Reconnoitering State-Administered Enterprise Zones: What’S in a Name?

Abstract

Although the proposal was initially and unsuccessfully raised at the national level every year since 1980,30 states have come to adopt their own version of an enterprise zone system. This article reports the results of a 1985 mailed survey of the chief administrative officers of the state enterprise zone programs, analyzing how these officials: (1) rated the types of objectives that states have established for their programs, (2) evaluated the complexion of the political coalitions that led to the design of their programs, (3) described the degree of innovativeness and prior experience embodied within their state's initiative, and (4) characterized the nature of state level intervention into local government zone packages, and state intentions toward altering local public‐private sector economic relationships through the use of their programs. The article concludes that the states are at it again—experimenting, adapting, sometimes disagreeing, but in particular innovating with a timely policy issue.

Urban Enterprise Zones: Employment Impacts and Fiscal Incentives

“…R. Jones , 1988Herman 1986;Veasey and Horton 1986;Peterson, Hatras, and Hayes 1986;U.S. Department of Housing andUrban Development 1986c, 1988b;Green and Brintnall 1987), groups of zones (Verstandig 1985;Funkhouser and Wise 1985;Sparks 1986;HUD 1986b;Nelson and Whelan 1988), and case studies (E. R. Jones 1985bJones , 1987Jones, Marshall, andWeisbrod 1985: Burnier 1988;Staley 1988;Wilder and Kubin 1988). From these discussions emerge a number of general conclusions regarding the impacts of enterprise zones: 1.…”

Enterprise Zones and Job Creation: Linking Evaluation and Practice

“…The recent literature and policy discussion give a broad array of possible goals. The most common enterprise zone goal is economic development (R. Green & Brintnall, 1987). For that reason, many zone evaluations focus on job creation and wage levels.…”

The Growth of Enterprise Zones: A Policy Transformation

“…The zones appear to be actionoriaited; they do not require direct federal outlays; they decentralize policy responsibility to the state and local levels; and they promise to improve markets by reducing govemment inlnisions. In other words, in the absence of a coherent urban policy and in the fwx of substantial budget cuts for previous urban programs, policies such as enterprise zones provided the appearance of action and caring (Green & Brintnall, 1987;Fainstein & Fainstein, 1989;Riposa, 1989).…”