Local Economic Development Policy: The United States and Canada.

Laura A. Reese, Local Economic Development Policy: The United States and Canada (New York: Garland, 1997), 161 pp., $37.00 (cloth).

Laura A. Reese's work, Local Economic Development Policy: The United States and Canada goes a long way toward the development of a "mega-theory" of economic development policy. The book is written in accessible prose and does an excellent job of describing, qualitatively analyzing, and comparing local economic development policy in cities in Michigan and in the province of Ontario, Canada. The work persuasively makes the case for the usefulness of systematically studying economic development policies and practices in a cross-national context.

Reese compares cities in Ontario and Michigan to develop a cross-national explanatory model of economic development policy decision making. This particular state and province were chosen for their proximity to each other and the existing similarities regarding levels of economic stress, population loss, and reliance on manufacturing bases. As suggested by Reese, a more comprehensive cross-national model would include more states and provinces. Her work is merely the starting point for the development of such a model, and her …