Poster #38 - Social Progress as an Alternative Approach to Economic Development in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Although conventional economic development indicators are not comprehensive measures of well-being, economic development researchers and practitioners typically act as if they are. Traditional measures of economic development can be inadequate and misleading. There is a misalignment between what the field of economic development aspires to do (improve the well-being of their communities’ residents) and what it actually does (create growth in jobs or incomes, assuming that residents’ well-being will follow automatically). This poster addresses that misalignment using the Social Progress Index (SPI), a more comprehensive measure of well-being that includes components such as health and wellness, personal safety, housing, environmental quality, personal rights and freedom, inclusiveness, and access to advanced education, among others. For all U.S. metropolitan areas, we compare 2018-2023 percent changes in the SPI with corresponding changes in conventional economic development indicators, including job and income growth rates, the presence of strong clusters in high tech or other industries, and the presence of a “creative class.” We use regression analysis to examine the extent to which changes in conventional indicators (individually or in combination) account for changes in the SPI at the metro level. Preliminary findings: (1) the SPI declined in 90 percent of the nation’s 384 metropolitan areas between 2018 and 2023, (2) SPI changes were unrelated to initial metro area population, (3) surprisingly, SPI changes varied inversely with changes in conventional economic development indicators, although effects were very small and mostly statistically insignificant, (3) among SPI components, only health, nutrition and basic medical care, and advanced education improved in the average metropolitan area, although results for individual components varied widely among metropolitan areas. These results suggest that conventional economic development activities, which are guided by and intended to affect conventional indicators, are unlikely to improve well-being considered more broadly, and may even be counterproductive to the achievement of that goal. The increases in health and in nutrition and basic medical care in the average metropolitan area suggest that the pandemic was likely not responsible for SPI changes during the study period. To understand reasons for SPI growth or decline that cannot readily be captured through regression analysis, the next step in our research will be to conduct qualitative case studies of two metropolitan areas with SPI increases and two with large SPI decreases, paying primary attention to public and private sector activities that were likely to have affected the SPI components that were most strongly associated with the observed SPI changes. Case study findings will illuminate ways in which economic developers, local governments, and local nonprofit organizations may be able to improve their regions’ SPI performance.

Authors

• Peter Eberhardt, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City
  Presenting Author

• Howard Wial, ICIC
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Devon Yee, Initiative for a Competitive Inner City
  Non-Presenting Co-Author