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Take Oklahoma City, Okla. With falling unemployment, one of the country's strongest housing markets, and solid growth in agriculture, energy and manufacturing, it looks best positioned among the nation's largest metropolitan areas to ride out the current crisis.
i live/work in the okc metro area and the economy is moving along now at a good clip, especially in the energy, ag, and health fields. the boat sure ain't sinking here! but i'd rather relocate to the colorado rockies...part time at first and may be full time later.
OKC also has this sort of constant urban renewal thing going on...the severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes wipe neighborhoods out, then they build new ones.
I'm not buying San Jose as "recession proof" with a median home price of $830K. That sounds like a future chapter of the unfolding California disaster waiting to be written. Wait until Prop 13 gets repealed and all those people get to pay taxes on the full value of those expensive crackerboxes.
I think we're way too early in the cycle to be declaring victory anywhere. As consumers pull back to deal with their maxxed-out debt burdens and the energy and food price shocks, the consequences are going to have tremendous reach. Places that are riding high today have no guarantee they won't be on the cusp of the next leg down. And some segments, like Colorado's farms and energy industry, may find a rare diamond up this goat's a** before all is said and done.
Okay, so if Colorado is in trouble specifically, then exactly which states (and which specific cities) are in good shape? I'm listening....
Speaking from a purely economic and not aesthetic perspective (aesthetics are nice if you can afford them, but sometimes that isn't an option), I think the areas of the country that may fare the best are in the Midwest. There are a lot of locales there that have not seen the wild real estate speculation that has rampaged in most of the West and in Florida. Many of those same Midwest places still have somewhat of a manufacturing base AND a skilled blue collar workforce available to work in those industries. I think that may be very important when we figure out that we can no longer to afford to import every single manufactured widget that we need. The Midwest still is the breadbasket for the US, and ag is also going to be critical.
As far as transportation, many areas of the Midwest still have robust rail networks, and many areas have access to water transportation on the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Arkansas River systems, along with the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence system. Barge transportation is actually the most energy-efficient transportation system there is for an inland location--I think that will count for a lot. The other big factor in the Midwest's favor is that the region, though large, is still compact enough that distribution is relatively efficient within the region and to the large Eastern US markets.
The Midwest on its western side has relatively close access to coal from the Rocky Mountain states (especially Wyoming), and the eastern parts of the Midwest have pretty close access to coal from Appalachia and southern Illinois fields. That will probably count big, too. With the natural gas pipelines coming on line now, it will also have as good access as just about anywhere to Rocky Mountain natural gas reserves, plus there are some natural gas plays looking to be made in Ohio and Pennsylvania now.
Finally, with some admitted exceptions, most of the Midwest has more than adequate water resources to meet its needs.
Cities that have solid advantages in all of these listed areas would be Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland--just to name a few. Detroit has very distinct locational advantages, but it has so tied its fortunes to the dying auto industry and is so far down the path to social unliveability that I don't know whether it's salvageable. Admittedly, all of these cities have some real warts--unattractive climates being just one--but they were industrial and commercial giants for decades because of their economic and locational advantages. I think those come back into the forefront as resource scarcity and our transportation crises become the limiting factors in the economy. People also are making the very false assumption that we will be able to exist as essentially a white-collar business/service economy the way we have for the last 30 years or so. In the coming era or resource-scarcity, high-cost transportation, and increasingly insecure international situations, that assumption will be rendered blatantly false. We will have to rebuild a manufacturing base, and the white collar economy will correspondingly diminish in prominence.
Colorado is not in an advantageous location when it comes to land or water transportation, water resources, manufacturing base, or skilled blue-collar workforce. Colorado prospered with the ascendance of the less location-dependent white-collar economy. As that part of the US economy recedes in importance, Colorado's over-reliance on that sector will become an increasing liability economically, as it will in a lot of places in the Southwest, Florida, and Pacific Coast states. Just as the "Rust Belt" has declined in the last three decades as the white-collar economy grew, the Sunbelt and Rockies will likely decline as the white-collar economy shrinks. We are at one of those points in history where some long-term, assumed to be permanent trends suddenly reverse direction.
Jazzlover, I think you make a great case for why the midwest is a better region economically than Colorado and the west. I won't dispute any of your points, although I would also add that California, a state you hate, happens to be the single largest argicultural producer of any one state. I've never been anywhere in the midwest before, so I'd like to take a trip out there and see what it's like. But given what you just said, why don't you live in the midwest? Why do you live in Colorado, when from your point of view the state has got it all wrong?
Jazzlover, I think you make a great case for why the midwest is a better region economically than Colorado and the west. I won't dispute any of your points, although I would also add that California, a state you hate, happens to be the single largest argicultural producer of any one state. I've never been anywhere in the midwest before, so I'd like to take a trip out there and see what it's like. But given what you just said, why don't you live in the midwest? Why do you live in Colorado, when from your point of view the state has got it all wrong?
I currently live in Colorado because, unlike many of the folks on this forum, I have strong family and business ties in this region that go back many, many years (decades). I also live a lifestyle well below my means, so I have flexibility financially that most people don't have. That doesn't mean that I won't have to consider relocation if the decline in Colorado's fortunes is severe enough. I also have some family and business ties in the Midwest, too, so that is an option for me if that becomes a necessity.
As to California, being a former agriculturalist, I have a fair amount of familiarity with California's agricultural prowess. California has a very ideal climate for a large number of crops--IF there is irrigation water available, as most of California is essentially without rain for 4-6 month of the year (in late spring, summer, and early fall). Unfortunately, California has been doing its damnedest--even before the same circus started in Colorado--to strip water from agriculture and divert it to suburban BS lawn irrigation, and to allow the horrendous sprawl there to gobble up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime ag land. That is why there are a lot of multi-generational agriculturalists fleeing California to other states, Mexico, even Brazil with their agricultural operations. California has been and largely remains dumb as a post about that, and Colorado--with that example clearly visible for decades--is being equally dumb as it allows its agricultural industry to be slaughtered by development and water grabs. By the way, I know a number of Colorado agriculturalists who are also fleeing, taking their operations to other states and countries. One of my long-time friends relocated his cattle operation from Colorado to South Dakota within the last couple of years because of the decline in the ag industry and its support infrastructure in Colorado.
I think Jazz has somewhat understated the depth of the problems in California. The tax structure and crumbling infrastructure as a result of it, overeager environmentalists armed with laws written to choke the life out of any business that needs to use natural resources or chemicals, and an absolute unwillingness to deal with illegal immigration and the problems it causes, are just a start on the other things that make California an unhospitable place for producing much of anything. OTOH, just about any kind of depravity imaginable seems to take root and find a home there. So I'm sure there are still special opportunities in CA...some San Francisco enterpreneur is probably already printing NAMBLA's monthly newsletter...in English, Spanish, and Chinese...on recycled paper with special organic ink specially tested and guaranteed safe for the local prairie dog population.
Though Colorado is not as well-placed w/r/t established navigable waterways, its position as a "fly-over" state also makes it a "drive-through" or "roll-through" location that is somewhat strategically placed on the road/rail network between California and the midwest/east coast. Proximity to those transportation networks could prove useful. As long as they don't make Boulder the state capital, there's still hope.
Though Colorado is not as well-placed w/r/t established navigable waterways, its position as a "fly-over" state also makes it a "drive-through" or "roll-through" location that is somewhat strategically placed on the road/rail network between California and the midwest/east coast. Proximity to those transportation networks could prove useful. As long as they don't make Boulder the state capital, there's still hope.
I have to disagree with this statement, if you are basing it on the way the current transportation landscape exists in Colorado. Colorado's current east/west rail situation is barely above pathetic. When Union Pacific gained control of the former Denver & Rio Grande Western lines in Colorado, virtually all east/west "overhead" freight traffic--that is, traffic passing through Colorado rather than originating there--was diverted to its lines running through Wyoming to the north or New Mexico to the south. BNSF railway does have "trackage rights" to run east/west trains from Denver to Salt Lake City through Colorado, but runs only one or two per day.
UP's former D&RGW main line from Denver to Salt Lake City, through the Moffat Tunnel is used for the daily Amtrak California Zephyr, and the for the numerous coal trains originating in northwest Colorado and the North Fork of the Gunnison valley east of Delta. That is the line's current main reason for existence. Denver fought for a half-century to get a direct cross-country connection to the west--and even helped finance the Moffat Tunnel to make it happen; and, now, that connection is barely used for that purpose.
Meanwhile, the state's other east/west rail line, also now owned by the UP, from Peublo to Dotsero where it connects with the "Moffat Route" sits in mothballs west of Parkdale (which is the western terminus of the Royal Gorge Scenic Railroad and where the freight counterpart of the tourist operation serves a rock quarry). The portion of this line east of Pueblo owned by the UP has largely been abandoned and removed clear into Kansas.
The east/west railroad lines passing through Colorado present a terrific opportunity for intermodal train operations that could remove thousands and thousands of trucks off of I-70 and other east/west highway routes through Colorado, but Colorado's highway-obsessed Legislature and CDOT are too dumb, ignorant, and paid for by the highway lobby to recognize the opportunity. If they don't--and if Colorado can't formulate a coherent multi-modal transportation policy, chances are good that both of those east/west rail corridors could be lost forever within not that many years--leaving Colorado in the same transportation backwater status that existed before 1880. I can't think of any state in the Union that has a more bone-headed, visionless transportation policy than Colorado--even automobile-centered California has its **** together better than Colorado in this regard. In saying that, I'm not saying that I think California's transportation policies are enlightened--they're not--but it takes little to better Colorado in that regard--it's a low bar to jump over.
PS--I consider Denver's position in the nation's air traffic structure irrelevant. It is a transportation mode that has no real future for any but the wealthy in the long run. DIA will be one of the nation's last huge monuments to an industry made nearly extinct.
The east/west railroad lines passing through Colorado present a terrific opportunity for intermodal train operations that could remove thousands and thousands of trucks off of I-70 and other east/west highway routes through Colorado...
That's my point. Given that necessity is generally the mother of all invention, and the relatively limited number of existing E/W rail lines, any significant plus-up in traffic should result in renewal of interest, even by the slow-moving rocket scientists inhabiting the state capitol. My own thoughts are that rail will naturally evolve to be the mode of choice for routine interregional cargo movement as the realities of energy economics take hold.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jazzlover
PS--I consider Denver's position in the nation's air traffic structure irrelevant. It is a transportation mode that has no real future for any but the wealthy in the long run. DIA will be one of the nation's last huge monuments to an industry made nearly extinct.
"Mode" or "node?"
My gut feel on the airline industry is that we will see a return to something like the 1950-60s, where being part of the "jet set" or routine airline clientele implies considerably above-average wealth. In Great Depression I, the wealthy still played, or so wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. And I doubt we'll see any shortage of wealthy skiiers passing through Denver any time soon. Bread lines in Kansas City won't keep Ang Mozilo or Hank Paulson from their yachts or ski chalets.
My gut feel on the airline industry is that we will see a return to something like the 1950-60s, where being part of the "jet set" or routine airline clientele implies considerably above-average wealth. In Great Depression I, the wealthy still played, or so wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. And I doubt we'll see any shortage of wealthy skiiers passing through Denver any time soon. Bread lines in Kansas City won't keep Ang Mozilo or Hank Paulson from their yachts or ski chalets.
Don't even get me started on the chain-letter Ponzi scheme that is the "ski industry." Ski areas are money-losers without their land development component--and that means selling mainly condos and time-shares--mostly to middle-class and upper middle-class schlubs who, in turn, hope to make at least some of that "investment" back by renting their holding to other middle-class schlubs. Take discretionary income out of the middle class, and that whole "industry" will collapse like a house of cards. Sure, the "privileged" class will still have their "chalets" (I prefer to call them their POS trophy houses defacing the landscape), but that isn't near enough to support Colorado's tourist/ski industry in anything close to what it is used to now. It's the debt-ridden, over-extended, browbeaten middle class that has managed to keep this circus going and when they "take a few for the team," the merry-go-round is going to stop.
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