The Future of Elizabethton's Economy

Thank you for the great feedback I got from my last column! I heard a lot of constructive comments and a few negative comments and I’m glad. I think it is extremely important for our citizens to be educated on and have these types of conversations about the future of our community.

With all of the feedback I received, I wanted to expand on the conversation from last week. I had a few comments along the lines of, “So what you’re telling me is Industry is dead in Elizabethton?” The answer to that is absolutely not! Elizabethton currently has many industrial businesses which employee a high number of people. As a matter of fact, 14 percent (over 1,500) of all of the jobs in Carter County are manufacturing jobs making it the third largest employer industry in the county. We must continue to build a symbiotic relationship with these industries and help them to grow and expand here locally.

With regard to recruiting a new industry, this also is still possible! There is, however, a realty that we must face. All of the low hanging, cheaply developable land has already been developed; therefore, the development of new industrial land (which I outlined last week) will be extremely expensive costing hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars and those dollars will have to come from local city/county governments and possibly some local businesses. This must be something you, as a tax payer, must consider when you demand new industrial jobs from your elected officials. Are you willing to sacrifice city or county services or face a major tax increase to get those industrial jobs?

Another comment that I heard a lot was, “What alternatives do we have to industry?” Well, there are some tactics that can help grow the economy without large industry and we can look to economic theory to provide those answers. Economic base theory divides all businesses into two categories – basic and non-basic industries. Basic industries bring money from outside the local economy in and non-basic industries help keep the money brought into the local economy stay within that local economy.

Locally we can look to this theory and strengthen our basic businesses to serve as an alternative to industrial jobs. Tourism is a basic business that injects money into our local economy by bringing people from outside Elizabethton/Carter County to our area, having them spend money, then leave the community (think Blowing Rock, NC). Agricultural related production, such as vineyards, wineries and large scale farms hire local people and sell the produce in other communities and counties (think Scott’s strawberry farms). Industrial construction firms employ locals to run the business and send workers off to work in other cities and counties (think Whitehead Construction).

Bringing in and starting these businesses locally can provide the same impact that industries currently provide. Couple these industries with strengthening non-basic businesses by encouraging people to shop locally in Elizabethton and Carter County and this strategy could be a realistic path to economic progress in Elizabethton and Carter County. No progressive path forward is easy, but no one else is going to do it for us! Let’s talk about it!