Political Economic Approach to Local Economic Development
Taking a Political Economy approach to local economic development primarily involves a re-framing of the phenomena described in the Orthodox explanation of economics into "class as the target of focus" rather than the individual, and acting accordingly (as part of a class yourself).Hopulka and Shalay () suggest such economic aspects as "location, rent, central place, and scarcity" as typical items for re-framing. They also highlight four actors or activities to be aware of when scanning for who it is that controls the "economic surplus" and therefore is by definition shaping the direction and purpose of local economic development:
- real estate and building businesses
- Large businesses and utilities
- home owners and small landowners
- Local government agencies.
The central contention here is that local economic development is not an automatic product of an accumulation of small independent actions, but rather, is a product of a very deliberately crafted set of choices made by human beings who usually act as a group rather than individually. This school of thought holds that people acting together usually stick with folks of their own type, however one chooses to define that. That is the reason for their obsession with class as the target of observation.
Needless to say, this group tends to look to political overt suasion along a continuum from non-violent to violent, whereas the orthodox school tends to enforce its way systemically. It makes for "good" late-night news footage often, particularly when it gets messy.
navigation