What does it take to change how an entire profession thinks about economic growth? Migrating to an Entrepreneurship-led strategy.
For Chris Gibbons (on LinkedIn), founder of the National Center for Economic Gardening, the journey began in 1987, when a 7,000‑job layoff in Littleton, Colorado led to a simple but radical question: instead of recruiting outside companies, what if communities focused on growing the businesses they already had through entrepreneurship-led economic development?
In the IEDC Economic Development Journal article, Chris traces history and the roots of how Economic Gardening — and the broader movement it sparked — grew from a grassroots experiment on Colorado’s Front Range into an internationally recognized strategy embedded in policy, practice, and institutions across the globe.
Download the full article below to explore this important history in Gibbons’ own words: Download: IEDC Economic Development Journal (Volume 22, Number 3) & “The Entrepreneurial Revolution in Economic Development”
Originally published in the IEDC Economic Development Journal (Volume 22, Number 3, Summer 2023). Reposted by NCEG with permission.