Thursday, January 18, 2007
More economic data
A resident has written a letter to a local paper on his thoughts on Economic Development and as always this author always backs his info with rich data. The author had pointed out the mix of residential/commercial of towns/cities with highest employment figures. Portsmouth 55/45, Concord and Nashua 65/35, Manchester 73/27, Salem 74/26 Londonderry 76/24 and then Derry at 87/13. The very first thing that struck me looking at this data was the fact that the top 4 all have airports. We all have seen businesses that want to be near an airport. Next, I noticed Salem, A town in which I grew up in from 1968-1985. It's success story is that it is a border town with Massachussettes. In Salem,( like most border towns) its mostly retail stores all lined up down Rte 28 and on weekends you will see tons of "out of state" license plates taking advantage of our 0% sales tax. My point here is we in Derry must compete with these other towns for business and in some cases as pointed out above we are at a dis-advantage. Some communities also have major roadways that run both East/West and North/South, in our town we do have Rte 93 but we share that with Londonderry ( which also has the airport). We need to think "outside the box", we need to be different than everyone else, we need uniqueness so that we are not competing with every other town for the same businesses. It will not be easy and it will take lots of work on many levels. I do feel that we have many residents in town that have expertise that could be shared, I think we should engage in plugging in our youth who without them we could be in trouble ( tap into Pinkertons FBLA clubs ) How about retired business owners, They have lots to offer and may have some great ideas-Like I said in a previous post we need lots of people to help out and its not as easy as just hiring a $45,000/yr coordinator- Its going to take much more of a commitment than a possible new employee, whom should by the way be discussed at budget time and by whomever seats in the council seats ( after all they will be representing the people who vote them in) I'm interested in your thoughts!
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2 comments:
DATA is a great thing,but i always have been a fan of action.Giving A FIRE STATION and a LADDER TRUCK away ,did set us apart from border towns alright.They think we are nit wits.Lets buy a ladder TRUCK FOR THE FIREMAN TO PLAY WITH FOR A YEAR,AT THE COST OF 75,000.00,PUT A NEW BUCKET ON IT FOR 25,000.00,AND GIVE IT TO THE BORDER TOWN OF CHESTER FOR 10,000.00.This is what sets us apart,were stupid letting out of state leaders tell us what they are going to do with tax payers eqipment.Now lets try something that makes all the sense in the world! Manufacturing jobs.!GIVE MANUFACTURING COMPANIES HUGE TAX BREAKS FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS TO ATTRACT THEM TO DERRY.WALMART AND DRUG STORE WAGES ARE NOT CUTTING IT.IF PEOPLE IN CITY HALL WANT A HEALTHY TOWN,THEY MUST ATTRACT HEALTHY WAGES. We dont need 450.00 dollars a day,just a wage to live in Derry USA.
I think you hit the nail on the head! We should not compete with Salem and Londonderry and try to attract the same 'chain' businesses. When leaving these towns on 102 and 28 folks should get the feeling they left the real world and are driving through the country through a quaint downtown ... like to good old days. However, now that the old buildings are being destroyed (read old town hall and the three historic homes that used to be where Brooks is now) and parking in downtown is an issue it will be hard to get this back. We wasted the MainStreet money on things that didn't really matter and we need to work to get it back. A Historic District is a good starting point. Ripping down the drug stores in the center of town are a good start. Rehabing the old factory is a good start. Making Frost/Pinkerton/Operahouse treasures is a good start.
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