Economic Opportunity

By Dennis Donohue

Economic Opportunity, Development & Prosperity

The simplistic solution: "economic development". The harsh truth: Our city government--like our county government--lacks the resources to solve this problem on its own.

Despite the seriousness of our present economic problems, I am full of optimism for our future. I believe that if we look again at those problems, we see that they are not only telling us what is going wrong, they are pointing towards what will go right.

That's because the problem is structural. A city government does not have the power--and ours lacks the money--to solve such a problem. Furthermore, a faltering economy starves the city government of tax revenue, weakening it further. Thus a faltering economy can set up a feedback cycle, similar to the cycle of decline that afflicts crime-plagued neighborhoods, discussed earlier. It is critical for us to understand and apply the systems-level solutions needed to break out of such feedback cycles. One-dimensional fixes can only chip away at parts of the problem.

Despite the seriousness of our present economic problems, I am full of optimism for our future. I believe that if we look again at those problems, we see that they are not only telling us what is going wrong, they are pointing towards what will go right.

In economic terms, our problems are telling us to "move up the value chain":

• Land too expensive to grow our crops profitably? -- Use the land for higher value purposes.
• Foreign workers cost less? -- Train our workers for higher value work.
• Traditional industries declining? -- Create an environment that encourages new industries--and that encourages older ones to reinvent themselves.
• Losing the most productive young people? -- Give them reasons to stay. How to do these things? By realizing that the story of our future is The Salinas Valley Meets The Silicon Valley.