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Missing the point of Angelou
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Dr. John E. Clarkin, director of the College of Charleston Tate Center for Entrepreneurship, describes the Angelou Report as an “interesting read” that gave those engaged in the economic development of the region important rallying points.
“It got everyone past the point of simply talking about commerce in a general way,” he said.
But Clarkin feels the report’s overarching goal—developing business clusters—calls for more facile thinking and imagination than some may believe.
“For instance, if you look at developing clusters, it’s far different getting a company’s headquarters rather than its manufacturing plant,” he said. “And that’s the other side of this: if you’re just looking at clusters, you can miss things.”
Clarkin pointed to his hometown of Pittsburgh as an example of a community whose leaders created and capitalized on an effective strategy to foster the cluster they wanted.
“Pittsburgh had always been a steel town; steel jobs had always been considered good jobs, but people realized that Pittsburgh was not a very nice place to live and that the industry was changing—it just couldn’t compete with offshore steel anymore,” he said.
Like Charleston, Pittsburgh didn’t want to attract low-paying or dirty industries, and it found itself at a crossroads. Economic development people there knew what they didn’t want, but didn’t have an Angelou-style report to guide them.
“Then somebody realized what Pittsburgh really wanted to attract was corporate headquarters, high-paying jobs that were the clean side of even industrial businesses, and that became the focus,” Clarkin said.
“I think Angelou establishes the framework. Now I think it’s more of a question of what kind of business presence we want to establish within those clusters,” he added.
Given that perspective, Clarkin said he doesn’t believe the region is where it ought to be in regard to implementing the Angelou Report, but quickly added, “That’s OK.”
“We’re on Charleston time,” he said. “We’re going at our own pace.”
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