Shaping the Local Economic Environment

This chapter explores the attributes that help make local environments conducive to productive economic behavior. Several attributes are explored, beginning with integrity in local government and a short history of corruption and urban mismanagement in America, New Orleans serving as an instructive example. New Orleans’s sad story takes us back to Louisiana’s early history, the issue of race never far from the surface. The chapter also describes how the roots of Silicon Valley’s success go back to the California Gold Rush, helping to shape a unique institutional environment that promoted innovation. As the chapter explains, the unlikely success of Minneapolis-St. Paul, both peripheral and cold, can be traced back to Minnesota’s first settlers. Many of these early settlers were Scandinavian who traditionally placed a high value on education and work. Primary and secondary education matter as much, and often more, than PhDs. A competent and numerically literate workforce is at the core of many small and midsized urban success stories.