Economic Development Now

You Can’t Cut Your Way to Prosperity: Why in Tight Budget Times, Funding for Economic Development Is More Important Than Ever
Everywhere you look, budgets are on the chopping block. Here are three things you need to be doing to help ensure that your EDO’s budget isn’t one of them. See also: Sending a Confidence Message to Your Stakeholders (Download PDF of both articles).

Richard Florida at IEDC’s Annual Conference: “We Have an Obligation as a Profession to Lead the Way Out”
At IEDC’s recent conference in Atlanta, Florida offered a timely dose of optimism to attendees: What has happened to the economy will end up being good for America, putting the focus back where real value is created.

Gas Prices Are Down, But Sustainability is Here to Stay
IEDC members share their thinking on how sustainability issues will affect the economic development profession – and one Georgia town turns trash into energy and revenue.

How Sustainable is Your Community?
IEDC wants to know what you’re doing to promote economic development sustainability initiatives in your community. All responses to this four-minute survey are confidential. Take the survey.

IEDC and GIS Planning Inc. Announce Business Partnership
IEDC and GIS Planning, Inc. announce the partnership of GIS Planning’s ZoomProspector Enterprise and ZoomProspector.com services as the official online property listings, demographics, and online mapping products and services for IEDC.

IEDC News

November Web Seminar: Understanding Sustainability Trends: Opportunities and Challenges for Communities

Green collar jobs, LEED building standards, clean tech, green house gas reduction and renewable energy portfolios...these issues and others are part of a sustainability movement that is transforming the economic development industry. Join IEDC for a web seminar that cuts through the issues and examines the impact on the industry in Understanding Sustainability Trends: Opportunities and Challenges for Communities, Friday, November 14, 1:30 - 3:00 pm EST.

Bring IEDC Expertise to Your Community

IEDC can assemble a team of staff and member experts to visit your community to address your challenges and opportunities. IEDC Advisory Services solve tough economic development problems by drawing on case studies, our research library, and the knowledge and experience of our staff and members.

Primer on Globalization

IEDC’s newest membership category, the Economic Development Research Partners, is a think-tank environment which supports practice-oriented research. The Partnership’s first product is the Primer on Globalization (994 Kb PDF), a guide to the transformational forces shaping the economic development needs of US communities. The Primer delineates the opportunities and challenges presented to economic developers by our rapidly globalizing economy.

IEDC Shows Support for Revitalization of New Orleans

IEDC purchased a $100,000 Katrina Investment Deposit (KIDs) with Liberty Bank and Trust Company, showing our unremitting support for the revitalization of the greater New Orleans region. Liberty Bank offers KIDs as FDIC-insured certificates of deposit with a below market interest rate. The proceeds from the difference in rate are reinvested by the bank in the form of loans and related activities to promote rebuilding and investment in Katrina-damaged communities.

IEDC Publications

Summer 2008 Economic Development Journal Available for Download

Download the latest issue of Economic Development Journal, the premier publication of our profession. Case studies in this issue focus on leveraging private industry intellectual property assets, ways communities are shaping their broadband future, sustainable economic development practices, social capital, and more!

Free Download: Economic Development and Smart Growth

Economic development success and smart growth can go hand-in-hand. IEDC’s newest publication, Economic Development and Smart Growth, presents eight case studies on communities that incorporated smart growth principles in their development projects and have experienced economic development improvements. Download the PDF for free!

Free Download: "Forty Years of Urban Economic Development: A Retrospective"

In October of 2007, IEDC hosted a reunion of the leading professionals whose careers encapsulate the past forty years of urban economic development. They were tasked with using their experience to reflect upon the past and to look ahead to the challenges facing economic developers today and in the coming decades. Forty Years of Urban Economic Development: A Retrospective (PDF) captures the lessons learned and creates a living history of the participants' experiences to inform the next steps within urban economic development.