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Almost exactly one year ago, we chose Chuck Marohn\u2019s 2013 interview with Chris Gibbons as one of the Strong Towns podcast\u2019s eleven \u201cgreatest hits.\u201d Why this episode from among several hundred choices? Not only because it\u2019s a compelling listen, but because Gibbons\u2019s approach to economic development \u2014 Economic Gardening \u2014 has become such a core concept for us. It\u2019s like we said last year:\n\n[Economic Gardening is] an approach to growing a city\u2019s job base and economic prosperity that doesn\u2019t involve a dollar of subsidy to a large, outside corporation\u2014and produces better results than those subsidy programs, too.\nEconomic Gardening predates the Strong Towns movement by 20 years, but you can think of it as the economic-development analogue to our Neighborhoods First approach to public infrastructure: a program that seeks to make small, high-returning investments instead of big silver-bullet gambles, by capitalizing on a community\u2019s existing assets and latent potential.\n\nOr like Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn said in this new interview with Gibbons: \u201cI tell everyone I can, if you\u2019re not pursuing an Economic Gardening strategy, you\u2019re missing out.\u201d\nThe approach too many communities take to economic development is what Phil Burgess refers to as economic hunting \u2014 or recruiting companies from other towns. As we\u2019ve written about extensively, this often involves a race-to-the-bottom strategy that pits one city against another to see which can offer the biggest tax incentives. As Gibbons describes in this podcast, it's a strategy that also doesn\u2019t necessarily create genuinely new jobs.\xa0\nAn economic gardening approach, on the other hand, focuses on growing local companies. It\u2019s hard to argue with the results, including a 9:1 return on every dollar of funding in Florida, the country\u2019s first statewide Economic Gardening network.\nIn this episode of the Strong Towns podcast, Marohn and Gibbons explore how cities can grow an economy using a truly entrepreneurial approach. They discuss the difference between an entrepreneur and an investor, the two systems at work in every company (mechanical and biological), the importance of human temperament as a consideration when building teams,\xa0 and why every town and city needs to get on the \u201cinnovation train.\u201d They also game out several scenarios familiar to towns and cities looking to build their economies.\nChris Gibbons is the founder of the National Center for Economic Gardening (NCEG), and the former Director of Business/Industry Affairs for the City of Little, Colorado. He\u2019s also the author of Economic Gardening, an ebook you can get free from NCEG.\nIf your town or city is not pursuing an Economic Gardening strategy, you're missing out. We hope this conversation with Chris Gibbons will help till the soil for change where you live.\nAdditional Show Notes\n\nChris Gibbons (Twitter)\n\n\nNational Center for Economic Gardening\n\n\nHow Does Your (Economic) Garden Grow? - October 2013/April 2019 (One of our podcast \u201cgreatest hits\u201d)\n\n\nSelect Strong Towns articles related to Economic Gardening\n\nFive Low Cost Ideas to Make Your City Wealthier, by Charles Marohn\n\n\nCities as Platforms of Productivity, by Andrew Price\n\n\nHow to Encourage Entrepreneurship in Your Town, by Rachel Quednau\n\n\nDunkin Our Future, by Charles Marohn