Civic Involvement, Organizational Ties, and Local Economic Development

Abstract

Research on local economic development has taken a significant turn in recent years. Much of the previous work has focused on market factors that influence the adoption of economic development policies or the effects of policy adoption on employment and population change. There is a growing interest, however, in the role of social factors in local and regional economic development. In this paper, I examine how organizational networks and civic participation may affect employment growth in municipalities across the nonmetropolitan United States. The organizational networks of local governments consistently influence the success of their economic development efforts, while civic participation has no effect on job growth. The benefits of organizational contacts are largely due to increased levels of information and potential sources of resources through organizational contacts rather than through increased levels of public participation or local government integrity.

Keywords:

• civic participation
• local economic development
• oganizational networks