Economic gardening. What is it? Basically, it’s about focusing economic development, growth, and entrepreneurship from within a community instead of attracting development, growth, and entrepreneurship from the outside into a community (which is referred to as economic hunting).
I recently learned about the efforts of Chris Gibbons regarding economic gardening. I don’t know if he invented the concept. But he and his team are definitely pioneers. Their focus was Littleton, CO–a suburb of Denver. It was a multi-year effort to convert the community from hunters to gardeners. But they completely stopped trying to attract outside companies to set up shop in Littleton. Instead, they focused completely on growing the local economy with local resources. The results: They double the amount of jobs in Littleton from 15,000 to 30,000 and triple the tax base. Impressive!
I had a chance to talk to Chris earlier this week. To paraphrase him, ” Growth anywhere in the world is a result of entrepreneurship. You can try to attract and recruit entrepreneurs to come into your community. Or you can try to grow entrepreneurship from within your community.” Economic gardening is about growing from within.
