The Difference Between Selling and Developing When people talk about economic development two concepts quickly come to mind: programs for creating jobs or foreign aid for overseas efforts come to mind first. However, economic development involves far more than just these two aspects. In many respects, economic development is akin to nation-building, creating entire financial infrastructures for communities as well as countries. The most evident changes tend to occur in regions that are primarily agrarian, still relying heavily on farming for most resources and sustenance. When funding gets funneled into these areas it can literally change standard of living and bring forward into the modern world. However, financial support can also go wayward if those in control have their own priorities ahead of the recipient community or country. As a result, dictatorships and tyrant governments can make such efforts go wayward, never reaching the ground level communities where the help is needed the most. As noted earlier, financial growth does not directly equate to development. For instance, you can have a company that may have a product everybody in the world wants. Thus, their product is in high demand. However, even though the company may be selling tons of its product, it doesn't share that success with its workers. As a result, the labor pool in the factory region stays poor and undeveloped, but the company management reaps the rewards. Development doesn't occur, but sales do quite well. In another example, a restaurant may perform very well with lots of business selling meals. However, all the customers for the restaurant are local eaters. This means that the revenues are simply recirculated funds from the same local area. No new money is coming into the region. While the restaurant's food may be in high demand, economic development is not occurring. Where economic development would be involved is if the restaurant is part of a tourism program, getting tourists to the area to spend money on the food that otherwise would never be spent in the area. Development also focuses on logistics. It's no surprise that large businesses need multiple resources of support to operate successfully. This can include suppliers, utilities, transportation, a labor pool, and raw materials. Grouping industry and business in the same locations can create synergies among businesses, even competitors, that would otherwise never occur if they were spread out in individual locations. As a result, development programs tend to focus on building up economic zones and improving urban areas to bring them to the next level of operational success. This type of effort is far beyond just selling widgets or services; it involves government policy shaping out these industrial communities locate, grow, and expand. Development work also involves extensive studies of the current assets and capabilities of a region before helping, and the results after actions have been taken. These studies and related research can cover obvious aspects such as labor improvement, but also living conditions improvement as well. Much of the effort pays attention on community benchmarking, trying to determine what metrics apply and how the community can be improved. This then allows the policy-makers to determine what alternatives should be used to help foster increased economic growth in that area. Home - Definition Economic & Political Goals Sales or Development? The Pros & Cons Who & Why? Privacy Policy Why governments, corporations, and charitable organizations promote economic development.