Market-Driven Community Economic Development

Using markets to positively affect the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of a community is the new edge of "integral" development of places.

Sector Overview

Blog Posts

The edge of innovation in community economic development is figuring out how to use market forces--profit-seeking businesses and wealth-building individuals and families--to support business formation and job creation and big improvements in local environmental conditions and improvements in social conditions such as racial and economic class integration. Putting market forces to work attracts substantial financial investment and business expertise and brings commercial discipline to projects. Aiming to affect economic, environmental, and social "bottom lines" gives greater leverage to private and public investments and to public policy changes. Moreover, these efforts tend to play out at the regional level, across many communities at the same time. Some of these trends are covered in the survey of economic development practices we produced.

Our partners--RW Ventures in Chicago and Sustainable Systems, Inc. in Oakland--have been leaders in conceptualizing and implementing market-based approaches that have big impact on communities. In support of their work, we have been involved in several projects:


	Double Bottom Line Investing
	Investors seeking environmental and community development impacts while making market-rate returns are building regional funds with hundreds of millions of dollars and aligning with local activists.
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	Center for Innovation in Market-Driven Economic Development
	Developing innovative ways to get markets to work better for low income households and communities.
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	Regional Development Trusts
	A concept-under-development that looks at the pools and blends of innovation capital needed for regional development that affects the economy, environment, and social conditions.
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Topic Tags: community economic development, double bottom line, economic development, markets, multiple bottom line, regional development, urban development

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