Strategic planning in local government: An application to local economic development

This dissertation examines the application of strategic planning in the public sector generally, and specifically to local government economic development efforts. Strategic planning and the related process, corporate planning, have received considerable attention in recent years in the private sector, and more recently in the public (Olsen and Eadie, 1983; Nutt and Backoff, 1987) and not-for-profit sectors (Gruber and Mohr, 1982; Hatten, 1982).

There are significant gaps in our knowledge of public sector uses of corporate or strategic planning. Public sector planners, managers, and local government economic development practitioners in particular lack sufficient guidance to assess the potentials or limitations associated with applying strategic or corporate planning. The dissertation addresses this need by reviewing past and current strategic planning theory and practice, and by developing guidelines for local government applications of strategic or corporate planning generally, and for local economic development planning practice specifically. The dissertation offers a prototype strategic economic development planning process, and identifies those factors which might be expected to contribute to, or detract from, successful applications of strategic planning in local economic development.