Reconnoitering State-Administered Enterprise Zones: What’S in a Name?

:Although the proposal was initially and unsuccessfully raised at the national level every year since 1980,30 states have come to adopt their own version of an enterprise zone system. This article reports the results of a 1985 mailed survey of the chief administrative officers of the state enterprise zone programs, analyzing how these officials: (1) rated the types of objectives that states have established for their programs, (2) evaluated the complexion of the political coalitions that led to the design of their programs, (3) described the degree of innovativeness and prior experience embodied within their state’s initiative, and (4) characterized the nature of state level intervention into local government zone packages, and state intentions toward altering local public-private sector economic relationships through the use of their programs. The article concludes that the states are at it again—experimenting, adapting, sometimes disagreeing, but in particular innovating with a timely policy issue.