A Strategic Approach to Sustainability and Economic Development

Typically, economic development and sustainability are not considered synonymous.  By this we mean that sustainability practices tend to be viewed as impediments to economic development.  However, if sustainability practices are utilized correctly, it can be quite the contrary.  Economic development strategies can benefit greatly through the incorporation of sustainability programs.  Sustainability provides a way for economic development practitioners to:

•    Distinguish their community from competing places
•    Demonstrate a community’s commitment to quality development.
•    Encourage mechanisms and activities related to public/private partnerships, which in general increase the options for attracting preferred businesses.

There are many emerging challenges that lie between the paths of economic development and sustainability.  Energy usage and availability will prove to be major determining factors in successfully merging these two paths.  Increasing energy costs will create not only new problems, but new opportunities as well.  With increasing energy costs, there will be substantial shifts in current economic development trends.  This will, for one thing, begin to redistribute wealth from the growing periphery and edge cities back to denser urban environments. 

This topic will focus initially on constraints of current development practices and the effects of the shift back to the city, followed by the identification of strategies at a multitude of scales that are necessary for adjusting to rising energy costs.

Constraints on commuting:

Real estate

•    “Drive until you qualify” properties decrease in value.
•    Close-in properties increase in value.
•    At periphery, properties threatened by obsolescence.

Infrastructure

•    Reduced demand at periphery
•    Increased demand at close-in properties
•    Gas tax decreases; how does transportation funding change?

Institutions

•    Pressure to upgrade school quality in inner cities
•    Investment in new facilities shifts from periphery to close-in locations.
•    Reduced parking demands
•    Adapt transportation systems:  passenger rail, bike lanes on major streets

Edge cities, other suburbs

•    Heightened challenges to achieve jobs/housing balance and general economic diversity
•    Re-interpret the value, potential, etc. of existing transportation systems.

Strategic options [broad to specific]

To address the constraints mentioned above we have identified a series of strategic options that can occur at different scales.  This will allow regions, cities, institutions and households to discover strategies to encourage responsible, sustainable development. 

Regional:

The potential for re-distribution of economic activity is a regional issue, in the following sense.

•    The dictates of location-choice have changed along with the steepening of land-value gradients.  Firms should re-evaluate their need to be in certain locations, and explore ways in which operational components could be re-distributed in order to maximize values (in land and facilities).  Commuting patterns of employees are more critical than ever, and freight costs could also be more important factors than they have been in the past.  A regional body could provide data from transportation models (which could be updated with present cost constraints, sample commuting data from firms, etc.), suggest business location-clustering (1) based on transportation-efficient concepts (including concepts on how currently viable clusters could evolve over time into other things), provide location-analysis models for firms, and provide communities on guidelines for balancing populations with business mixes.  Any incentives connected with this type of effort should be regionally coordinated if efficiency is to be truly maximized.
•    A regional location strategy could make the region more economically efficient, and thereby more attractive to employers.
•    The coordination of regional transportation is now more important than ever, and existing systems need to be re-interpreted and re-positioned from a regional perspective.  Creating passenger rail systems, for example, will require the kind of political leverage a region-level effort could deliver.
•    Regionally coordinated housing policies can help smooth changing housing-market conditions, for example by analyzing the potential for encouraging housing for the elderly at peripheral locations (assuming critical services could be provided in reasonable proximity), thereby freeing up housing for commuting workers in more advantageous locations.

For cities of all types:

•    Evaluate economic base in terms of potential effects on local industries and firms from rising energy costs and the relevant related effects, review options for remedial action at the local level for improving conditions both within industries/firms and within the community.
•    Review assets, especially transportation-related, for potential re-purposing and re-aligning with industries also facing the need to re-evaluate locations on the basis of transportation costs.
•    Conduct location-clustering analysis and review/revise economic development policies accordingly.

For peripheral cities:

•    Review options for targeting residential markets less dependent on commuting, and prepare strategies and coordinate with homebuilders accordingly.
•    Consider ways in which changes in regional economic conditions form the basis for re-defining the character of the community, for example:

o    Can the city adopt models of urban sustainability that are much more progressive than would have been acceptable in the recent past?  By doing something like this, or some other form of “re-invention,” can the city become an attraction sufficient to offset or overcome any disadvantage growing out of increasing travel/other energy costs?
o    Transportation systems, urban design principles, principles for balancing jobs and housing – all offer potential for community re-branding through innovation.

For inner cities:

•    Increase efforts to diversify housing stock to house commuters, through comprehensive programs that also consider accommodating essential services, encouraging appropriate institutional responses to the needs of all types of families, etc.
•    Re-examine redevelopment options in light of increased demand for land, growing acceptance of “urban living,” and other changes (present and evolving) in response to transportation/other energy costs.

For institutions:

•    School districts in inner cities could face the need to expand, and this might provide additional incentive to make certain that the quality of education is competitive with suburban schools, so that commuting households can be comfortable with decisions to move in order to reduce commuting costs.
•    All institutions, especially those in inner cities, could be the beneficiaries of: 1) reduced parking demand, and/or 2) land-value increases that make more intensive parking solutions practical.  The net result of both would be a gain in land usable for primary institutional functions.
•    Transportation companies need to re-evaluate all existing policies and practices relating to fuel costs, including how market segments can be more efficiently served, potential new markets, closer working relationships with regional transportation planners, etc.

For households:

•    Re-evaluate housing needs in terms of trade-offs in lifestyle, transportation costs, commute times, etc.  As part of this process, review growing variety of housing choices in close-in locations, and help home builders (by expressing opinions directly, whether asked to or not) to define preferred products, neighborhoods, etc. so that a choice to relocate closer to one’s place of employment is more palatable.

(1)  The concept of business clusters has traditionally been applied to its predecessor concept of business “agglomeration,” generally the grouping together, in a place, of businesses in common industrial categories.  These could be competing businesses or those with vertical interrelationships such as suppliers to industries producing final products.  “Location clustering,” as used here, represents a concept in which businesses group together on the basis of transportation efficiencies, the potential for replacingface-to-face communication with electronic systems, and similar factors.

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Comments

[RamonGustav]

I think you have a thorough understanding in this matter. You describe in detail all here.

[Home Builders Australia]

thank you for taking the time to post. It was well written and clearly you have a passion for sustainable home building as I do. Wish I could write as well. thanks again and I hope more people get the opportunity read.

[Joe McClure]

RamonGustav & Home Builders Australia ---

Thank you for the feedback, keep checking back as we will continue to post new material. If you are interested in receiving our newsletter, which focuses on economic development and sustainability-related issues, visit http://jemcclure.com/Newsletter-Signup.html.

[school_dubl]

Hi Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, a cool site I like

[Hotjobs]

Interesting site, always a new topic .. good luck in the new 2011. Happy New Year!