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Abstract

No business and no single industrial structure survive forever, but industrial cities need not decline with the industries on which they were built as long as new ventures emerge to take their place. Indeed, one can find examples of entrepreneurial renewal within large, mature firms, in the wake of plant closings, in poor communities bypassed by industrial development, and in government and the nonprofit sector. To appreciate the role entrepreneurial renewal might play in revitalization, it is important to understand that the entrepreneurial process is a long-term, human-centered practice of innovation that transcends industrial, sectoral, race, sex, and class lines. While any population group has its share of potential entrepreneurs, the extent to which they will emerge depends upon the availability of environmental support—cultural, financial, educational. With these supports the already significant impacts of entrepreneurial renewal can be increased.

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Again, it is important not to give excessive attention to the failure and closure rates. As David Birch has pointed out, the difference between growing and declining areas of this country is not the job loss rates, which are remarkably constant at about 8 percent a year, but rather the job creation and firm formation rates. David Birch , The Job Generation Process (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program on Neighborhood and Regional Change, 1979).

2. See Wilbur R. Thompson , “Cities in Transition,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

3. Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman , In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best Run Companies (New York: Harper & Row, 1982).

4. William J. Abernathy , Kim B. Clark , and Alan M. Kantrow , Industrial Renaissance: Producing a Competitive Future for America (New York: Basic Books, 1983).

5. William Schweke and Rodney Stares , Sowing the Seeds of Economic Renewal (Washington, DC: Corporation for Enterprise Development, 1986).

6. Richard Hatch , “Reviving Local Manufacturing Italian Style,” City Limits (Apr. 1986), pp. 16-19.

7. Peter J. Drucker , Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 21-29.

8. The State of Small Business: A Report of the President (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1984), pp. 347-371.

9. Ibid. (1982), p. 69.

10.

10. Albert Shapero , “The Social Dimensions of Entrepreneurship,” in Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship by Donald L. Sexton et al. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982), p. 82.

11.

See also Gary Gappert , ed., Winter Cities (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1986).

12.

Michael B. Tertz , Small Business and Employment Growth in California (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, 1981).

13.

13. Candee S. Harris , “The Magnitude of Job Loss from Plant Closings and the Generation of Replacement Jobs: Some Recent Evidence,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 475:15-27 (Sept. 1984).

14.

14. Eight Lessons from Europe (Washington, DC: Corporation for Enterprise Development, 1985), pp. 15-21.

15.

15. John Reese , “Linking New Production Methods and Regional Growth Rates,” Economic Development Commentary, 10(1) (Spring 1986).

Entrepreneurial Renewal in the Industrial City

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