Page 39 - 1-Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development by Norman Walzer (z-lib.org)

28 Brian Dabson

cleavage between the well-educated and well-paid with global opportuni-
ties on the one hand and the less-educated and poorly-paid with limited
prospects on the other.
Florida (2005) sees these trends playing out regionally and globally, with
successful regional economies having a combination of assets that attract
creative people, what he calls the three Ts—talent, technology, and toler-
ance. Metropolitan regions with concentrations of creative talent, access to
technology and technological advances, and which welcome diversity and
difference, he argues, will be the leaders in the global economy.

Entrepreneurship for Competitive Rural Regions

The key to rural competitiveness is to pursue entrepreneurship as the core
rural economic development strategy. There are several reasons for this.
First and foremost, the traditional reliance on recruiting companies to relo-
cate or expand into rural communities is just not working for most places,
and leaders are looking for viable alternatives. Second, there is a growing
awareness of the body of evidence, as referred to earlier, on the critical role
played by entrepreneurs and small businesses in driving local and national
economies. Third, the structure of rural economies is essentially composed
of small enterprises, which are responsible for job growth and innovation,
and which represent an appropriate scale of activity for rural places.
A recent review of entrepreneurship programs across rural America con-
cluded that there is “ample evidence of organizations, institutions, and
agencies pursuing all manner of programs and initiatives that are meant to
encourage greater entrepreneurship in rural America” (Dabson et al. 2003,
59). From all this experience, three important policy principles are begin-
ning to emerge that focus on regionalism, systems, and assets.

Principle 1. Regionalism
If Friedman and Florida are correct in their analyses, the future for large
parts of the United States, and especially for rural America, looks bleak. Al-
ready, the increasingly competitive global economy has forced major re-
structuring in rural regions and communities in many painful ways—from
volatile prices for farm commodities to the collapse of textile and carpet
manufacturing, to the structure of the retail sector.
Moreover, there have been dramatic changes on the rural landscape as
some regions experience continuing net population loss, while others are see-
ing substantial immigration, whether it is the healthy and wealthy moving to
high amenity areas or the poor and the aspiring looking for affordable living
conditions and opportunity. Still other regions are dealing with the warm em-
brace of metropolitan expansion and increasing suburbanization.