The idea behind the RC/NM initiative has been described as a merger of President Clinton's "New Markets Initiative"--including a tax credit and other incentives designed to attract capital to low-income areas--with a House Republican proposal called the "American Community Renewal Act (H.R. 815), which would provide tax and regulatory relief to economically distressed areas and help poor families set up subsidized savings accounts. (12) Instead of a merger, however, the bipartisan, anti-poverty package has been characterized as a juxtaposition: "We allow two different forms to see what we can learn over the next several years about what works best in attracting investment and job growth," said Gene Sperling. (13)

Indeed, if a renewal communities/new markets initiative is enacted, it may be possible in a few years to examine the results and draw conclusions about which incentives, programs, and approaches seem to work best. The phenomenon of moribund urban and rural areas, and the myriad economic and human problems associated with them, will present a public policy challenge for the foreseeable future. The need to learn what works best argues for systematic collection of data that will facilitate program evaluation.

On the other hand, history has shown that drawing conclusions about these types of economic development programs will not be easy. By the late 1980s, about three dozen states had created a variety of enterprise zone programs, yet even today there is little information about what works and what does not. The simple fact is that it is difficult to judge the success of economic development efforts. As one report notes:

Although the economic development literature often discusses the potential effects of enterprise zones, empirical research on, or analysis of zone programs is somewhat limited. The modest amount of empirical research is due to two basic constraints: (1) the lack of reliable quantitative data to evaluate zone performance, and (2) the difficulty of isolating the effects of zone designation and incentives from those of other economic development factors and initiatives.