A long road back?

Some of you may be familiar with the City of Franklin, which is a community of 8,000 over in peanut country in the eastern part of the state. International Paper, the major employer in the City, announced last October the plant will close ending more than 1,000 jobs.

The Virginia Pilot carried a couple of pieces recently that were focused on lessons to learn from the experiences of Martinsville after the closure of textile factories there in the 90's. The unemployment rate there still typically leads the state. The community has some successes to celebrate in terms of new firms, but these are typically much smaller than plants that were lost. There are also some hopeful stories related in the article about individual entrepreneurship. Bottom line however, is that it's a long road back form a loss like that experienced in Martinsville and Franklin.

If you think about the long term there are important things going on in Martinsville that didn't get covered in the story. Community foundations, higher education, and business-focused non-profits are doing important work for building the community's economic future.

I know Franklin was working on support for entrepreneurs before the closure. In the crush I know they're under to deal with the immediate crisis I'm hopeful they'll be able to keep these longer term projects on the agenda.

Has Richard Florida jumped the shark?

Reactions to this article in the American Prospect generated a lot of interesting reading for me over the holiday. I participate in a planning academic listserve that has been non-stop on this for weeks. Florida has been taking hits for the academy since day one, but perception of his work in the popular press remained pretty laudatory until quite recently.

I fall in what the Prospect identifies as a common critique...

"In a standard version of this critique, Amy Liu of the Brookings Institution -- with which Florida was once affiliated -- praises him for debunking 'smoke-stack chasing' as economic development but says he has replaced that with another flawed 'attraction' strategy."

Do jobs follow people or the reverse as traditional perceptions would hold? Of course the answer isn't so simple but nuance doesn't sell books.

The Prospect story also draws a parallel I've long been thinking about exploring further....

"There is a long tradition of charismatic economic--development troubadours. In the 1990s, it was Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor who swept into inner cities with his theories of industry clusters."

Porter was coming on strong as I entered this field and arc by which these theories disseminate into practice says something about economic development. When I figure out what I'll let you know.

Pellets!

Wood pellets, as discussed in the NY Times here, were one of the sectors my studio class looked at for SustainFloyd this term. I was a bit surprised by the distinct business models among firms working for export (see the examples in the NY Times link above) and firms working on production for local markets like this. The installation of specialized stoves by consumers and the need to build retail networks is a challenge for the domestic market. A federal tax credit (through 2010) promote some movement in this area.

Animated map of US unemployment

Eye popping graphic from Purdue's center for rural development here.

We are now open for "business"

Just so you know we are now moving into out "soft-rollout" phase. I have opened access to the blog and would invite you to share the our address with others. Plans are underway to migrate to a university platform, but I'd really enjoy getting some additional feedback going before we make that move.

Thanks!
John

Arguements against wind losing steam?

The impact on property values has long been a concern with respect to wind projects. This hefty US DOE financed study looking at 7,500 properties around the nation makes a pretty definitive case it is a non-issue.

I have heard less about the question of health impacts. A recent industry-funded review finds no medical basis for concern. That's probably not the last word of the subject.

A collective failure of imagination

Slate's Daniel Gross always gets my attention. He argues here that the left and right are wrong about the stimulus and are locked into "a collective failure of imagination" about the direction of the economy. The ability of banks to raise cash in the market to pay back the TARP funds, rising exports, job slowing job losses (and maybe even slight job growth by the time revised November figures are in) are all among the evidence he highlights.

Gross also notes the changing character of stimulus projects coming on line in the new year, for example construction a new tunnel between NYC and NJ employing 1,000 people. The impact of those jobs may be different than the loss prevention in education and government that predominated last year.

However, down here in the trenches things still look pretty grim. There are real consequences for real people as we're reminded in the NY Times today.

I have some concern that the type of rural distressed communities where we spend most of our time might be the last place to feel whatever change is working its way through the system. What do you think?