Through the prism of our 8 initial paradigms, we have been able to explore the conditions necessary for French local authorities to adopt new economic development models focused on the long-term needs of the region and its inhabitants. We’d like to share with you some of the lessons we’ve learned, and the avenues we feel should be explored in the future.
What can new economic development models based on the goals of ecological transition and social justice do to transform local economic development software?
Donut economy, regenerative economy, community wealth building… While more and more communities are embracing ‘new models of economic development’, rather than sticking to one model, they are all adapting and combining them to meet the complexity of their territory and its challenges. While these can form the backbone of a strong political narrative, and help transform the practices of the departments that support them, they fail to really transform the software of economic development policies that struggle to move away from conventional paradigms. To be truly transformative, they must be applied across the board, and translated into choices (and renunciations), organizational methods, tools…
We have drawn two questions from this, which we will explore further in the testing phase:
- How can we develop the “economic litteracy” of elected representatives, so that they are better able to appropriate these new approaches?
- How can evaluation be used to re-theorize economic development policies?
How can we reconnect economic development with social justice issues?
Within local authorities, economic development policy is often disconnected from issues of integration, training, urban policy and so on. What’s more, these competences are fragmented between different levels of government, making a systemic approach difficult: how can we re-territorialize the social issue? Examples such as Lyon’s Maison de l’insertion et de l’emploi, in which metropolitan and departmental competencies are merged, is an inspiring example in this respect. Furthermore, the vision of economic development is often centered on an economy defined from above, one that is scarce, international, skilled… ignoring, for example, the presential economy, the ordinary metropolitan economy – EMO – or the field of the informal economy… which nonetheless represent a significant number of jobs that cannot be relocated and economic players who have difficulty adapting to ecological transformations. It is largely invisible and therefore poorly considered in public policy.
Two questions to be explored in the test phase:
- How can we build new rituals of cooperation between the economic, social and training worlds? ?
- Under what conditions can we make the ordinary economy a priority for economic development?
A more sober approach to land and soil use?
In France, where development and economic activity have been particularly space-hungry, more economical land management is a key issue. How can we regain our ability to steer a more rational use of limited land? How can we regulate competition between different land uses and promote a more collective and economical culture of land development and management? How can we manage land sobriety in a more qualitative and democratic way? Zones d’activités économiques (ZAE) can serve as laboratories for new land management tools (construction leases, landholding, etc.), and for building synergies between companies and with the public sector in the service of sobriety.
A question for the test phase:
- What would it mean to manage a ZAE as a commune?
How can we re-tool economic development policies to accelerate the transition of small businesses?
While large companies have the internal resources to think about reducing their environmental impact, building resilience in the face of crises, etc., small and medium-sized businesses need specific support for the transition. They suffer from a lack of time and in-house skills, and are often off the community’s radar. How can we reach and support the companies that need it most, as closely as possible to their needs? In addition, the development of intermediary players (consultants, transition experts) and corporate networks such as the Convention des entreprises pour le climat, the Impact France movement, etc., as well as the emergence of the notion of corporate territorial responsibility, embody the spread of a culture of local commitment by economic players… It encourages public players to look beyond a vision of companies as “bad pupils” of transition, to imagine new ways of cooperating to serve the transition of the territory and its habitability, or even to move towards a new territorial paritarianism. How can we give these new players a greater say in the region’s political choices, compared with the traditional bodies representing businesses (CCI, chambers of agriculture, crafts, etc.)?
Here are a few questions to explore during the test phase:
- How can we rely on intermediary players (large companies, networks, prescribers….) to mobilize and engage small and medium-sized businesses in the transition? How can we compensate for the lack of engineering skills on the part of certain players?
- What are the avenues for more collective and open governance of the territorial economy?
Objectivizing interdependencies and cooperation between territories
In a system that exacerbates opposition and competition between territories, shows a fragmentation of interlocutors and programs (Action Coeur de ville, Small Towns of Tomorrow, etc.), and relies on inter-territorial cooperation mechanisms often deemed too cumbersome and rigid (reciprocity contracts, etc.), how can we weave more flexible forms of reciprocity and cooperation in the service of resilience? Some of the issues and needs we identified: the lack of a flexible framework for dialogue, of time, of tools to encourage synergies on transition and social justice issues; the need for acculturate elected officials to think of the economy on the scale of a catchment area, of dependence on a shared resource, a facility, etc.; the need to objectify productive/territorial complementarities, the transformations at work, to support and sustain them over the long term; the identification of easier (food) or more difficult (logistics land) subjects for cooperation.
Here are a few questions to explore during the test phase:
- How can we objectify the interdependencies between territories, so that data and analysis methods contribute more effectively to public decision-making, stakeholder strategies, etc.?
- How can we create more flexible, agile, concrete cooperation frameworks between territories?