Book excerpt: This textbook is concerned with economic development at the local, community or regional scale. Its aim is to provide students with a comprehensive introduction to contemporary thinking about locally based economic development, how growth can be planned and how that development can be realized. This book: • Provides students with a thorough understanding of current debates around local and regional development and how that body of work can assist them in helping communities grow; • Equips students with a ‘toolkit’ of strategies that enable them to both plan for development and deliver that development through their professional lives; • Offers a roadmap for economic development that helps students make sense of place-based development by providing a ‘meta narrative’ of how regions grow and how those processes can be enhanced. This integrating perspective will be organized around the concept of competitiveness and how that concept can be understood and operationalized in various ways; • Aims to improve the performance of economic development agencies by providing current and future staff with a better set of strategies that are more appropriate to their needs; • Socializes students into the world of economic development planning, providing them with an entry point into a rewarding career; • Introduces students to a range of techniques essential to success in economic development planning. In addition to a wealth of case studies and pedagogical features, the book is also complemented by online resources. In offering a full toolkit of economic development knowledge, techniques and strategies, this text will thoroughly prepare students for a career in urban planning, transport planning, human geography, applied economic analysis, geographic information systems, and/or work as an economic development practitioner.