Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb by Joan Fitzgerald, Nancey Green Leigh

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Synopsis

Economic Revitalization is unique in that it discusses leading revitalization strategies in the context of both city and suburban settings, offering case studies of program development and implementation.

In Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb Fitzgerald and Leigh answer the need for a text that incorporates social justice and sustainability into how we think about and practice economic development. The book is one of the first to talk about how revitalization strategies are implemented in both cities and suburbs, particularly inner-ring suburbs that are experiencing decline previously associated only with inner-city neighborhoods. After setting the context with a brief history of economic development practice and its shortcomings, Fitzgerald and Leigh focus on six economic development strategies: sectoral strategies, Brownfield redevelopment, industrial retention, commercial revitalization, industrial and office property reuse, and workforce development. Each of these chapters begins with an overview of the strategy and then presents cases of how it is being implemented. The cases draw from Atlanta, Chicago and its suburbs, Emeryville, Kalamazoo, Louisville, New Haven, Portland, Sandy Springs, and Seattle (and suburban King County). They illustrate the tradeoffs often made in achieving one goal at the expense of another. Although they admit that some of the cases come up short in illustrating a more equitable and sustainable economic development practice, Fitzgerald and Leigh conclude with an optimistic view that the field is changing.

Biography

Nancey Green Leigh is Professor specializing in economic development planning in the City and Regional Planning Program, College of Architecture, at Georgia Institute of Technology.  She obtained her B.A. in urban studies and a master's in regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master's in economics and a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley.  She is a former Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Regents Fellow of the University of California at Berkeley and past Vice President of the Association of The Collegiate Schools of Planning.  She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.  Leigh teaches, conducts research, and publishes in the areas of local economic development planning, urban and regional development, industrial restructuring, and brownfield redevelopment.  She is the author of Stemming Middle Class Decline: The Challenge to Economic Development Planning, and coauthor (with Joan Fitzgerald) of Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb. Some of the journals she has published in are Economic Development Quarterly, The Review of Black Political Economy, Growth and Change, The Journal of Urban Technology, Economic Development Review, Commentary, The Journal of Planning Education and Research, and the Journal of Planning Literature.