array of incentive and subsidy programs we’ve built to lure new firms or build new industries is substantial, to say the least. But the theory underlying most of these traditional economic development tools is changing. The shift...is fundamentally moving away from traditional “smokestack chasing” models toward what’s been dubbed “economic gardening.” The difference is stark. Rob Fowler, head of the Small Business Association of Michigan, suggests we shouldn’t consider it an evolution, but the emergence of a whole new approach to economic development. For more information on economic gardening, check out the following:

• Edward Lowe Foundation: www.edwardlowe.org
• Creating Entrepreneurial Communities program at Michigan State University: http://www.landpolicy.msu.edu/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=484
• Shift economic development from hunting to gardening, from the Center for Michigan: http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/blog/shift-economic-development-from-hunting-to-gardening  

Hat Tip: Innovation Daily