What is the point of ‘economic development’ if an area’s population stays the same?

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Can a dumpy area ever become nice and desirable without replacing the local population with a higher quality group?

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no.

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What someone who hasn’t completely given up on the system would say is, economic development will lead to increased tax revenue, which will lead to better government services including education and social services, which will increase the quality of the human capital over time. Whether you believe that is true or not is another matter.

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This is the idea. In a world where the only issue was an economic/resources issue, these economic developments would over time gradually improve the communities through increasing property tax revenue, auxillary businesses developing to serve the larger development, etc.

The problem is that what plaques most of these communities is a societal/cultural issue which no amount of economic development can fix

Never underestimate the degree of squalor in which some people will live if it means they can be lazy.

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The problem is that what plaques most of these communities is a societal/cultural issue which no amount of economic development can fix

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If you live in an environment where it’s summertime year round and you can pick fruit off a tree whenever you get hungry you never develop critical thinking skills that would be useful if you had to survive through the winter for instance

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If you live in an environment where it’s summertime year round and you can pick fruit off a tree whenever you get hungry you never develop critical thinking skills that would be useful if you had to survive through the winter for instance

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Savage comment literally

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Can a dumpy area ever become nice and desirable without replacing the local population with a higher quality group?

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Closely related to Magic Dirt theory; the idea that simply bringing third worlders to the US will suddenly transform them into better, smarter, more productive first world people.

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Can a dumpy area ever become nice and desirable without replacing the local population with a higher quality group?

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Can't replace the shitty local population without bringing in higher paying skilled jobs to intice the desirable population to move there. However, look at places like the suburbs around Dallas. Bringing in more jobs could intice the H1B's etc. to move there, which could also be undesirable. Best to bring in more manufacturing than just white collar jobs.

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Can a dumpy area ever become nice and desirable without replacing the local population with a higher quality group?

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It depends on alot of factors. But the economic development alone isn’t a guarantee. And sometimes it can take a generation or more for it to make a big difference. Bare minimum for a big project, the local area usually gets more money for things like updating an aging water system, improving or building new schools, giving police or teachers a pay raise…those things don’t really make a place desirable, but they can help make it less of an armpit and maybe give the next generation a better life.