fall 2005
CRP 385C:
Sustainable Urban Economic Development Policy
Course Description
This course provides a survey of major theories of urban economic development and current initiatives by federal, state and local governments to improve regional and local economic performance. The goals of economic development planning include stimulating local employment and income, expanding the local tax base, and in some cases, improving economic opportunities for low-income households. A special emphasis will be on defining a sustainable path to economic development and highlighting policies and initiatives that simultaneously stimulate economic growth, improve economic equity, and reduce consumption rates of natural capital (land, air, water, raw materials etc.).
The first part of the course will briefly review theories concerning the causes of growth and decline of cities and regions and then define the concept of sustainable development. The second part of the course will outline practical techniques for evaluating the structure and economic and environmental performance of regional and local economies. In the third segment, students will investigate various public intervention strategies, with special emphasis on strategic economic development planning processes and techniques. Finally, the class will analyze and evaluate a variety of "state of the art" sustainable development and growth management programs being implemented by state and local governments across the U.S.. Cases that will likely be analyzed in detail include Milwaukee, Chattanooga, Baltimore and Austin.
Sample of Readings:
Richard Bingham and Robert Mier (eds.), Dilemmas of Urban Economic Development, Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications, 1997.
Campbell, Scott, "Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities: Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development, " Journal of the American Planning Association, Summer 1996, pp. 296-313
Center for Public Policy Priorities, For the Common Good; Evaluating Economic Development Initiatives in Texas, Austin: Center for Public Policy Priorities, March, 2000.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Innovative Local Economic Development Programs, Washington D.C: USDC, Economic Development Administration, 1999. Available at: www.doc.gov/eda/html/reports_pubs.htm
Fitzgerald, Joan and Nancy Green Leigh, Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for Cities and Suburb, Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications, 2002.
Portney, Kent, Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. pp.1-29.
Lomborg, Bjorn, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Costanza, Robert, "Visions, Values, Valuation and the Need for an Ecological Economics" Bioscience, Vol. 51, No 6, June 2001.
Oden, Michael, "From Assembly to Innovation: The Evolution and Current Structure of Austin's High Tech Economy," Planning Forum, Vol. 3., 1997, pp.14-30.
Markusen, Ann, "Studying Regions by Studying Firms, " in Ann Markusen et al., (eds.) Second Tier Cities, Rapid Growth beyond the Metropolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1999.