Economic Development Strategic Plans (EDSPs) involve a long process to identify the best strategies for local economic development. According to the World Bank, to make local economic development effective, a community needs to identify and consider its own economic strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and agree on a shared strategy. Strategic planning enables communities to work together to improve the local economy and enhance competitiveness, thereby encouraging sustainable and inclusive growth.
When preparing a plan, it is important to incorporate outreach to and feedback from stakeholders, including the business community, workers, residents and elected and appointed officials. The plans should be specific to the local community while applying best practices based on economic development success elsewhere. To prepare an economic development strategic plan, develop and answer questions to define a vision for an economically improved community. Identify specific work tasks, determine their cost, and assign responsibility for their completion and means to measure incremental progress, the World Bank says.
These plans help a community attract, retain, and create local jobs and increase local tax revenues, which in turn allows the community to provide more and better services to its residents, businesses and visitors. It’s a win-win situation.
RSG has past and current experience preparing EDSPs. Like this one we prepared for the City of Irwindale: http://www.ci.irwindale.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/37, and we’re currently working on several more for other California Cities!
Contact RSG if you would like to identify your optimal economic development strategies.
Written by Dima Galkin, a Senior Analyst at RSG.