Saving the Greatest Profession: How Economic Development Lost Its Way and How to Fix It - Paperback

by Mark Lautman (Author)

Saving the Greatest Profession is a deep dive into why economic development has failed in most communities over the last twenty years-especially in the places that need it most-and what it will take to reverse that trend.

The central argument is simple: twenty years ago, the economic development game changed. What had largely been a game of employer attraction driven by marketing, sales, and incentives turned into a long-term capacity-building game.

Today, most communities struggle to attract or grow the employers they need because they lack capacity in one or more critical areas: skilled workers, housing, utility infrastructure, real estate inventory, transportation or a competitive business climate.

Closing these capacity gaps requires years of planning, sustained investment, and broad constituent support-far more than can be achieved through traditional marketing, business recruitment or incentive programs.

The capacity shortages communities face today should have been anticipated and addressed seven to fifteen years ago. Why weren't they? Because almost no one is doing the kind of planning required to identify future capacity gaps, measure their scope and timing, understand their consequences and muster the political will to make the investments needed to cure them.

Over the past fifteen years, Mark Lautman and a small group of colleagues have explored what it would take for communities to get back in the game. Their conclusion: The civic practice of economic development needs a new planning process, a new business model, and a new constituency. In short, it needs a top-to-bottom reinvention.

Whether you are an economic developer, elected official, business leader, planner, educator, investor, or engaged citizen, this book will challenge many of your assumptions-and provide a practical roadmap for what comes next.

The future will not belong to the communities that react the fastest.

It will belong to those with the vision, the discipline, and the courage to prepare the farthest in advance.