I had started a column a while back asking the question, “What makes a good economic development project?”

This really hit home with what I can best call the “Cabela’s Controversy.” As I started working on the column, I kept thinking about a cartoon, the premise of which is often repeated in the New Yorker magazine. The bedraggled pilgrim struggles over the last precipice to ask the all-knowing guru the question: “What is the meaning of life?” The answer is always an anticlimax.

Unfortunately, no guru exists to give the definitive answer to a community struggling to build its economy with effective commercial and industrial prospects. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of pundits writing books and articles that are interesting, informative and useful in developing plans and strategies, but how do you make your plans actually work? I will try to come up with some ideas that can be used as benchmarks to see how a community is doing.

I have always worked under the premise that all development is, ultimately, local. Because of that, a community must look carefully at itself to formulate its plans. I was going to talk about the typical questions one asks when trying to develop a strategic plan: Who are we? Rural, urban, suburban? Should we change, and are we ready to change? Is it time to become an urban center? Should we retain our rural character, or start morphing into a suburb? The important point of all this is not to allow this to just happen but, through proper planning, prepare the community to control what is going to happen.

How does a community control its economic development destiny? How much control should a community exert in a free-market economy? What is good development? And, for that matter, what is bad development? What percentage of a municipality’s tax base should be residential, commercial and open space?

The answers to these questions start, as I mentioned earlier, with the community evaluating its past, its present and its future. This is often accomplished through the process of comprehensive planning. It allows a community to review what has gone well and what has gone badly, and to take steps to enhance and/or to correct the situation. Where are our commercial and industrial areas currently located? Is there room for expansion, or do new zones need to be created?

So, what makes a good project and how do you get there? Do we accept anything that comes down the pike, or do we try and target specific industries and practices? I have always thought that Maine does not lend itself to targeting particular industries, as our geographic, skill level, educational level and socio-economic mix is too diverse. It seems to me that our goal should be not to target specific industries, but rather to target industries whose practices are good for Maine citizens.

A little aside: Several years ago, a past governor announced that he was developing an economic development plan for the state. This was anxiously awaited, and when the day came for the official announcement, we all held our breaths. The governor, who shall remain unnamed, announced to great fanfare his economic development plan. Maine would henceforth target biotech, high-tech and precision manufacturing. We now had a plan; unfortunately, everyone else wanted those exact industries as well.

The moral of this story is, you don’t discourage any business that meets your criteria, but you make darn sure that you have requirements before you “lay out the red carpet.” The questions one should ask are these:

1. Does this company value its employees by paying good wages and benefits, or is it trying to limit work hours to limit employees’ access to health insurance and pension plans, etc.?

2. Are company representatives working cooperatively with the town’s regulatory agencies to develop safe and healthful workplaces, or are they complaining the community agencies are too strict?

3. If the community has design standards, are these seen as an impediment to development by the business, or are they embraced as part of maintaining or adding to a community’s aesthetic?

4. Are environmental concerns looked upon as just another obstacle to business, or as something that enhances the health and future of the residents of the community?

5. Is the company looking for unfair incentives that undermine the fiscal health of the community, or is it going to be a good corporate citizen contributing to the community?

These are the tough questions that, unfortunately, do not fit into a precise matrix, but require a good bit of research and intuition. I think it is evident what the answers to these questions should be.

Harvey Rosenfeld is the president of the Scarborough Economic

Development Corp., a private nonprofit located in

Scarborough. The opinions contained within this article are solely

his and are not a reflection of the Scarborough Economic Development

Corp. nor of the town of Scarborough. To contact him, e-mail [email protected].