Economic Flywheels
Dec. 5th, 2021 05:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithHere's an exploration of economic flywheels: the factors that combine to make a given city known for a certain industry or good at spawning new businesses in general.
This idea isn't new, by the way. There have been historic cities famed for glassmaking, embroidery, lace, ironwork, shipbuilding, etc. The Renaissance blossomed in a number of specific cities where all the boho folks congregated. Hell, every few centuries one of us gets into a position of power and throws a citystate-wide nerdfest for a few decades, or longer if the whole royal family gets involved.
The factors break down into clusters.
1) Inherent local assets. A beach, a mountain, a mine, maple trees yielding syrup, etc. Most of this isn't stuff you can create, but sometimes if you have a little of something (like a desirable plant or animal) you can make more of it.
2) Supportive policies. Some towns are food truck havens because they have regulations that encourage food trucks, while other towns attack them. This can apply to any given field, or entrepreneurship in general. Or art, or farming, or whatever else people are doing.
3) Critical mass and heterodyning. It's harder to do things one by one, because there's no collective support. But once you get a few bits going, they can interact and boost each other's success. There are book towns, and food towns, and art towns, and so on.
I know one small town whose claim to fame is a bunch of statues of characters from Popeye. Yes, really. It wouldn't be nearly as impressive with only 2-3 but with so many they can lure tourists all over town, and while trying to find every statue they are also passing damn near every business in town. Sooner or later they'll see something they want, or they'll get hungry, and spend money.
To select a specialty, you could:
* Survey your town's assets, like natural features or building types, and match them to possible businesses.
* What do you already have? If you're starting with a cluster of bookstores, gaming parlors, art galleries, etc. then explore whether you could expand that into a destination theme by diversifying their goods.
* Capitalize on opportunities for personnel. Do you have a college? What are their best departments? Aim to keep those brains in town. Do you have cheap housing and you're not far from a city with a shortage? Poach their people!
* Imagine what the world needs more of and push that. Right now green anything is desperately needed. So is social justice. Do you have Jews? Become the town known for tikkun olam.
* Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Try supporting lots of different ideas and when one does extra well, expand it. One town tried various improvements, what stuck was biking, and became a major biking destination. But it could've been anything.
* Take advantage of your neighbors' mistakes. If you're the only food-truck-friendly town in your region, and you make your rules favorable, you will get everyone in the area who wants to launch a food truck. Same with busking, CSAs, or whatever else other people are dissing. Why in the hell is everyone so down on refugees and immigrants? The ones who make it this far are freaking powerhouses, give them a leg up and watch them go.
Strictly speaking, a flywheel is a mechanical device, a wheel to which force is applied, creating a rotation that releases energy. Without additional force to turn it, friction will gradually slow the wheel to a halt. But if sufficient new force is applied, the wheel spins faster and faster, creating still more energy that keeps it spinning. Flywheels have been around for at least ten thousand years — potter’s wheels are flywheels. James Watt used a flywheel in his eighteenth-century steam engine that powered the Industrial Revolution.
So that's how a flywheel works. You put in a little energy, keep it going, and it boosts that to enable you to do more things.
In an economic sense, you have some folks who want to start businesses. They need a little push to get going. Then they need an occasional nudge to keep them going. And their businesses get bigger, making your town more money. Eventually, other people notice that your town is spawning lots of businesses in a field, or new ones in general, so they come take a look and some of them settle. They make more businesses, and the attention draws tourists, and your economy grows like sourdough.
But you have to be willing to invest energy. Not just once, but regularly.
So think about what things a business needs and how you can help launch them. You might try things like:
* Funding grants for a few college graduates to start businesses.
* Inducing your local bank, credit union, or chamber of commerce to offer microloans.
* Refurbishing some big empty building into a business incubator.
* Providing common space that people can rent, like a community kitchen or makerspace.
* Throwing a business fair where innovators and investors can find each other.
* Looking up disadvantaged groups (immigrants, women, black people, etc.) and giving them extra help to get started.
* Setting up a mentor program for experienced entrepreneurs to help novices.
* Aiming to employ all your disabled people who want to work. Huge pool of potential there.
Also cut down friction as much as possible.
* Minimize red tape to start a business.
* Don't overburden them with expensive fees.
* Make it easy to renovate, repurpose, or build places to work. Just offering accessory commerical units when everyone around you has banned them is an edge.
Writers, too, have found inspiration in the flywheel. Poetry magazine uses its mechanism as a metaphor for the way “energy, movement and potential” generate new ideas.
Things you could do with this:
* Set up an artist retreat or writer workshop with a common house, cabins, and rentable workspace.
* Create lots of places like coffeehouses or bookstores where creative folks can do performances of their work.
* Identify as many of your local creatives as you can. Support them. Encourage them to feature your town in their stories, paintings, etc. Give them a place to sell that stuff. Market it to other tourist destinations in your state, e.g. "Montana Books" or "Florida Artists."
* Establish a local newspaper, magazine, or other periodical to promote them.
* And nobody in this world has done that with electronic publishing. You could launch the idea of a subscription service for waiting rooms to have FRESH reading material or virtual wallpaper, with local color being one thematic option.
And you can do that with any field, somewhere. Think about what your town has to offer, or what you want to achieve. Kick the wheel and throw some clay on it.
This idea isn't new, by the way. There have been historic cities famed for glassmaking, embroidery, lace, ironwork, shipbuilding, etc. The Renaissance blossomed in a number of specific cities where all the boho folks congregated. Hell, every few centuries one of us gets into a position of power and throws a citystate-wide nerdfest for a few decades, or longer if the whole royal family gets involved.
The factors break down into clusters.
1) Inherent local assets. A beach, a mountain, a mine, maple trees yielding syrup, etc. Most of this isn't stuff you can create, but sometimes if you have a little of something (like a desirable plant or animal) you can make more of it.
2) Supportive policies. Some towns are food truck havens because they have regulations that encourage food trucks, while other towns attack them. This can apply to any given field, or entrepreneurship in general. Or art, or farming, or whatever else people are doing.
3) Critical mass and heterodyning. It's harder to do things one by one, because there's no collective support. But once you get a few bits going, they can interact and boost each other's success. There are book towns, and food towns, and art towns, and so on.
I know one small town whose claim to fame is a bunch of statues of characters from Popeye. Yes, really. It wouldn't be nearly as impressive with only 2-3 but with so many they can lure tourists all over town, and while trying to find every statue they are also passing damn near every business in town. Sooner or later they'll see something they want, or they'll get hungry, and spend money.
To select a specialty, you could:
* Survey your town's assets, like natural features or building types, and match them to possible businesses.
* What do you already have? If you're starting with a cluster of bookstores, gaming parlors, art galleries, etc. then explore whether you could expand that into a destination theme by diversifying their goods.
* Capitalize on opportunities for personnel. Do you have a college? What are their best departments? Aim to keep those brains in town. Do you have cheap housing and you're not far from a city with a shortage? Poach their people!
* Imagine what the world needs more of and push that. Right now green anything is desperately needed. So is social justice. Do you have Jews? Become the town known for tikkun olam.
* Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Try supporting lots of different ideas and when one does extra well, expand it. One town tried various improvements, what stuck was biking, and became a major biking destination. But it could've been anything.
* Take advantage of your neighbors' mistakes. If you're the only food-truck-friendly town in your region, and you make your rules favorable, you will get everyone in the area who wants to launch a food truck. Same with busking, CSAs, or whatever else other people are dissing. Why in the hell is everyone so down on refugees and immigrants? The ones who make it this far are freaking powerhouses, give them a leg up and watch them go.
Strictly speaking, a flywheel is a mechanical device, a wheel to which force is applied, creating a rotation that releases energy. Without additional force to turn it, friction will gradually slow the wheel to a halt. But if sufficient new force is applied, the wheel spins faster and faster, creating still more energy that keeps it spinning. Flywheels have been around for at least ten thousand years — potter’s wheels are flywheels. James Watt used a flywheel in his eighteenth-century steam engine that powered the Industrial Revolution.
So that's how a flywheel works. You put in a little energy, keep it going, and it boosts that to enable you to do more things.
In an economic sense, you have some folks who want to start businesses. They need a little push to get going. Then they need an occasional nudge to keep them going. And their businesses get bigger, making your town more money. Eventually, other people notice that your town is spawning lots of businesses in a field, or new ones in general, so they come take a look and some of them settle. They make more businesses, and the attention draws tourists, and your economy grows like sourdough.
But you have to be willing to invest energy. Not just once, but regularly.
So think about what things a business needs and how you can help launch them. You might try things like:
* Funding grants for a few college graduates to start businesses.
* Inducing your local bank, credit union, or chamber of commerce to offer microloans.
* Refurbishing some big empty building into a business incubator.
* Providing common space that people can rent, like a community kitchen or makerspace.
* Throwing a business fair where innovators and investors can find each other.
* Looking up disadvantaged groups (immigrants, women, black people, etc.) and giving them extra help to get started.
* Setting up a mentor program for experienced entrepreneurs to help novices.
* Aiming to employ all your disabled people who want to work. Huge pool of potential there.
Also cut down friction as much as possible.
* Minimize red tape to start a business.
* Don't overburden them with expensive fees.
* Make it easy to renovate, repurpose, or build places to work. Just offering accessory commerical units when everyone around you has banned them is an edge.
Writers, too, have found inspiration in the flywheel. Poetry magazine uses its mechanism as a metaphor for the way “energy, movement and potential” generate new ideas.
Things you could do with this:
* Set up an artist retreat or writer workshop with a common house, cabins, and rentable workspace.
* Create lots of places like coffeehouses or bookstores where creative folks can do performances of their work.
* Identify as many of your local creatives as you can. Support them. Encourage them to feature your town in their stories, paintings, etc. Give them a place to sell that stuff. Market it to other tourist destinations in your state, e.g. "Montana Books" or "Florida Artists."
* Establish a local newspaper, magazine, or other periodical to promote them.
* And nobody in this world has done that with electronic publishing. You could launch the idea of a subscription service for waiting rooms to have FRESH reading material or virtual wallpaper, with local color being one thematic option.
And you can do that with any field, somewhere. Think about what your town has to offer, or what you want to achieve. Kick the wheel and throw some clay on it.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-12-05 02:25 pm (UTC)