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Book Review: Knowledge Commercialization and Valorization in Regional Economic Development

The final chapter of the book before the epilogue, titled “Frankenstein’s Monster,” outlines the backlash against the progrowth, probusiness attitude of the Phoenix political and business elite, personified by the powerful Charter Government Committee. It discusses the consequences of the fierce recruitment strategies of previous decades, which focused on growth to the detriment of minority participation in the job market, increasing sales and property taxes and shrinking public services. It also highlights the unchecked sprawl of the metropolitan area. For example, Shermer highlights that at the beginning of the 1960s, Phoenix had no housing code for 5 years because of the almost hyperbolic nature of antiregulatory rhetoric at this time (pg. 309). The book closes by posing some provocative questions for economic development policy and practice. Are we doomed to repeat “our unsustainable political-economic past?” or Will we move forward to construct a more economically robust, socially democratic society than we endeavored to build in the past? These questions are rooted in the classic debate about whether economic growth and economic development are mutually exclusive objectives. A resolution of this apparent paradox is certainly a challenge the economic development community must begin to resolve if we wish to reject the assertion that our economic and political past is prologue.