Labor activist Roger Bybee has a great piece in the July issue of The Progressive, "Racine, haunted city: look what happens when industry flees." The similarities between the Racine and Oshkosh experiences is painfully clear, especially as regards questionable economic development plans in response to deindustrialization. Some excerpts:
Inner-city Racine bears a haunted look, with its vacant factories and dilapidated houses. It is surrounded by a suburban ring of anonymous strip malls and relatively well-off white suburbs (the city itself is 20 percent African American and 14 percent Latino) and a harbor filled with luxury boats (owned primarily by wealthy outsiders) on the Lake Michigan side. The downtown has a Potemkin-village feel to it, with a front of neatly restored brick buildings hiding the squalor of the surrounding areas . . .
With the corrosion of the city's industrial base, Racine officials dreamed up one economic salvation scheme after another. Despite luring affluent boat owners from the Chicago and Milwaukee suburbs, the big publicly subsidized harbor project failed to produce the trickle-down effects predicted by its promoters. The latest idea, hailed in The New York Times, is that former factory workers will somehow find prosperity as Racine tries to convert itself into an artists' colony, replete with a new $11 million Racine Art Museum and about a dozen galleries on Sixth Street.
But twelve galleries and a museum will not fill the crater left by the loss of 13,500 factory jobs. Racine's unemployment rate consistently remains the state's highest, and many former industrial workers have been permanently demoted to low-wage, low-benefit jobs in the service sector from which they have little chance of rising. For example, after Chrysler wiped out 5,500 jobs in 1988, $7 million in public funds was spent on retraining the workers over three years. Yet after the retraining, 60 percent earned less than $28,000 (in 2006 dollars) and fully 20 percent remained jobless, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
Racine is not the same city my grandparents came to or I grew up in. It is a victim of corporate globalization. But part of the fighting spirit remains.
Hey, here's an idea to revive Racine: build some class A office space on the waterfront and be okay with 95% of the tenants coming from already existing office space in the city. And they should definitely create more TIF districts (they currently have 9 active TIFs compared to 17 in Oshkosh).
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6 comments:
Tony, you can complain (what a country!) but YOU are in a position to do something about it. Aside from saying NO, what are you doing? What new businesses have you drawn to Oshkosh? Come on man, don't make my vote be wasted, we don't need another simple-minded nay-sayer on the Council.
Oshguy, I have no plans to be a simple minded naysayer, but I dare say that if we had had a few more simply minded nay sayers on the council in 2000-2001 we would not be in the mess we are in on the 100 block.
My plans for economic development were laid out clearly in the campaign: we need a real economic develop commission to make serious recommendations for creating a high road economy in Oshkosh, we need greater connection between the city of Oshkosh and urban development scholars at the university, and we need to start developing along the lines suggested by the New Urbanism movement.
None of those things have happened yet, as they represent movement away from the business as usual model that is deeply rooted here; but just about everyone on the council seems supportive of these ideas or some variation on them.
But you are correct. I and every other member of the council need to do more. So do the unelected city officials.
What I see as necessary for the whole region (I'm in Appleton) is what I've come to call Building The Ark.
Leaders have to establish rules based change in zoning, relocalization, and the development
of new clean industry that will be integrated back into town from the fringes where services, food and work will be within walkable or very protracted biking or driving
distances.
New urban principles are one approach. The Natural Step for Communities is another.
The notion of Building The Ark means that you will face the opposition of business as usual
with the "Where's the water?" question. That piece on Racine demonstrates where the problems are showing up and can only become a flood of problems in the future.
Gentrification and depending on the whims of tourists does not create new wealth.
And what you will see is your population aging to the point where the whole town looks like it's on assisted living.
Natural Step was developed in Sweden where their towns were facing an emergency. The same
sorts of industrial and social problems such as the loss of the younger population lead to the changes established in The Natural Step For Communities.
Nine communities in Wisconsin have become, by law, Eco Municipalities. Milwaukee County has a 'green print' (ala' "blueprint") in place. Madison has "Sustain Dane". And there are others.
In the business community a group has formed The New North promoting new industries in an 18 county area and based on The Natural Step as well.
Ok, back to the tourists. A new trend is Eco Tourism and there is a national conference on that scheduled for mid September in Madison. I've encouraged the Chamber of Commerce here
to attend and Oshkosh may want to do the same.
These are some of the ways that the Ark is being built.
Tony, I like your thoughts other than: " . . . but I dare say that if we had had a few more simply minded nay sayers on the council in 2000-2001 we would not be in the mess we are in on the 100 block." Anyone can so NO and eventually the person will be right.
Time to get to work Tony, and look for ways to say YES to new opportunities. There are never guarantees and once in a while you will get a dud; that does not mean you give up.
OMG Palmeri! You really need to re-examine yourself. First, you have alienated the Rich Sidewalk Haters vote, and now you will obviously not be able to rely on the Simple-minded Naysayer vote. How will you maintain your stranglehold on power and get re-elected? (MUST I remind you ? that is obviously Job One)
You are going to have to court some new demographics ASAP to make up for those you have so wantonly squandered. Like maybe the Toyota Driving Lesbian vote, or the D&D Playing Pimply Grocery Baggers vote. Do not rule out the Quilting and Potlucking Lutheran Ladies vote. The Cardplaying Guys With Prostate Problems vote can be rather unpredictable, so I'd stay away from them, but seriuosly, get outside the box and start thinking before it's too late.
As to all this ark-building and seduction of business crapola-
Every goddarn WI community is trying to do this same stuff. Every one of them. Every campaigning politician promises to "bring in new business". That schtick almost gaurantees election. Now people are using their school districts not so much to focus on existing citizens children's needs, but as fancy flagships that attract wealthy business owners. Smaller, unglamorous improvements to communites languish while people focus on this manna that will drop from heaven any moment if the council and chamber and school board "do their jobs right".
Then at some point every snarky, ax-to-grind citizen throws it back in the selected elected faces (the ones he didn't like anyway) when nothing happens, when no new businesses materialize and the town is still scraping along same as before. Finally, every elected guy then frames a carefully crafted come-back to save face. Repeat as needed. This is WI local politics everydamnwhere.
ALL communites are doing this. Calling out to passing businessmen like a bunch of Hos with wares to sell. If you visualize all the other WI communities trying to attract tourism or industry,and the remote chances that any one of them will gain even incrementally from "someday my prince will come" (sorry that was bad) type thinking then you might have something to base community improvement decisions on that is a bit more realistic than this go-nowhere talking ritual. But it's fun isn't it?
JT, chairman of the People Who Can't Vote In Oshkosh And Won't Blog Themselves But Won't Finally OnceAndForAll STFU vote
An equation for disaster. Economy dependent on consumer spending + stagnant wages = oh oh.
Most the time the real solutions to problems whether personal or societal are uncomfortable to implement. Most of the changes that i see local councils making are half measures at best. the changes this town town needs to make in order to even begin to make headway are changes most constituents are not ready for. For example, implementing a city wide living wage, strictly limiting big box retail, limiting traffic on main street, not paying attention to the chamber of commerce, their the ones that got us into this mess and it would be insane to expect these peoples ideas to get us out. In order to make a better community we must promote community and the business will follow.
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