Understanding LED: What? Why? How? Who with what?
What resources are required & where do they come from?
What are the main roles in LED?
What work must be done and in what sequence?
What type of interventions achieve best results efficiently?
What are the key determinants of competitive advantage?
What is a local economy and where are the opportunities?
What outcome are we trying to achieve with LED?
What impact does LED aim to have on citizens?
Who needs to do what in an effective LED system?
What is expected of the leaders of the local economy?
What is expected of LED facilitators?
What is expected of stakeholders contributing to LED?
What is expected of champions driving LED initiatives?

 Some examples of mistakes made recently by municipal leaders, due to limited understanding of LED:

 

1. A mayor of a town dependant on high level income property investors decided to relocate the squatters right next door to high income property development – within one week, 10%+ investors disinvested, sales slumped and growth was stifled.

 

2. A Mayor of a Metro instructed his officials to establish unsustainable urban farming project in prime development in township centre. High density housing instead would provide the economic impetus the township centre requires.

 

3. A Metro councillor championed the removal of the successful ICT FET college out of a vibrant ICT cluster, and relocated it to a township 25 km away, deemed unsafe. The College failed, and cluster locational advantage was compromised.

 

4. The Municipal Manager and Head of Technical Services of a Metro denied a request by LED unit to provide an access road to a sound  property development that could have resulted in +100 jobs, because it was not specifically identified in the annual plan/budget.



The information above is freely available under a Creative Commons attribution share-alike license.