ABSTRACT
Globalization, deregulation, deindustrialization and international competition have combined to put governments everywhere and at all levels under pressure to cover basic responsibilities with fewer resources and to cater more to the requirements of business. This chapter analyzes these trends, including a decline in manufacturing over the past 20 years that has disproportionately hit US cities and small towns away from coastal regions, which have long been more dependent on trade and services. Literature on these trends is comprehensive on the nature and causes of declines in jobs with middle-class wages or salaries, but has sometimes omitted evidence and analysis, especially at the local and state level, of governments challenging the market-oriented status quo. Additionally, the chapter discusses the opportunities, especially in smaller communities, for local and state responses to this situation in the formulation of economic development policy.
