9.3 Knowledge-based or Mass Job Creation Economic Development 90
9.3.3 Choosing the Right Approach 95
Once the leadership, both public sector and private sector leadership, and the governance model are in place, a choice must be made whether the region is going to pursue a knowledge- based regional technology-based economy or a mass job creation regional technology-based economy. These are two very distinct choices. Many regions would choose to pursue both strategies: this is a mistake that was discussed repeatedly, at least anecdotally in the interviews constituting this research. Pursuing the two of these strategies simultaneously is almost a definite recipe for failure. Pursuing one and then attempting to create on the other is optimal, if it is clear that there is a tremendous difference between the factors and the different activities that need to be undertaken to do both. This section presents the insights gained as a result of the interview process, specifically as it relates to certain geographic locations.
In determining the vision for the technology-based economic development programs for a particular region, it is critical that the right approach – knowledge-based or mass-job creation be chosen, along with the appropriate set of clusters. This is equally as important as choosing the appropriate vision, leadership and governance models. In fact, these two steps must be are mutually supportive.
For example, it would be easy for the leadership of New Orleans, Louisiana, to decide that it wanted to build an aerospace cluster: a huge NASA complex, the Michaud Assembly Facility, is located in a suburb of New Orleans. The Michaud Assembly Facility is a blue-collar
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facility that builds external tanks for the space shuttle (SOURCE); thus, to some extent, it is an aerospace cluster. However, impacting a vision of success as an aerospace cluster, all of the engineering, the intelligence, and the funding for these activities is done or decided upon in Huntsville, Alabama. Thus, turning the decision to become a cluster around which an aerospace industry could grow into reality becomes problematic.
To further illustrate the point, Huntsville was the lucky recipient of 120 German rocket scientists in the 1950’s, and it became the cornerstone of the rocket science engineering and industry, in the U. S. It would be foolish and impossible for any other city to try to take over that position from Huntsville. Interestingly, Huntsville is an adolescent economy, and it has never quite grown beyond that one inflow, that one education and knowledge area of aerospace. While there are many other businesses in Huntsville, they all revolve around the government entities of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Missile Defense Agency and Redstone Arsenal.
Indeed, there is nothing necessarily wrong with Huntsville’s state of development: it creates many thousands of jobs and has strengthened the Huntsville economy. But it is not necessarily a model that can be followed by other states. A city cannot choose to become Huntsville, any more than Huntsville chose to become Huntsville sixty years ago when the German rocket scientists entered that area. There will be more discussion on why this particular approach is not realistic for most cities as the presentation of research findings continues.
Other examples help lead to the conclusion that it is critical that the cities or regions choose clusters that fit the nature of that city or region that they intend to be some twenty years later. There must be a vision, but not a vision for next year or for the year after, that fits the area and its strengths and weaknesses to the desired and appropriate economic development strategy.
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For example, North Carolina was not a research area; it was an agricultural community, which mainly grew tobacco. It is now considered one o the premier research regions in the world. Another example studied in this research is Ireland, which was not a center of technology creating mass jobs; it was an agricultural society. It became a major exporter of software and, despite the recent economic downturns, software remains the second largest export from Ireland behind agriculture. More discussion on Ireland and its issues will be discussed at more detail subsequently.
To conclude the discussion of the examples provided above, in creating and choosing clusters, one of the key lessons learned from this research is that those clusters need to be the right ones for the region. There are two directions that any region can go in determining what type of clusters it is going to create. This is critical, and perhaps, again, one of the two most relevant discoveries made as a result of conducting these qualitative interviews. There are two types of technology-based economic development. They are built upon the same sets of factors, but for very different purposes, and the factors have very different reasons for their importance and very different weightings depending upon which direction is chosen. It also determines which types of clusters a particular region should try to choose to pursue. Previous models, while they may discuss clusters and their importance and even their impacts, they do not give factors for how to determine what type of technology economy should be chosen. Additionally, they fail to set forth the type of factors required and in what manner used to build that particular technology based economy. Finally, the current models do not provide value in aiding a decision as to which type of economic development should be sought
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