From enterprise to empowerment: the evolution of an Anglo‐American approach to strategic urban economic regeneration

Abstract

᭹ This paper traces the development and evolution of a policy instrument designed to regenerate inner urban areas suffering the effects of long-term economic decline. ᭹ The origins of the Enterprise Zone concept are examined from radical town planning thought to government policy under Margaret Thatcher in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, and its subsequent reappearance in American urban policy through the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the concept of Empowerment Zones in the mid-1990s. ᭹ Through this time, shifts occur in the nature and application of the policies and critics are heard on both sides of the Atlantic, as explained here. It is suggested the American experience benefited from its later occurrence in a more favourable economic climate. More recently there is evidence of British policy shifting closer to the evolved form of policy, as has emerged in the United States.

Climate policy uncertainty and corporate green innovation performance: From the perspectives of organizational inertia and management internal characteristics

“…Once the year effect is controlled, the year variable and climate policy uncertainty may have a serious multicollinearity problem and may lead to a deviation in the estimation of the climate policy uncertainty coefficient. Therefore, based on the research of Li et al (2023), we do not control for the year variable but only control dummy variables, including industry and region.…”

Did the Community Renewal Tax Incentives Pirate Businesses From Other Places?

“…The 1970s and 1980s ushered in an era of new federalism, so urban policy focused mostly on investing in people in poverty through housing vouchers and income transfers, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (Halpern, 1995;O'Connor, 1999;Quigley, 2000). Congressman and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Jack Kemp, encouraged states to experiment with U.K.-inspired "Enterprise Zones," place-based tax incentives targeted to distressed areas (Lavin & Whysall, 2004). During the 1980s, U.S.…”

“…During the 1980s, U.S. Congressman and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Jack Kemp, encouraged states to experiment with U.K.-inspired “Enterprise Zones,” place-based tax incentives targeted to distressed areas (Lavin & Whysall, 2004). However, local governments’ ability to attract businesses was limited, leading to a practice referred to as “shoot anything that flies, claim anything that lands” (Rubin, 1988).…”

Empowerment for whom? The impact of community renewal tax incentives on jobs and businesses

“…The subsidies could become capitalised in land rents and pass on the costs to inner-city residents, who would have been better served with investments in schools, income transfers or enforcement of antidiscrimination policies (e.g. Lavin and Whysall, 2004;Levine, 1999;Quigley, 1994). However, others reject this zero-sum game argument and point out that a region could be better off if resources were expended to create jobs in a high unemployment area (Bartik, 1991).…”

“…For half a century, the USA has experimented with place-based urban revitalisation initiatives including (1) urban renewal in the 1950s (Halpern, 1995); (2) Model Cities in the 1960s (O’Connor, 1999); (3) Urban Development Action Grants in the 1970s (Rich, 1989); (4) state enterprise zones in the late 1980s (Boarnet, 2001; Lavin and Whysall, 2004); and (5) Comprehensive Community Initiatives in the late 1990s (Kubisch, 2010). In 1994, the federal government returned to an interest in place when US HUD designated eight Empowerment Zones and 65 Enterprise Communities in order to build capacity and increase economic opportunity in high-poverty neighbourhoods (Lavin and Whysall, 2004). See Figure 1 for a summary of benefits, which included social services grants, loan guarantees and tax incentives for businesses (US HUD, 2012).…”