> Nice. Ft. Wayne is like a number of towns whose economies are all based
> around one major industry, like LaPorte and the Allis-Chalmers plant or
the
> book publisher, or any number of communities up along the lake who are all
> based around servicing the big steel mills. When the anchor industry
dies,
> all of the support industries are left with nothing to support, so
> unemployment becomes a domino effect.
In Newton, Iowa, the anchor industry was Maytag. This town has been working
extremely hard and has gotten very creative to keep itself from ending up
as another "don't do this" case study.
So far, the community has manged to:
1. Get a Nascar track
2. Get a wind-turbine tower manufacturer
3. Get a wind-turbine blade manufacturer (different company than the above)
4. Get a plastic molds company
5. Lose their phone company that was based there
6. Expand the college
7. Get a testing facility for THE major product safety/testing company.
Specific incentives that have been tried or are in the works:
1. Various tax breaks for the companies to locate here (duh)
2. Offer free college tuition for the kids of anybody that moves to Newton
3. Various other incentives for businesses and individuals including paying
closing costs on homes, etc
4. Community improvements
Is it working?
1. The population decline has ceased
2. The housing market is up
3. Most of the businesses that located here are continuing to expand
They aren't done yet, and they keep trying new things. I know the people
running those various programs (they all used to work for the company I
did), and the most important thing that I've seen is that they aren't
hanging their hats on any one item, but they're trying anything and
everything. It remains to be seen which will end up being THE item of
success, but they're not taking their chances with anything.
In reality, Newton, Iowa is healthier now than it has ever been. Back in
the glory days, everybody on the city council was affiliated with Maytag in
some form or another. And it was a classic case of the company town, where
other businesses were blocked out from locating there to keep wage
pressures down.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|