From industrial park coddling to New Economy Week.

According to the 'Bune and 'Bamagator newspaper, "Grant Line Industrial Park West is 'substantially complete' and the city is in the process of forming a marketing plan to attract businesses to the 40-acre site."

What follows is a lengthy explanation by the city's economic development director as to the eternal importance of fluffing the city-owned industrial parks through the usual abatements, inducements, enticements and smoky back room negotiations. This is good to know. If nothing else, it shows that the city concedes the usefulness of improving infrastructure when it comes to the sort of "good jobs" companies forming the basis of many decades of the same ol' economic development strategy.

By the way, has anyone seen a commensurate, detailed economic development plan to assist a revitalizing downtown? The sort embracing infrastructure improvements (i.e., the city-owned street grid) as a means of supporting the downtown revival?

No?

In my world, this constitutes a major problem.

What about yours?

On Facebook, Bluegill pointed this way:

"Luckily, more and more people are taking it upon themselves to shift the paradigm and the 'leaders', their antiquated party system, and the old rearguard, anachronistic squad on the whole are slowly becoming less relevant. They're not dying pretty and no one expected them to."

Here's his link:

Nobel Prize? Meet the Economic Movement That Really Deserves Praise

This week, the Nobel Prize for economics may have gone to three academics, but the real work of fixing our local economies was happening on the ground—as part of New Economy Week.

by Laura Flanders in YES! Magazine (linked at Common Dreams)

The winners of the so-called Nobel Prize for economics were announced this week, and what a peculiar pick: The three who will share the award this year sit on two diametrically opposed sides of their field’s most critical debate ...

 ... The same week that the pseudo-Nobels were announced, we saw a nationwide celebration of regular people diving into economics. This week was New Economy Week.