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People have to be realistic when a town is offering free land and free incentives $$.
Usually it is a small town that is losing population and trying desperately to keep their school.
Usually the population is dropping cuz there are few opportunities there and commuting to a different town that has jobs/opportunities is a long comute.
If this was untrue, they would not have to give away free land ( there would be a demand for land in their town)
An ideal applicant would be a family with children ( local school support ) who were either self employed in a business that did not already exist in that town or had a job they could work from home via a computer.
Yes, it probably makes people wonder why they give away stuff, there must be a catch... And when you look long enough you will find it. Probably many people were turned off when they first visited the place themselves. I just looked at some pics of it on flickr. I would get depressed there.
Do they have broadband Internet there? Without it freelancers can also forget about it.
Most are missing the point here. The point is certain people still live in a vacuum and the effects are well, obvious. Communities dieing and what not.
And then they blame others for that. City x took our jebs/puple! That's funny..
This article is not the exception but the norm. It is an interesting case because even when you are paid to be there and technically wanted to be there, you are still chased away. Feel free to ask people who have tried to make the switch on their own to similar places and they will tell you how it went down.
I agree about the incentives. The small county I lived in gave incentives for a Ford dealer, which didn't even last 6 months, as the owner was arrested for fraud. It seems he was stealing the social security numbers of potential customers (you know the drill, apply for financing, then get denied...). Bogus bank.
If a small town gives incentives, then there should be a minimum five year that that business should actually be in business or the money is returned. Even if it is a mom-and-pop operation, the owners will still be contributing back to the community if there isn't another community close by.
I agree with the comments about the competition. In 2004, I was doing economic development for a small, poor suburb of Dallas, and that was part of my recommendations on the city should contribute incentives - if it was unique and would diversify the economy; if it was not, and would cannibalize and existing business, no. There are only so many convenience stores and Mexican (it was Texas, after all!) a place can support!
I also wonder about that family. Sure, they wanted to live a life without crime, but I can hardly imagine that someone from Miami can get used to North Dakota. Why don't they try rural Florida instead?
At least Hazelton is famous now, maybe the right kind of people will move there in the future
It almost sounds to me like the family viewed themselves as the "saviors" of the town and resented that the townspeople didn't throw rose petals at their feet.
I wonder if the incentives themselves didn't rile up the locals. Imagine if your a local struggling to make it and suddenly people from outside are given $20k for housing and $50k for a new business. I wouldn't be happy either. It's one thing to give tax breaks or even free vacant land, but to hand over cash is a different matter. While I applaud these towns for trying to bring in new people, bringing in businesses first is a better way. People will move to where their is employment(or beaches).
I wonder if the incentives themselves didn't rile up the locals. Imagine if your a local struggling to make it and suddenly people from outside are given $20k for housing and $50k for a new business. I wouldn't be happy either. It's one thing to give tax breaks or even free vacant land, but to hand over cash is a different matter. While I applaud these towns for trying to bring in new people, bringing in businesses first is a better way. People will move to where their is employment(or beaches).
Yes, that too. I remember a small town in the hinterland here which faces the same problems and thus a few years ago decided to lure Brazilian families to move over there (the Portuguese themselves move away from the hinterland, no future there). They built new houses for them so that all the Brazilians had to do was move in, while the locals had old homes and mortgages to pay off. Some were quite pissed.
I live in SD. I've lived out here for over 6 years in two different towns. One has over 6,000 people in it and the other has 1,300 in it. I've seen first-hand that the smaller the town, the more isolated and insular the people are. No, they do not go out of their way to welcome you. It is more of a wait and see attitude on their part. Even when I drive to other small towns here in SD (less than 500 people), they still stop and stare. I'll just wave and drive on. I find the current town I live in (1300) is still a challenge at times to deal with. Even the sheriff calls it "Peyton Place". But I feel it's a price worth paying if you want to get out of some hell-hole. To be fair, people for the most part keep to themselves out here. I personally don't want to know all the dirt that's going on - that's why I don't frequent the local shops unless I have to. And when I do go, people are pretty sociable. Small town life is definitely not for everyone, especially here in the Dakota's. Having grew up & lived most of my life in NY, I too would be suspicious of someone wearing some gold and driving a Lexus from Florida (or NY, CA, etc.) that's moved out to the middle of nowhere. People out here don't appreciate you bringing your old ways and mindset of how things were "back home". This now is your home and if you can't accept that, time to move on which I believe they have made a wise decision.
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Without it freelancers can also forget about it.
