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Challenges ahead for Missoula economy

One of the nice things about being in the economic forecasting business is that it almost always pays to be optimistic. Since the 1980s, the economy has generally experienced long expansions, punctuated by infrequent, comparatively brief recessions when growth took a pause. So forecasts of growth had a pretty good track record of turning out right.

Not so in 2010, and especially not so in Missoula. Our community has recently suffered from a number of high-profile closures of long-tenured businesses, culminating most recently in the closure of the Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. facility in Frenchtown – once Missoula’s largest industrial employer. But while these events have captured the news, a less apparent, but no less important economic story has slowly unfolded as well. And that is the end of Missoula’s reign as one the fastest-growing areas of the state.

For those of us who keep score on regional economic performance, there are two kinds of lessons here. The first is that robust growth, or even growth at all, is something that cannot be taken for granted in any community. The second is that it is not possible – and it may not even be desirable – to sufficiently diversify Montana-sized regional economies to negate future risks associated with a major closure like Smurfit-Stone.

Patrick M. Barkey and Paul E. Polzin

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/article_f5924c30-011e-11df-bdc1-001cc4c002e0.html

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