Human Resources Development

1
Human Resources Development

• Human Resources Development is a response to the
  tendency in the United States to invest more in
  income support (welfare) than human skills
  development although this changed in the
  mid-1990s.
• The overarching goals of human resources
  development are
• 1) Training and education (training)
• 2) Job placement (placing workers)
• 3) Client-oriented job creation (creating jobs
  for certain skills)
• 4) Job maintenance (keeping existing jobs that
  are a good fit)
• Unlike the other approaches that are
  geography-based (locality and community
  development) or business-based (business
  development), this approach is grounded in
  developing the skills and capabilities of
  individuals it is a people-based approach.
• It is often overlooked that people are the
  greatest resource in a community. While
  businesses, location, and local institutions all
  play a role in local economic development, it is
  usually the local citizens that make or break
  local economic development efforts. Human
  resources development is aimed at providing the
  skills, knowledge, and preparation for a group of
  people so that they are better able to respond to
  opportunities.

2
Human Development Approaches

• Blakely discusses several different approaches to
  Human Resource Development. These
  include -Workforce Investment
  Boards -First-Source Agreements -Employment
  Maintenance -Skill Banks -Training
  Programs -Self-Employment Initiatives -Job
  ladders -University-Industry Technology Transfer
• What is each of the above approaches?
• What individuals are the focus of each approach?
• How is each approach expected to contribute to
  local economic development?
• What is the role of the local government in each
  approach?
• Examples?

3
The Baltimore Context

• The national perception of Baltimore is that it
  has succeeded in the postmodern economy where
  other cities (Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.)
  have failed. Imbroscio et al argue that this is
  not true.
• What are the major problems that Baltimore
  continues to face?
• --Shift from industrial/manufacturing to a
  service economy
• --Secession of the successful
• --Government downsizing
• --Strong government unions
• --No allies at the state level as the only
  major city in the state
• --Successful physical redevelopment has not
  translated into greater incomes or many more
  living wage jobs
• As a consequence, Baltimore has experienced
• --Greater poverty levels (1 in 6 Baltimore
  residents live in poverty)
• --Continued loss of population/jobs Pop
  950K in 1950? 650K in 2000
• --High unemployment (80-100 greater than
  suburban rates)
• --Higher social stresses (teen pregnancies,
  crime rates, etc.)
• --Poor education system
• --Decreasing political influence in the state

4
Baltimores Human Investment Approach

• Baltimores Human Investment Approach included
  the following
• Preschool Programs--Head Start--City-Sponsored
  Child Care
• Education to Work Programs
• --Guarantee of Opportunity Program
• --Last Dollar Grants college tuition programs
• --Guaranteed interviews program
• 3) Welfare to Work Programs
• --JOBS (Job Opportunities and Basic Skills)
  Program
• --Newer, Federally Funded Programs
• --What were the effects of these programs? How
  successful were they?
• --Why were some of these programs successful?
• --Why were other programs not as successful?

5
Learning from Baltimore

• Baltimores experience with a human investment
  approach has much to teach economic developers.
  What lessons can be learned?
• Head Start is a massive success and Federal
  funding should be provided to support ALL
  eligible children.
• Subsides for wrap around care (all day day
  care) should be provided to help working parents.
• Availability of funds for suburban and central
  cities needs to be equalized somehow (revenue
  sharing, perhaps).
• Resources (money, connections, mentoring) from
  the private sector can be effective in
  stimulating interest in college.
• Revise federal requirements for programs to
  reflect the reality of human investment programs.
  Quality-centered programs are better than
  Quantity-centered programs.
• Extend benefits to insure that people can
  successfully move from welfare to work.

6
Community-Based Development

• This approach to local economic development came
  about due to the failure of the other approaches
  to address neighborhood-level needs. In addition,
  specific groups not aided by these approaches
  (minorities and/or inner-city residents, for
  example) have organized to help themselves using
  this approach.
• Community-Based Development is oriented towards
  the following goals
• 1) Generate employment for local workers
• 2) Gain more control over the local economy
• 3) Inspire a help yourselves and each other
  local attitude
• 4) Provide alternative opportunities in the
  local economy
• 5) Promote democratic management and control of
  enterprises
• Community-based development strategies are
  somewhat similar to business and locality
  development, except that they are aimed at a much
  smaller geography and towards very specific aims
  socially useful, labor intensive projects.
• In general, these initiatives have social
  objectives strongly underpinning economic ones.
  They are organized and aimed at the
  neighborhood-level, rather than at the general
  economy. The beneficiaries are explicitly
  intended to be local residents and new/existing
  businesses.

7
Community Development Approaches

• Blakely discusses several different approaches to
  Community Development. These include -CDCs
  (Community Development Corporations) -Community
  Cooperatives -Local Enterprise
  Agencies -Employee/Worker Ownership -Marketing
  Community/Neighborhood Assets
• What is each of the above approaches?
• Who or what is the focus of each approach?
• How is each approach expected to contribute to
  local economic development?
• What is the role of the local government in each
  approach?
• Examples?

8
The CDC Approach

• CDCs were originally intended to accomplish
  bottom-up, comprehensive redevelopment by
• --Helping the community to determine their
  future and get a stake in the local community,
  and
• --Empowering the entire community to address
  declining physical and social conditions.
• CDCs are intended to address three free market
  shortcomings
• 1) the inability of potential investors to see
  opportunities in certain markets,
• 2) profit maximation that prevented socially
  conscious investing,
• 3) social/legal restrictions on investments in
  certain areas.

9
Limits to the CDC Approach

• Stoecker, however, characterizes CDC proponents
  as good people with bad theory. CDCs are, in
  theory, about community empowerment and political
  activism.
• The Problem CDCs accept and operate in the
  supply side and free market capitalist
  model/philosophy. They are attempting to generate
  social/physical redevelopment and community
  transformation from the bottom-up while operating
  within an economic system that is not supportive
  of this approach.
• CDCs have had to give up this idea of directive
  capitalism and accommodate themselves to,
  rather than redirect, the course of the free
  market.
• Their goal has shifted from transforming society
  to extending the benefits of the American
  economic mainstream to those that are left out.
• CDCs have had to learn to work with the rules of
  the game, rather than to expand the rules to
  socialist concepts like the community control of
  businesses, housing, etc.

10
CDCs in a Market Economy

• What the CDC model doesnt recognize is that
  there is a contradiction between capital and
  community. Communities want to preserve
  neighborhood space for their use values while
  capitalists want to convert these spaces because
  they see their exchange values.
• At the intersection of capital and community lie
  CDCs. They are rentiers and renters. They are
  part owners and part proletariat.
• CDCs manage many projects, but also must act like
  profit-savvy businesses to be successful. CDCs
  are the internalization of the capital-community
  contradiction.
• The result of the above is three key problems
• 1) There are Limits to Comprehensiveness
• 2) The Myth of Community Control
• 3) The Development of Disorganization
• What does Stoecker mean by each of these problems?

11
Stoeckers CDC Model
Stoecker offers a CDC model that centers on the
disentanglement of the community and the
capital goals. 1) Community-Controlled
Organizing/Planning Put in place an entity
centered on the goal of community organization
and planning. Community-based planning is
valuable because it 1) Builds a sense of
community 2) Educates residents on resources and
threats 3) Builds community power 4) Helps
residents plan for the ideal 2) High Capacity
Multi-Local CDC to Pursue Development
Development should be achieved through a
conglomeration of CDCs at a larger geographic
level. --Able to get more money because a larger
market--Likely to be more stable, more successful