ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the evolution of economic development policy and practice informed the regional responses to restructuring. It begins with a more general discussion of urban political economy and how it relates to economic development. While Rust Belt regions grappled with deindustrialization during the 1970s and 1980s, economic development during that period also became increasingly difficult for another reason: a simultaneous shift in the way that economic development was conceived, funded, and executed. Accordingly, the tools used for economic development began to shift from federal and state entitlement programs to local and regional incentives, subsidies, business assistance, as well as the banking and development of land. In some regions, economic development remained largely within the policy realm, involving policy-driven agendas focused on annexation and increasingly popular relocation incentives. As such, the focus of economic development was largely on easily comprehensible measures like increasing the tax base and creating jobs.
