What Will I Learn?

The focus of this course is on creating and managing multi-stakeholder processes that take place in the local and regional urban economy. Regions and localities are faced with two major trends in opposite directions: internationalization and decentralization. Internationalization exacerbates the interactions between the global and the local levels but operates selectively. It includes only those actors that participate in networks in which competitiveness drives constant transformations and restructuring. Decentralization is a means to cope with complexity and a reaction to growing demands for greater responsiveness and sustainability by citizens, clients, and consumers. The two trends have changed the ways in which the multiple stakeholders relate to each other in the local and regional economy. Competition and cooperation are blended in the links between firms and state and non-state actors. The central concern for the governance of sustainable local economic development is to create synergies between the policies and interventions of business, state, and non-state or civic actors. These come together around specific opportunities for local economic development for small and medium-sized enterprises.