Asset Mapping, the Social Fabric Matrix, Economic Impact Analysis, and Criteria for Sustainability and Justice: Operational Elements for Holistic Policy Planning

Abstract:

Asset mapping defines, identifies, and quantifies available resources. It has two advantages for planning economic development. First, while it is labor intensive, asset-mapping implementation is straightforward. Second, it yields information useful to establish, inform, and achieve policy goals. Its limitations are (i) a static approach and (ii) the absence of an evolutionary process to evaluate goal attainment and modify future activities. We explore how asset mapping can be embedded into a social fabric matrix for strategic planning and evaluated using economic impact analysis. This sequential, yet two-way iterative process provides an adaptive template for policy assessment, and a qualitative and quantitative predictive framework to evaluate attainment of goals (here to be understood as the criteria for sustainability and justice, as proposed by Underwood, Hackney and Friesner 2015). Asset mapping in the next time period, structured using evaluative outputs of the social fabric matrix and economic impact analysis, can be reemployed creating a new round of inputs for the social fabric matrix and economic impact analysis to assess the extent to which the criteria for sustainability and justice are achieved. Thus, the iterative process becomes purposeful, evolutionary, and pragmatic.

Keywords::

• community asset mapping
• living wage
• social fabric matrix
• sustainability

JEL Classification Codes::

• J38
• Q23
• R14

Notes

¹ We do not advocate the use of Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” on philosophical grounds. Pragmatically, it is useful in the planning process to elevate discussion beyond narrow hedonistic motivations of self.

² We believe that our insertion regarding planning agents is consistent with Edythe Miller’s analysis. We retain Miller’s use of italics.

³ We are careful to note that the information provided by the analyst-planner is a necessary, but insufficient component of the conflict resolution process. The ability of the analyst-planner to effectively use that information (along with other knowledge about the interests of the parties in conflict) to facilitate a resolution requires additional skills and abilities than those addressed currently. Critical to the use of these conflict resolution skills and abilities is ensuring that they are implemented consistently with the five-fold criteria for sustainable economic development. A discussion of how the analyst-planner integrates new information related to sustainable community economic development into his/her current knowledge skills and abilities to resolve specific conflicts is beyond the scope of this policy note, and is left as a suggestion for future research. In actuality, the analyst-planner generally informs the conflict resolution specialist who works with interested parties to build collaborations in order to achieve an outcome consistent with the criteria for sustainability and justice.

⁴ One author has routinely observed the comment at planning meetings: “If there were a better way, the free market would have already done it.” This “belief” is always uttered as a statement of “fact” that obfuscates a concept that no change is possible unless “free markets have already done so” — an illogical sequitur from an evolutionary perspective.

⁵ A SFM analysis typically requires the analyst-planner to collect additional information beyond what is contained in CAM. We focus on CAM because it is already a generally accepted component of community planning, and its information informs SFM models. A holistic approach that integrates the two methodologies is appropriate and expedient, and it leads to more informed policy discussions. Perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates the unique contribution that OIE makes to community economic development in a manner amenable to those currently using CAM.

⁶ We make a distinction between technology (knowledge and tools), technological process (use of technology to solve problems), and instrumental valuing of a process (the development of new knowledge during technological process). The instrumental process does not necessarily translate into progress, as the reference point for a decision may ignore — and thus compromise — sustainability as envisioned by Daniel A. Underwood, Dan Friesner, and Jason Cross (2014).

⁷ IMpact analysis for PLANing, produced by the Minnesota IMPLAN Group, Inc. (see www.implan.com).

⁸ Proponents of solidarism may argue that a fundamental natural right (not provided by a social order) is the set of criteria that recognize another individual’s humanity, which guarantees their inclusion in a community. In most practical applications, Commons’s framework takes the definition of humanity as a given, although it need not be the case.

⁹ Footnote 6 is relevant here. Whether the work translates into new knowledge, technological progress, or simply valuing depends on the use of the analyst-planner’s work.

¹⁰ This is likely a case study for an ancillary research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel A. Underwood

Daniel A Underwood is a professor of economics and environmental science at Peninsula College and an affiliate professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Science at the University of Washington.

Dan Friesner

Dan Friesner is an associate dean and a professor of pharmacy practice at North Dakota State University, as well as an adjunct professor in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University. A version of this policy note was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Thought in April 2016 in Reno, NV.