MEANING AND ACTION IN LOCAL ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES - A COMPARISON OF POLICIES IN BRITAIN AND THE UNITED-STATES

Examinations and assessments of different countries' local economic development strategies have tended to overlook the very different rationales for such activity in diverse politicoeconomic cultures. Differences in the meanings ascribed to locality, to development, and to different programmatic partnerships-and in the divergent patterns of associated local actions-are studied by examining the metaphors used in the development policy literatures in Britain and the United States. The dominant UK metaphors are found to be control, coordination, and centralization, whereas those for the USA emerge as conflict, competition, and change. Enterprise Zones and Urban Development Corporations in the two countries are then examined for differences in practice, and it is concluded that differences in the societal and political meanings attributed to the two programs underscore the difficulties of cross-national transfer of development approaches.