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Mapping a nation of regional clusters

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      A cluster is a regional concentration of related industries that arise out of the various types of linkages or externalities that span across industries in a particular location. The U.S. Benchmark Cluster Definitions are designed to enable systemic comparison across regions. View and compare clusters across the U.S.

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      A region is broadly defined as a county, economic area (EA), metro/micropolitan statistical area (MSA), or state. The U.S. Benchmark Cluster Definitions use the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis defined economic areas. View and compare regions across the U.S.

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  3. Finance and Commerce: Focus economic developmen...

Finance and Commerce: Focus economic development on ‘clusters,’ not subsidies

by jzhao October 3, 2014

James Warden, Finance and Commerce -- Minnesota and other states need to abandon conventional economic development strategies and instead zero in on sectors in which they have a competitive advantage and an established industry, speakers said Monday during a conference at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. A cluster approach brings focus to economic development efforts that are often disconnected from the realities on the ground, said Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor who led the cluster mapping effort for the U.S. Economic Development Association. States sometimes offer training for jobs that aren’t available or they use incentives to bring in plants that don’t have any reason to stay once those incentives expire. By contrast, targeting clusters allows regions to put their efforts in the places where they’re most likely to have success. In Boston, for example, officials focused on a biopharmaceuticals cluster. They don’t try to lure new plants to the area unless they make sense as part of that cluster. The result is an economy booming from what Porter called “a cluster of clusters.”

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The U.S. Cluster Mapping Project is led by Professor Michael E. Porter at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School.

This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration.