Wow! ... If this is news to you, then you haven't been around the area since 1970 when the Oneida County population peaked ... or you have not been reading "Fault Lines-The Greater Utica Blog." Population loss, its cause, and what could be done about it, is a constantly recurring theme here. Here's a sampling:
- What's the Fix for Upstate? (June 9, 2009)
- Stemming Population Loss (October 20, 2008)
- Plunging Populations . . . Exactly What We Deserve! (July 10, 2008)
- That Sinking (population) Feeling . . . (June 29, 2007)
- Causing Upstate's Demise (October 11, 2006)
The problem: OUR GOVERNMENTS (State & Local).
The solution: US GETTING GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR WAY.
The starting place: Get rid of the politicians in charge who are clueless as to the cause-and-effect of what they've been doing for the last 40 years.
2 comments:
That's why I've followed your blog for the last few years Strikeslip.
You're one of the few people who are willing to "risk" telling it the way it is. Today, May 13 2010, and finally most residents here, many of which were in denial right up until a year or 2 ago, now readily acknowledge what I and advocates like you have been saying since at least 1990 or longer; "We have serious problems here that need fixing now". Only to be labeled a troublemaker or naysayer or whatever. I walked away from a MV Chamber committee chairperson position in 1994, because of the indifference and apathy I received from Bob Fowler and other board members after insisting that the chamber start becoming more instrumental and focused on being enablers of positive-constructive change, instead of being promoters of hype and hyperbole from politicians and organizations like the Chamber or Edge. Keep up the good work Strikeslip, you're right on (most of the time) and you provide a much needed source of intelligent, reasonable and fairly objective insight into what is really going on in this area.
Any form of accurate measurement that can be quantified is useful. These are based on facts which should be used to set forth change in all our behaviors. Strike is right that we should get the politicians out of the way and do it without them. Unfortunately our local and state politicians control the money and the taxes that they extract from us for the benefit of the few. We all are tired of hearing our turn is next from Albany and our local representatives. Our economic developers go on junkets to far off lands and at the expense of taxpayers and like tourist only bring back memories. Did you ever wonder what happens to all those frequent flier miles lol. Maybe we should pool them so we can buy free tickets to show the Forbes’s editors how wrong they are.
Is manufacturing going to return to our area of any great degree? Highly unlikely, it takes more than a quality of life to do that. It takes engineers, trades people and products that can be made cheaply. Startups in any industry even tourism are hard to do and usually fail. Political help for the small guy doesn’t happen as the photo opp is too small to make a difference. Instead our politicians are seen in commercials supporting the next new friend running for office, instead of using the time to help the local folks improve on the limited success of what is here.
What can we do to enhance the area around our three hospitals and the nursing school? What can we do to promote Masonic Labs and the work that they do? One thing I would do is to keep all the money raised during the Heart Fun and Walk here and give it to the Hospitals and Masonic Labs.
We support companies that once we grow them they either leave or send the jobs to Mexico, China or other parts of the world. Why do we take companies out of the city and villages and send them to Industrial park in Rome. Tell me how that helps the local community? You take jobs out of a community, the mom and pop shop die a slow death.
Measurements are good. Let’s begin to measure the promises made and the promises kept of everyone that makes them. No excuses, did you do what you said you we going to do or not. If we as individuals keep our promises, you will begin to see a change in your life. Just imagine if the politicians did that.
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