economic development:

... a process that brings about changes in locations where people live, work, and share things in common. Economic development affects the sustainability and growth of an economy wherein it may be monitored, manipulated or encouraged.

Economic development ... can be a specifically undertaken activity (source of quote). The reference quoted, however, goes on to state that ... the same intended consequences might also take place spontaneously, without any deliberate efforts to achieve them.

Threaded throughout the plethora of definitions of economic development are operative words, for example, wealth, jobs, and community. The words are used to make phrases, such as wealth building, job creation, and community economic development. Operative words and phrases are listed in About Economic Development.

Enterprise and Economic Development—A Beginning has additional comments help you understand the process and the practice that makes it a ... specifically undertaken activity.

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Enterprise and Economic Development; A Beginning:

Somewhere centuries ago people living, working, and sharing things in common in a location recognized that their resources and goods had value in terms of exchange. The place was a crossroads community such that passersby were regularly moving through it.

As outsiders stopped to purchase or barter for goods and services, local entrepreneurs decided to become vendors. Needing to devote time to running their businesses on the street, they quickly learned that having a reliable network of suppliers in and around the community was worthwhile. A marketplace came into existence along with enterprises, A basic supply chain supported commerce. Wealth was being created. The place and its surrounding area became a local economy with the crossroads community as commercial center.

Demand for goods and services increased. Job creation came into existence Visionary entrepreneurs recognized that there were markets in distant areas. They acted to reach them, adding a new layer of wealth building to the foundation already established locally. Roads and waterways became trade routes. The community became sustainable. It grew.

The model described changed over time. For example, at one point there came the Industrial Revolution. Industrial development became an activity specifically undertaken so that the process of the model did not simply move along on its own. The process was recognized. as academics and pundits expounded on the cause and effect of change.

The fact that beneficial change does not happen spontaneously is the reason for having development as a practice. The practice being that of monitoring, managing or encouraging growth. The identity of the practice shifted as the potential for industrial development declined in certain places and the question of sustainability a manufacturing economy arose in others. The shift is now identified as the practice of economic development.

Joseph Schumpeter is credited with coining the expression economic development in 1911 when he wrote a paper as a student at the University of Vienna. Schumpeter continued to work with concept of entrepreneurship and economic development, subsequently presenting The theory of economic development: an inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle in 1934. He later wrote Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Search suggestion: Schumpeter "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" "library/Enc/bios" (copy and paste italicized text line to search engine below).

Want to know more about economic development, enterprise development, industrial development and community development? Select links shown or use the search engine following suggestions of italicized text lines for you to copy and paste. Search with or without keeping quotation marks as shown. Search results may be different--your choice.

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