What I Would Hope To Accomplish

After explaining my ideas to my mom, I would like to get even more specific about what I am studying what I would hope to accomplish in the future.

1, I am studying unconventional economic development. Supply-side, human capital, social capital, entrepreneurship.

2, I am asking policy questions about basic human services of people outside of the mainstream, murky policy pool. Communists, socalists, social democrats, radical centerists, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists.

3, I am interviewing local leaders about their experiences with Cleveland, OH and their hopes for the future.

4, I am forming a model of neighborhood-wide, marginal development that encourages ownership, citizenship, and capturing multipling dollars.

5, I am looking for ways to enforce social contracts without the use of government as it is understood presently.

I am using the "24 Necessities" as a launching model for essential firms that are currently underused, overused, misused, or disconnected in neighborhoods. If I can get a working model, I want to break them up into "Urban Hood," "Small Town," "Rural Area," "Underdeveloped," and "Blank Slate".

While I still study in college and freely talk, listen and record, I want to develop directories of Cleveland resources for using my model.

It would be ever so awesome if I could go to graduate school and work on my model seriously, for academic consideration, while experimenting in Cleveland neighborhoods.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

My Score from The World's Smallest Political Quiz

CENTRISTS espouse a "middle ground" regarding government control of the economy and personal behavior. Depending on the issue, they sometimes favor government intervention and sometimes support individual freedom of choice.
Centrists pride themselves on keeping an open mind, tend to oppose "political extremes," and emphasize whatvthey describe as "practical" solutions to problems.

In politics, centrism usually refers to the political ideal of promoting moderate policies which land in the middle ground between different political extremes. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of Left-Right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between left-wing politics and right-wing politics. -- Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia

Centrists are ideologically flexible. Centrists recognize the complexity of public policy choices and look to many kinds of solutions. Which solution depends on the circumstances, the problem, and the public interest. Ideologues repeat their slogans with little regard to the specific policy problem at hand. Conservatives shout "private good, public bad." Liberals shout "public good, private bad." By contrast, the centrist movement can show politicians how to use both the private and public sectors (often in combination) to creatively solve problems that we would otherwise just shout about. -- Centrists.Org

Other Views:

Right (Conservative)
Conservatives tend to favor economic freedom, but frequently support laws to restrict personal behavior that violates "traditional values." They oppose excessive government control of business, while endorsing government action to defend morality and the traditional family structure. Conservatives usually support a strong military, oppose bureaucracy and high taxes, favor a free-market economy, and endorse strong law enforcement.

Left (Liberal)
Liberals usually embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but tend to support significant government control of the economy. They generally support a government-funded "safety net"
to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations, defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles.

Libertarian
Libertarians support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

Statist (Big Government)
Statists want government to have a great deal of power over the economy and individual behavior. They frequently doubt whether economic liberty and individual freedom are practical options in today's world. Statists tend to distrust the free market, support high taxes and centralized planning of the economy, oppose diverse lifestyles, and question the importance of civil liberties.

http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/quiz.php

Research Ideas from Class: Agglomeration in Nonprofits, 3

Backward Linkages

Backward linkages connect firms by channeling their money, information, and materials together.

Why shouldn’t nonprofits that work with similar clients share information and resources? Even profit-seeking businesses do that. Businesses form trade unions and professional associations. They study each other’s movements to spot trends. They recruit the same sort of people, so they watch where fresh workers come from. They have mutual interests and studies have shown that industries thrive when the businesses work together to increase the pie for them all. That way, they are free to specialize and develop distinct identities.

Research Ideas from Class: Agglomeration in Nonprofits, 2

Forward Linkages

Forward linkages are distribution chains connecting producers/suppliers with customers.

Developing strong forward linkages are important for any nonprofit, but I have seen some not take this process seriously because they were too enthusiastic about getting their service out to people and not about doing it rationally. They throw hundreds of flyers out across an area when developing a relationship with a few local leaders gets information out faster. They try to reach children individually instead of going to the school. They say, “We are inclusive, we want to help everyone!” but they don’t take the time to develop relationships to REACH out to all desired clients, such as writing Spanish versions of their information. Also, to maintain these relationships. High performing programs and plans should be nurtured.

Research Ideas from Class: Agglomeration in Nonprofits, 1

Internal Economies

When a firm expands to cover multiple activities, it reduces cost by internal agglomeration. “The spreading of fixed costs over a larger output, greater division of labor, the potential for using alternative technologies, and saving through bulk purchases are sources of internal agglomeration.” (72) Economies of scales, which is efficiency by size, can also be internal agglomeration by being concentrated in one place.

Internal economies are helpful at spreading fixed costs over larger outputs. Examples are

• Sharing buildings: multi-use, time sharing. Catholic churches have shared their large buildings with other congregations to cut down on paying the costs.
• Sharing equipment: communal resources, labs.
• Sharing infrastructure: roads, connections. Which comes naturally with being in the same location.
• Savings through bulk purchases
• Greater division of labor

Research Ideas from Class: Agglomeration in Nonprofits, Main

Agglomeration in Nonprofits

Do nonprofits locate near each other and build off each other the same way that service businesses do? Do they internally develop like businesses? What are the location factors for nonprofits?

Could nonprofits gain from internal economies? Could they gain from studying forward and backward linkages? And, can some nonprofits develop into a localized economy that could sustain a small population?

Incorporating Academic into Real World Problems

So I'm taking Urban Economic Development at school and I'm going over exactly the kind of patterns that I want to use in my development model for research. It's exciting shit.

Agglomeration. Localization. Backward and forward linkages. Low order and high order services/goods. Central place theory. Broad strokes that I can get MUCH more specific with by using my 24 necessities as examples. That's alot of research, by the way. But I'm willing to do it to get some good models to build businesses and economies from.

I need to plug these keywords into the college library databases and come up with some precedent. Like Velma Kelly, I just can't do it alone.