A S S E S S I N G    T H E    2 0 T H     C E N T U R Y

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1950-60: Planned Economic Development
Becomes Important
Evidence of planned development can be found throughout recorded history. The Phoenicians set up a system of trading centers around the Mediterranean. The Romans built a logistics system involving several thousand miles of hard-surfaced roads throughout Europe.

However, the decade of the 1950s marks the beginning of the systemization of the process of area economic development. We began to see the emergence of a national pyramid of development organizations.

At the base of that pyramid were local groups ranging from agricultural community improvement organizations to small town chambers of commerce. Above them in the pyramid were development units operating at the county, city or metro level. On the next level were state organizations and, above them, regional groups.

It is highly significant that at this time there was no federal economic development agency. The pyramid was built from the ground up -- not from the top down. The entire system functioned via voluntary cooperation.

Today the American pyramid of more than 10,000 active development organizations is the world's most effective development force. While there is a federal agency in the field, it is of little consequence. My first experience with organized economic development came after World War II, when I came back home to Atlanta. An organization called The Southern Association of Science and Industry (SASI) was being organized by a group of university professors, newspaper people, bankers and utility executives.

These leaders were very much concerned that most people of the South were living in poverty. It was a region that was dependent almost entirely on agriculture. There were virtually no high-technology industries and per-capita income was the lowest in the nation.

The SASI people knew that they needed somehow to inject science into the region's development programs. They were engaged in a healthy debate as to whom they should employ as executive director.

Should they hire someone who had experience with chambers of commerce and promotion and that sort of thing? Or should they find someone from a scientific field who would understand what was involved in building scientific programs?

I came along at the right time. I had just left the Navy and NASA Ames Laboratory, where I had served during the war as an aeronautical scientist working with experimental aircraft. I had also had some excellent experience with research programs during three years at NASA headquarters in Washington.

I got the job and launched into a program that was totally new. We began by holding seminars around the region to urge the creation of research centers with facilities and personnel capable of applying advanced scientific thinking to the economic development opportunities that we could see.

Out of such discussions came the germ of ideas, which led to the creation of the Research Triangle in North Carolina, the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Ala., Southwest Research in San Antonio, Texas, and numerous other new programs. On a wide front, we got people to looking at the resources we had, laying the groundwork for new industries, and promoting them among potential investors.

During the decade of the 1950s, progress was painfully slow. However, we persisted, and in the decades that followed, the region became a model of rapid economic advancement. The success that the region came to enjoy did not just happen! As the success of the South started to attract attention, we found ourselves being invited to speak to groups from New England to California. The team at the bottom of the league was being invited to coach the leaders!

We were thus emboldened to launch the first publication in the economic development field (now known as Site Selection) and to hang out our shingle as a consultant. Looking back on it, our efforts were primitive. But we did prepare the ground for the sophisticated geo-economics profession that would evolve.

For example, we set up the first "scorekeeping" system for new plants. We began to tally new facilities by size, type and location. In the 1950s, we introduced the first standard format for geo-economic data entry, the Community Audit. It has since been copied and applied all over the world. Also, we began the annual survey of "The 50 Legislative Climates" that we continue to run today in Site Selection.

Also, we created a checklist of location factors. We thought we had done something rather spectacular when we came up with a list of about 100 items. Of course, in later years we learned more and kept adding more factors. At last count, our computerized list included some 2,200 factors, and it is out of date.

Life gets more complicated as you learn more!

So much for the origin and early history of organized economic development as we know it today. Certainly one of the most significant tangible results of the early efforts was the creation of new industrial and business parks.

In preparing industrial sites for use by new industries, what we had seen up to WWII were a few large areas set aside by the railroads adjacent to their tracks. There were very few prepared sites anywhere else. During the 1950s, however, many of the new development organizations started promoting and developing business parks in suburban areas in the major metropolitan centers.

While most of the new parks had rail access, some did not. They planned to rely entirely on truck transport. That was a novel idea at the time.

Late in the decade the first "science park" emerged. This was the Stanford Research Park at Palo Alto, Calif., a park devoted to research laboratories and high-technology industries.

We also had an inkling of great things to come when U.S. President Eisenhower launched the interstate highway system. During World War II he had been impressed with the Autobahns in Germany, and he saw the need for such a system in the United States. The plan was approved during his regime, but it was to be many years before the basic system was finished.

Another major development of the time was the Saint Lawrence Seaway. A new series of dams and locks permitted ocean-going vessels to go from the Atlantic into the Great Lakes. This brought new opportunities for such products as the wheat from Midwest farms to travel to markets in Europe and beyond.

At the same time, the nation was undergoing a consumer revolution. Our productive facilities had gotten up to full speed after World War II, and there was a great flow of new household conveniences -- washers, dryers, microwaves and television sets.

The delivery of practical office and home air-conditioning units had a dramatic impact, especially in the South. Without this development, Atlanta and Dallas would not be the thriving business centers that they are today.

Fast food chains began to spread, suburban growth mushroomed, and new shopping centers brought supermarkets. The first Holiday Inn was opened. In many ways, the nation instituted a new social order.

Simultaneously, we were fighting the Cold War. We felt the need to maintain a very high military state of readiness because of our concern as to what the Russians were going to do. The government was very much concerned about our vulnerability in nuclear attack, and everyone was urged to build a bomb shelter.

There were big technical achievements. The first nuclear power plant came into being. Heart surgery and organ transplant techniques were introduced. There was the DNA discovery and the beginning of genetic engineering. One of the most important developments was the Boeing 707 jetliner.

But the decade held one more event that was its most important. In 1959 Sputnik made its appearance, and the era of man in space was under way.