ABSTRACT
Enterprise zones (EZs) have been a hotly debated economic development policy tool during the 1980s. The British geographer Peter Hall is generally credited with sowing the seed for the idea whereby decayed urban "wastelands" would be opened to the initiatives of private enterprise in the near absence of governmental planning and regulation. In the United States, the EZ concept was originally championed as an urban redevelopment tool by Stuart Butler of the conservative Heritage Foundation. Despite the absence of any federal EZ program for much of the 1980s, state legislatures encountered much less opposition to EZs and pressed ahead with their own versions beginning in 1982. The purpose of the research reviewed was to examine the program structure and effectiveness of state government-designated EZs and to conduct a comparative analysis of EZs across those states with active programs. Policy debate has also focused on the capacity of EZ incentives to measurably alter costs of doing business in depressed areas.
