Economic development’s Junk Food (IEDC Ignite, February 2014)
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These slides were part of an Ignite session (6 minutes) that I gave at the International Economic Development Association (IEDC) conference in Irvine, California in February 2014. It was a riff off of a chapter in The Local Economy Revolution: What's Changed and How You Can Help. For more information, including video of this presentation, go to wiseeconomy.com. Learn more about the book at LocalEconomyRevolutionBook.com.
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Economic development’s Junk Food (IEDC Ignite, February 2014)
- 1. Economic Development’s Junk Food Della G. Rucker, AICP CEcD Principal, Wise Economy Workshop With a riff on a theme in The Local Economy Revolution: What’s Changed and How you Can Help
- 6. By banksy
- 9. Mattlieb/cc
- 11. ibtimes.com
- 17. lyzadanger via Flickr (cc) Flickr/lyzadanger (cc)
- 20. Year-struck.com Year-struck.com Della.rucker@wiseeconomy.com @dellarucker www.Wiseeconomy.com www.LocalEconomyRevolutionBook.com
Editor's Notes
- Give Bill credit; lay out premise. Why do we find it so hard to give up simplistic practices, like throwing incentives at everyhing? Partial answer: it’s easy. It’s easy on our brains. Kind of like…
- Junk food. In a sense, our addiction to incentives looks a lot like our addition to junk food. Let’s be honest: we eat this stuff for a lot of reasons. One reason is that it’s easy – just look at that thing! It comes with its own handles!
- The other thing is: This stuff tastes good. Damn good. Something in that combination of grease and salt, it triggers definite happy things in our brains! Kind of like that thrill when you land the Big New Business… if giving money is the way to get that, who wants to say no?
- Of course, even while we’re eating or negotiating, we know in the back of our mind that it’s not very good for us. We know it makes us fat, and sluggish. And it makes us think that fixing our community is as easy as throwing money at the problem.
- But we seem to be kind of hard wired that way. We crave fat, salt, easy answers, easy solutions. Blame the caveman – if they hadn’t spent all their time trying to survive famines and decide whether to spear a wildebeest or run away with it, we’d probably be leaner and more flexible – in body and mind.
- What makes it worse is that it seems so friendly, so innocuous… happy clowns, happy kids, Happy Meals, happy businesses getting money, happy mayors cutting ribbons… It can’t be really all that bad, can it? Can it?
- And we can get tricked into thinking we can just keep doing it the same way forever. Look how long it’s lasted already! We’re not dead yet. Right?
- We know what’s good for us. We know that we need a variety of foods, close to the way we were raised. We know that our communities are complex, interdependent places and that our job isn’t just about selling and making deals. We’re supposed to be growing the community.
- But its hard work. Natural things, like communities, don’t always do what we told them to. Sometimes things wilt, it freezes, sometimes something gets in the water. And sometimes it’s just plain old yucky work
- Bigger problem: when we get lazy, we lose the uniqueness of the place. We might screech and holler that we’re unique, but it’s window dressing. And more and more, people can see through that. And when they do, we lose value.
- And then we are just like anywhere else. And if we cannot show people why we are special, what we have to offer that is of value to them, there is no reason for anyone to chose use over anyone else… unless we’re cheap.
- And once our communities start to compete on how cheap we can be, like a fast food burger, we have lost what made us valuable. If our best marketing proposition is our low cost, someone will get lower… and that will push us even farther down the food chain.
- The most important thing we have to offer is the uniqueness of our place. Even if we’re not the perfect health food specimen ourselves, What makes you unique makes you valuable. (repeat)
- Of course, some of your weirdness might not make you valuable to everyone– your community might be something of an acquired taste. But it’s better to find the people who value you than to be everything to everyone - and to find yourself caught in the cheapest-location race to the bottom
- We don’t have to become vegans, and doing economic development right doesn’t mean that we have to eat 14 pounds of spinach a day. Fad diets aren’t very safe either, and if we try to change too fast, we may undercut our own efforts.
- Instead, we need to realize that there are many, many choices, and we need to select the right mix of tools and tactics. There is no one grocery cart perfect for everyone – we need to pick the right tactics, from across the spectrum, to do what our unique community, uniquely needs.
- Because, frankly, we all know what we don’t want to be. It’s hard to change habits, whether it’s food or giving incentives or other economic development practices. But I think it’s time to start, whereever and however we can
- We still have a long way to go. But we can get going. I started running a couple of years ago. And when I complain about how slow I am or how winded I get or how much my shin hurts, my friends remind me: even a slow run is better than no run at all.
- So let’s not be scared of it. Let’s just start making it happen, where and how we can. Thanks.