turn-key projects. An appropriate way to proceed is to seek
out the processing and fiscal add-ons (value-added process-
ing, along with an appraisal of tax incentives, local protec-
tions, inward investments) which are currently extra-regional,
and attract them into a region’s extant businesses.^10 The ‘plug-
ging leaks’ angle also implies pulling processing and market-
ing activities back over a regional boundary as a form of
import substitution. Adapting a phrasing attributed to the
Rocky Mountains Institute, it is all a matter of avoiding the
notion of ‘your region being described as the bucket that
leaks’. Securing government contracts within the region, quashing pointless
within-region rivalry, accepting value-adding challenges, providing locally
available counter-attractions to extra-regional centres, and promoting within-
region alternatives to ‘out of the region vacationing’ – these and other forms
of ‘buttressing’ can be enhanced through enrichment, enhancement and effi-
ciency actions.- A secondprogressive set ofBetterment Guidelinescentres around the idea of
investing and upgrading a region’s infrastructure, image and services. In prag-
matic terms this suggests improvements to road, rail and other transportation
infrastructure, along with going to the next technical level with the postal,
telephone, cellular phone, radio, television, newspaper and other communi-
cations channels. The ‘frontier’ style of region also benefits enormously from
the provision of attractive if small shopping centres, the retention of postal,
welfare, medical and governmental service agencies, the establishment of an
enskilling and reskilling training centre, and the presence of some quality
entertainment venues and eating-out establishments. Other possibilities,
applied with varying degrees of success, include the provision of low-rent
flatted factories, cost-reduced sites, utility hook-ups at reduced and preferen-
tial supply rates, and sites and services assistance, along with the more con-
troversial possibility of start-up grants, tax-holidays and land tax rebates. No
less pragmatic (and certainly less costly) is the facilitation of regional ‘image’
and ‘ethos’ through skilful conservation efforts, along with a preservation of
the natural heritage and a profiling of the cultural heritage. - A third innovative set ofDiscovery Guidelinessets out to attract new enterprises
and external venture capital. A priority here is to work in parallel or on a joint-
venture basis, to attract new business (including government-based enter-
prises) into a region, and also to expand private sector business. This is easiest
to initiate at the level of niche tourism (the ‘alternative’ experience), difficult
when attempting to attract specialist processing of within-region resources
(‘French’ champagne produced from New World vineyards!), despairingly
frustrating when the emphasis is on a major new enterprise expected to
provide its own venture capital (such as a science park or a car assembly
factory).
Within the three guidelines – Buttress, Betterment and Discovery – there is little
point in exporting non-renewable resources or giving tax-breaks if there is only a
Growth Pattern Management 137A rule-of-thumb
reckoning is that a
workplace created in
the tourism sector (for
example) requires a
capital outlay equivalent
to 15 per cent of the
capital outlay required
to create a
manufacturing sector
job.