Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label rural economic development

The Uselessness of Centralized Economic Development and the Hope of UBI

   Content-Pixie-unsplash                                                                 In my home town on the rural coast of Maine,we once had an economic development council, but it was little more than a public-private consortium with a license to spend the public’s money in the manner of a private development corporation. The council spent taxpayer money on consultants and on advertising campaigns for down town hospitality businesses. For a while, after spending an amount of public resources, the council laid low, before announcing that it was reconvening. Shortly afterward, the pandemic hit, taking economic hospitality development off the table, and the council announced that it was closing down for good, with nary a mention that the economy was being impacted by a pandemic. The campaign talking points of local politicians habitually extol their high regard for history, creation of year round jobs, the need to attract families and young people to the region, and for affordable h