Dr. Ki Eun Kang, ISTPP Postdoctoral Research Associate, recently published her research article “Local-Level Economic Development Conflicts: Factors That Influence Interactions with Private Land Developers” in Urban Affairs Review.
Using survey data from across the US, Dr. Kang investigates the kinds of threats developers make in an attempt to push local governments to compete against each other for projects and which factors make it more likely that those threats will succeed or fail. This empirical research examines a specific subset of community economic development—land development projects. Developers threaten communities almost half the time, most commonly by threatening to relocate their project to a different community. Some developers even threaten to cancel the project. Rather than lose a development project, local governments often give in to developers’ demands for tax breaks and thereby lose an important source of revenue for their municipality. Dr. Kang’s study reveals that municipalities with inter-municipal cooperation and public participation in real estate development projects are more likely to decrease the chance that private developers’ threats will succeed.
Kang, Ki Eun. 2021. “Local-Level Economic Development Conflicts: Factors That Influence Interactions with Private Land Developers.” Urban Affairs Review, DOI: 10.1177/1078087421991240
