REDT 002 - Economic Development: A Team Effort

REDT post 002
Economic Development: A Team Effort
By Lif Strand

Are you worried about how many job losses can occur before our economy truly crashes? Are you confused about how difficult it is to find a job, while you watch your savings dwindle to nothing and your debt get higher and higher? If you are an employer with job openings, are you perplexed about how difficult it is to find an employee when unemployment is so high?

You aren’t the Lone Ranger.

The NM Governor’s Economic Summit has drawn to a close. If nothing else has come of this conference it is the understanding that the current economic crisis in this country is a multi-faceted thing, and that the only way to deal with it is by a team effort. “Fixing” things from the top down (government bailout) isn’t going to work unless the very foundation of economic development is shored up as well.

What is the foundation of a sustainable, thriving economy? It’s not simply profitable financial institutions, but a healthy, sustainable environment, a healthy, sustainable society and healthy urban and rural, local, regional, federal and world economy.

Everything is connected to everything – nothing we humans partake of exists in a vacuum, sufficient under itself. If you only fix one thing without fixing the other parts, your fix won’t work, but will rather just cause more problems. Real life is a balancing act – sustainability occurs when all parts are considered when changes are proposed. If you ignore the connected parts, those other parts will be damaged by the imbalance and then other parts will drag you down.

A real fix that will create a sustainable, thriving economy means looking to the human environment and the natural environment. We have a strong environmentalist force nowadays that has positioned itself as the moral guides for humanity, but this force has forgotten that humans are rightful and valid part of the planetary environment, that environmentalist planning must recognize and accommodate the human environment. Green hasn’t worked and will never work if we only look at humanity as a disease that should be excluded.

The team that will fix the economy is the team that is inclusive rather than exclusive. The human spirit is perhaps the most valuable resource for improving our planet that we have. Addressing today’s issues must be done from the perspective of raising human consciousness on the environmental, societal and economic levels. No planning that focuses solely on one area to the exclusion of any other area can provide a solution.

In upcoming posts, you will be provided with an opportunity to join the Rural Economic Development Team to create meaningful, sustainable economic development. Your comments, suggestions and support are welcome.

Welcome to Rural Economic Development Today

REDT post 001
by Lif Strand

Rural Economic Development Today

Bailouts, foreclosures, stock market losses, job insecurity, financial uncertainty:  Signs of our economic times.  Who isn't worried about our economic future as individuals, families and a nation?

Welcome to Rural Economic Development Today, a blog dedicated to the specific needs of rural economies.  

My name is Lif Strand, and I'm a Local Economic Developer in Catron County, New Mexico.  As I write this, I’m sitting in an economic conference, listening to doom and gloom about the economic situation today. (I should be paying full attention, but the sound system is pretty bad). 

People are afraid, and that’s understandable.  Elections are coming up and no one knows what changes the new administration will bring about; no one knows if those changes will make things better or worse for each of us, particularly those of us who live in rural America.  No one knows if stock market fluctuations will wipe out our investments or shore them up; no one knows if the government’s bailout plans will wipe out our economy or save us.

Rural Americans are often the step-children of economic development planning on the federal and state level.  Lip service is given to us, but generally funds go to developed areas and we are left with the trickle-down, which isn’t much benefit at all.

The sad fact is that rural America is the very foundation of our country’s economy (and to an extent that of the world).  Rural America feeds everyone, supplies the natural resources that manufacturing is based on.  The focus of all economic development, particularly right now when things are so shaky, should be to stabilize the foundation, to assess what is wrong and fix it – making sure that the fix is not just for rural economic development today but for tomorrow and the next decade and beyond. 

This blog is here to examine the issues of rural economic development and, collaboratively – with your help – to identify those issues and look for solutions that will work for rural economic development.  Your feedback is welcome.