Economic Development: A Tale of Two Cities

"Economic development” is usually defined differently by the people designing the strategy than by many of the people who will live with its consequences.

(Image Source: Drone 606, Drone Photography, Videography)

The divide is not necessarily a disagreement over whether a community should prosper. More often, it is a disagreement over what prosperity looks like, who benefits from it, what must change to achieve it, and what residents are willing to give up in exchange for it.

1. Leaders tend to think in systems; residents think in lived experience

A community leader may look at:

• population decline

• tax base

• vacant buildings

• employment

• investment

• housing starts

• infrastructure

• business recruitment

• downtown revitalization

• regional competitiveness

A resident is more likely to ask:

“Will this make my daily life better?”

That means better roads, safer neighborhoods, decent restaurants, reasonable property taxes, good schools, places for children and grandchildren, convenient shopping, and a community that still feels recognizable.

Both perspectives are legitimate, but they measure success differently.

2. Economic-development professionals often have a “growth” bias

Economic-development institutions are structurally rewarded for activity.

NEKY Chamber of Commerce

New factory → success.New housing development → success.New business → success.New jobs → success.New investment → success.

Consequently, the implicit equation can become: More investment + more people + more businesses = better community.

Residents may have a different equation:

Better quality of life + stability + affordability + community identity = better community.

Those equations overlap, but they aren't identical.

A community can experience substantial economic growth while some residents conclude that the community has actually become less desirable.

3. Residents bear the immediate costs; leaders often emphasize the future benefits

This is particularly important.

Suppose a city proposes a major redevelopment project.

The development authority sees:

$40 million investment → 300 jobs → increased tax revenue → secondary investment.

Residents may see:

Construction → traffic → disruption → higher rents → changing businesses → unfamiliar people → possible property-tax increases.

The development authority is looking at a five- or ten-year economic model.

The resident is looking at tomorrow morning.

Neither perspective is necessarily wrong.

4. “Growth” and “preservation” are often competing values

Many residents don't actually oppose development.

They oppose development that changes the character of the community they value.

A resident may simultaneously want:

• more restaurants,

• better retail,

• more jobs,

• downtown investment,

• attractive public spaces,

while opposing:

• large chains replacing local businesses,

• dense development,

• loss of historic buildings,

• traffic,

• increased rents,

• outside investors,

• changes to neighborhood character.

  
  

This produces what can look like an irrational contradiction:

“We need investment—but don't change anything.”

But psychologically, the underlying preference is often:

“Improve what exists without destroying what makes this place ours.”

That distinction is extremely important.

5. Leaders frequently underestimate the importance of identity

Economic-development plans are usually written around assets:

• location

• workforce

• infrastructure

• available land

• buildings

• transportation

• incentives

Residents also possess an enormous intangible asset:

place identity.

People develop emotional attachments to:

• particular buildings

• downtown streets

• local businesses

• churches

• restaurants

• festivals

• familiar neighborhoods

• local traditions

• the appearance of the community

  
  

A development proposal can therefore be economically rational while being culturally threatening.

6. There is also a trust problem

This may be the biggest factor of all.

If residents have repeatedly heard:

“This project will create jobs.”and then experienced little improvement in their own circumstances, skepticism develops.

Likewise: “This will revitalize downtown.” can eventually sound like political language rather than a measurable promise.

Once trust deteriorates, residents begin evaluating new proposals based on institutional credibility, rather than the proposal itself.

The question becomes: “What aren't we being told?” That is extremely difficult for economic-development organizations to overcome with statistics.

7. Residents are not a homogeneous group

There is another important complication. “Community wants” rarely exists as a single thing.

Consider five residents:

Resident	Primary objective
Retired homeowner	Stability and low taxes
Young family	Schools, housing and jobs
Entrepreneur	Customers and favorable regulations
Landlord	Property values and occupancy
Low-income renter	Affordable housing and services

All five live in the same community. A development project can be excellent for one and terrible for another. This is why public meetings can produce apparently inexplicable disagreements.

8. Political leadership operates under a different time horizon

There is also an institutional problem. A mayor, city commission, chamber, development authority or planning organization may be thinking:

“What will this community look like in 10–20 years?”

Residents may be thinking:

“Can this actually help this community now?”

And elected officials have another constraint: the next election.

That can create a strange combination of long-term rhetoric and short-term incentives.

The deeper issue

The fundamental disagreement is often not: development vs. no development.

It is: Who gets to define the community's future?

There are essentially two competing models.

Top-down model:

Experts determine what the community needs → formulate a strategy → persuade residents to support it.

Bottom-up model:

Residents articulate what they value → leaders identify ways to strengthen those values economically.

The second model is usually harder. But it tends to produce development that has greater local legitimacy.

This is particularly relevant to smaller communities

In a place such as Ashland/Boyd County, the distinction can be especially pronounced.

Regional Economic Development

A regional economic-development organization might reasonably conclude:

“The community needs population growth, outside investment, larger employers and substantial redevelopment.”

A longtime resident might reasonably respond:

“What the community really needs is for the existing businesses to succeed, downtown buildings to be occupied, young people to have reasons to stay, and the community to stop losing what makes it distinctive.”

Those aren't mutually exclusive objectives. In fact, the strongest economic-development strategy may be the one that recognizes the second set of objectives as economic-development objectives themselves.

A locally owned restaurant, bakery, coffee shop, manufacturer, contractor or professional practice isn't merely a business. It creates:

• employment

• taxable economic activity

• foot traffic

• property utilization

• social interaction

• local ownership

• community identity

• entrepreneurial pathways

That is economic development too.

The paradox

There is a particularly important paradox here: Residents frequently say they want “nothing to change,” while simultaneously complaining that their community is declining.

What they often mean isn't literally “nothing should change.” They often mean: “Change the things that are failing without changing the things that make this place worth living in.”

That is a much more sophisticated demand than it initially appears. And it suggests that the most successful community leaders aren't necessarily the ones who can convince residents to accept a predetermined vision. They are the ones who can translate what residents also value into an economic-development strategy. That is where economic development becomes community development, rather than simply growth management.