michael shuman 
Everyone knows that the three, multi-trillion-dollar stimulus bills passed by Congress fall way short. For most local businesses—the lifeblood of our economy—these bills offer too little relief, too late. I’m hopeful though that the states (and maybe, in some places, counties and cities) can rise to the challenge of saving these businesses. Now is the …
This past weekend, a bright Georgetown undergraduate asked me how I squared my passion for localization with the theory of comparative advantage. For economics newbies, he was referring to David Ricardo’s argument that every community should find one product to specialize in and trade for everything else. I gave my usual response that the theory …
Many thanks to the WASHINGTON POST for publishing on June 7th my latest take on the Takoma Junction Redevelopment Project. I argued that Takoma Park is now the proverbial canary in the coal mine. The era of communities giving huge subsidies to developers may be ending, and progressive revulsion at the practice may turn out …
I recently was hired by Utopies, a French think tank, to help MCB, the largest bank in Mauritius, rethink its approach to economic development. The following is from an interview I did with MC, which summarizes the case for local economists. (Another interview I did with them, on what MCB and other banks can and …
Where I live, in Montgomery County, Maryland, this is a critical election, because we finally have an opportunity to elect a leader, Marc Elrich, who really understands the meaning of economic development. His principal opponent, Nancy Floreen, is justifying her quixotic, independent bid to become County Executive with the claim that she is the only …
A basic mantra of progressive economic development should be to deploy public land for public purposes. This has become clear to me as I’ve watched the nearby City of Takoma Park, Maryland, struggle to move ahead on a controversial development project on a 1.4 acre site called Takoma Junction. The site is largely undeveloped except that the neighboring …
The analysis I summarized in the previous blog post generated numerous responses from the public, the City, and the developer. One central theme of the responses has been skepticism over my contention that the City is subsidizing the developer, NDC. What follows are my further comments on the debate for the Takoma Park City Council: …
Last week, I gave a lunchtime talk to the board of the Fresh Sound Foundation in New York City, where I was asked to help this small family philanthropy think about how it could best assist the local economy movement. I thought this was a really interesting question, because depending on one’s perspective, it meant …
This past November one of three Sveriges Riksbank Prizes in Economic Sciences went the Professor Robert Shiller of Yale. After years of giving its award to various University of Chicago Neanderthals, the Nobel Prize Committee finally made an inspired choice, picking a scholar whose work has shown that the returns from mainstream stock markets have …
One of the most influential drivers of localization worldwide is the Transition Towns movement, launched by Rob Hopkins in the United Kingdom, which has inspired initiatives in literally thousands of communities. “The Transition Network,” according to its web site, “is a charitable organisation whose role is to inspire, encourage, connect, support and train communities as …
