Reese Commentary: Rethinking the Governance Implications of Globalization

Laura A. Reese is professor of political science and director of the Global Urban Studies Program at Michigan State University. Her main research and teaching areas are urban politics and public policy, economic development, and local governance and management in both Canada and the United States. E-Mail: [email protected] ooking back over the body of academic work on local economic development makes me increasingly shake my head and wonder what, if anything, academic research has to offer local officials and policymakers actually trying to craft and manage municipal local development efforts. Feiock and colleagues are on target in suggesting that "new" theories have old roots. Indeed, there is even less new under the sun than their article suggests. Academics have offered local officials a host of development nostrums over time. To the theories discussed in the article I would add economic base theory, urban dynamics, and development clusters (Reese and Sands forthcoming), as well as export theory, central place theory, and cumulative causation theory (Blakely and Bradshaw 2002).