Boot the Big Box -- Build Local Brains and Bucks

Dan Owens of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, writes about local economic development. He notes a Washington Post article about Danville, Virginia, rejuvenating its economy by recruiting an Ikea furniture factory, as well as investing in its historic downtown and commissioning public art (LAIC, did you catch that?).

Owens appears to be cool with the downtown efforts, but he is skeptical of incentives for big industry:

And I should note that this strategy will never work in an area such as the one where we live. Danville has approximately 50,000 residents. Our towns are too small and our people scattered over comparatively vast distances. Encouraging micro businesses (five or fewer employees) is a much better use of our economic development dollars. That's not to say something like an ethanol plant or light manufacturing isn't important. But our tax dollars are a scarce resource, and we'll have a far better return on our investment if we put them into Main Streets instead of industrial parks [emphasis mine; post by Dan Owens, "Making Economic Development Work," Blog for Rural America, 2008.06.05].

Bigger is not better when it comes to small-town economic development. Instead of focusing on hitting the jackpot with one big factory or (ugh!) call center, our local economic development agencies should concentrate on cultivating local entrepreneurs. Putting two or three people to work at a time may not be as splashy, but if you do that every month, pretty soon you've got a lot of people working for themselves and their neighbors, not some far-off corporation come to colonize the hinterlands.

Owens doesn't say a total no to bringing in big-box employers. But he recognizes that such big outside employers can't be counted on for reliable, lasting growth:

In the end, we can all agree that putting together Ikea shelves [or answering phones for credit card companies—CAH] is not the job of the future, and will probably require ever-less labor as time passes. Therefore, the key is to combine these sorts of (relatively) short-term fixes with long-term investments in training and education. And by education I mean everything from pre-K to college. If we want to have 21st century small towns with thriving economies, we need a 21st century workforce. All towns are made up of people, and it's time to stop focusing on bringing Ikea to town and start focusing on the people who live there [Owens, 2008.06.05].

Madison and our fellow prairie towns can be the captains of our own economic destiny. It just takes education and a little faith in our own abilities to make good things happen.