Unsustainable Local Economies

It's all the buzz now, particularly among the food addicts, to buy local. Be local. Its all local all the time. So imagine how a locale feels when a government agency decides to leave and set up port, literally, elsewhere.

Since the 1970s, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is part of the Department of Commerce, has moored it's research ships in Seattle. Their docks are located in Lake Union, which is inland from Puget Sound and accessible only through an arduous and long wait through navigation canals and locks. Nevertheless, the NOAA ships became part of Seattle's identity, even though if you asked many new Seattle residents they probably were clueless about the ships being here.

The reason they were here in the first place has a lot to do with seniority of US Senators. At the time NOAA was created by Congress, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee was Senator Warren Magnuson, from Washington State. He was effective, very effective, at bringing home lots of pork. NOAA ships and research facilities are one of the rewards to his home state.

However, two years ago the moorage docks on Lake Union burned down, requiring NOAA to scatter it's ships around the area. And in 2010 the lease on the docks is up. So NOAA went shopping. And Newport, Oregon won the ships.

Now, of course, there is much hand wringing in Seattle over the loss, calls for Congressional investigations, and attempts at stopping the sailing to Newport. However, in the meantime, Seattle government and civic leaders are busy trying to lure a financial management firm based in Tacoma up to Seattle. Incentives and subsidies are being thrown around while complaining at the same time, that Newport, Oregon did the same thing.

All this says that local economies are not sustainable. There is not only a glut in office space but there is still a huge inventory of homes, whether condominiums, single family, or converted to rentals. More than likely the unemployment figures which will be released on Friday will show, nationally, a rate of 10%, meaning every job in every local area becomes important. Poaching on employers will become even more fierce.

Perhaps the lesson of the NOAA ships ought to be that those in power should be attentive to the businesses and entities already based in the cities and towns. And maybe those in power need to think about ways of creating long term, living wage jobs rather than trying to steal businesses from other places (on the theory that if they are willing to leave one place what is to prevent them from leaving another?). Plus, if we really are trying to make communities sustainable, why try to lure even more people with the need for more housing, more transportation, more infrastructure?

It will be sad to see the ships go. But there are lessons we need to learn from their wake.