Why Most Economic Development Plans Fail

At this critical time when American communities are looking to rebound economically, most economic development strategic planning processes are bound for failure. There are five primary reasons for this pending failure.

First, the traditional approach to economic development strategic planning typically extends “business as usual” within a community. Because community leaders may not be exposed to a broad array of community and business development strategies, they may simply extend the past into the future without examining viable alternatives.

Second, community leaders may not be familiar with many or all of the key conditions or circumstances that must be in place for a particular strategy to be successful.

Third, the necessary action steps in order to implement a strategy may not be apparent.

Fourth, even if community leaders are successful in identifying specific development strategies, they may not have considered all of the organizational requirements necessary for successful plan implementation.

Finally, one typical dynamic within communities is the potential for one or more forceful individuals to “have their way” despite a majority of opinion favoring alternate development strategies.

A new economic development planning process, Building Communities, reverses each and every one of these shortcomings. With Building Communities, not only is a full array of alternate business and community development strategies presented, but all of the key success factors for each strategy are also weighted and presented. Specific tools are then available to ensure that effective organizations are in place to implement the strategies.

Indeed, Building Communities is a new paradigm for business and community development planning.