Economic development isn't a matter of imitating nature. Rather, economic development is a matter of using the same universal principles that the rest of nature uses. Thousands of years before anyone had a glimmer of evolutionary or biological development processes, people were fostering differentiated strains of grains. Thousands of years before anybody was aware of symbionts such as mitochondria or chloroplasts, people were combining materials and devices that had radically different economic lineages. Rather, they're using universal principles of development and co-development for the good reason that no others are available.
Economic development is a version of natural development.
But what you've just said implies that it's academic information. People don't need to recognize the universal processes and principles to engage in using them. It tells us that development isn't a collection of things but rather a process that yields things. However, if the development process is lacking in a town or other settlement, thngs either given or sold to in are merely products of the process along with them. To suppose that things, per se, are sufficient to produce development creates false expectations and futilities.