By Stephen Harding
Friday, April 3, 2009

Good news ---- no, great news: Murrieta is focusing on foreign trade as a core function of its economic development efforts. The recent trade mission from the Republic of Indonesia to Murrieta shows that Murrieta is becoming a local, no, global participant in the worldwide economy. In a word, the city is maturing.

It is maturing by thinking outside of itself and thinking about how it relates to global markets.

"The most significant impacts of the global economy will not be at the national or even the provincial level. The biggest impacts will be local." This is according to Heritage Strategies International, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Akio Morita, founder of the Sony Corporation in Japan, called this "global localization." Foreign investment in the local economy means business expansion, greater job creation and higher incomes.

The city's effort, combined with its partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce, shows a departure from its somewhat singularly minded revenue-generating efforts of the past. Local economic development in California usually pertain to competition between communities; i.e., competition to attract new business, and to a lesser extent, competition to retain business.

This has been the direction that most California localities have taken since the late 1970s. Due primarily to the need to secure taxes and revenues, local governmental agencies have squared off in the hunt to land retail, hospitality, entertainment and supposedly "clean" industries.

With declining assistance from the state and federal governments and taxpayer initiatives requiring supermajority approval, municipalities must rely more and more on their own efforts to secure resources to fund an expanding demand for public services. As such, revenue expansion and "chasing retail" have been the primary focus of local economic development efforts, including in Murrieta.

This is not to say that some municipalities have not facilitated community wealth building through workforce development, job creation and entrepreneurship. But in most instances, these efforts have been ancillary to the pursuit of producing revenue. A few municipalities have recognized the economic relationship between educational attainment, business expansion, neighborhood stability, housing availability and a community's overall quality of life.

Yet the demand for immediate revenues somewhat takes precedence over the long-term economic sustainability of a community. Sustainability in this context means a focus on: increasing family income, neighborhood stabilization, increasing affordable housing opportunities, expanding the middle class and facilitating the creation of new industries that will employ the next generation.

Murrieta is taking steps to balance current demands with the needs of the future. The City Council and the city's economic development director, Bruce Coleman, deserve to be told, "Job well-done."

Stephen Harding is an adjunct professor at the University of La Verne and a former Murrieta city manager.