The logic of creating new jobs by focusing on the growth of existing local businesses is explained in Public Management (PM) magazine’s October cover story “Economic Gardening: Is It Right for Your Community,” written by Jim Woods, city manager, Littleton, Colorado, and Christian Gibbons, director of business/industry affairs, Littleton.

But before attempting to start on economic gardening in your community—the strategy that focuses on small business investment rather than on business recruitment—the authors recommend that managers consider these key factors:

Economic gardening is not a quick fix. Littleton’s program just entered its 20th year, and we are still learning. Some ideas fell flat and were discontinued. Economic gardening will be a continuous process of examining the strengths and weakness of your community and adapting to the market opportunities that are available.

The staff learning curve is steep. Effective implementation of our economic gardening program requires a fundamentally new mental model for the staff. The entire Littleton team works vigorously to come up with new, innovative gardening applications.

Buy-in from your elected officials is crucial. The development of the economic gardening program in Littleton was very much a collaborative effort between the staff and the council. Because councilmembers can change in a two-year election cycle, it is necessary to introduce the concepts of economic gardening to incoming councilmembers. We still get questions about whether economic gardening is “enough.” If your community is under severe economic stress, the political pressure to continue pursuing a recruiting and deal-making strategy may be unavoidable.

For more information on economic gardening, author Chris Gibbons supports an e-mail discussion group at econ-dev@googlegroups.com. Also check out discussions on the economic development topic page at the Knowledge Network.