Past Silos and Smokestacks: A Rural Development Proposal

Rural communities once depended on silos and smokestacks for their economic well-being. Those days are past, writes economist Mark Drabenstott, who proposes a new way to think about rural development.

The rural Midwest could have an economic future as bright as its vibrant past. But it is basing its twenty-first-century future on a twentieth-century playbook. This is not a recipe for success. Towns and counties compete with neighboring towns and counties for jobs and investments. Industrial recruitment—“smokestack chasing”—is the norm. Economic development agencies spend millions on infrastructure and tax breaks to lure companies from afar instead of creating new jobs at home. Boosters sell the rural Midwest as a cheap place to make things, ignoring the region’s many other economic assets—its natural resources, its hard-working people, its central location, its schools and universities, and its scientific base, among others —that could all be leveraged into a competitive new economy.

By Mark Drabenstott

Full Story: http://www.dailyyonder.com/past-silos-and-smokestacks-rural-development-proposal/2010/04/13/2691