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Economy

Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Infrastructure, Laws/Regulations, Local Government

Foxconn Deal Even Worse Than Most State Capitalism

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Over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jason Stein reports Foxconn package cost Wisconsin eight times as much per job as similar 2017 state jobs deals: To land the massive Foxconn factory, Gov. Scott Walker has committed the state to paying more than eight times as much per job as Wisconsin will provide under similar job creation deals struck…

City, Development, Economy, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Planning

What a Print Advertiser Means (and Doesn’t Mean)

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So, if one lives in Whitewater, he or she may find a shopper-advertiser in the mailbox, with ads from (mostly) out-of-city advertisers. Even if one omits the publisher’s own ads, and public service announcements, the ratio of out-of-city to Whitewater ads is something like 3 to 1. Indeed, the largest ad, on the front page,…

Babbittry, Culture, Development, Economy, Janesville, Local Government, Newspapers, Poverty, Press

‘Don’t worry about them – the rest of us feel great!‘

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A doctor walks into a town of one-hundred people, and finds that half of them are pale, feverish, and vomiting blood. The physician calls out to a community leader, “Send for help, you have an epidemic on your hands.” The community leader replies, “Oh no, don’t worry about them – the rest of us feel…

Babbittry, City, Demographics, Economy, Poverty

Contrast

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Consider the contrast between how the Janesville Gazette‘s publisher want his city to be seen, and how an economics reporter describes the Janesville area: Janesville Gazette editorial, A question for Janesville to consider: [James] Fallows and his wife learned the differences between success and failure during a 54,000-mile journey across the United States in a single-engine…

City, Economy, Politics

The Winnowing Transition

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Today’s a good day to post about the transition through which Whitewater is now going. It’s a winnowing transition, in which many political and economic positions formerly popular are slowly being swept away. (There are, in fact, few leading public officials even from a decade ago still around. Those who are operate in conditions of…

Business, City, Culture, Economy

The Market

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There’s an editorial at Royal Purple that contends a future Grocery store should accommodate students. The editorial makes sound points for pricing outreach to students, but my focus here isn’t merely a supermarket or co-op, but the general economic market of Whitewater and nearby, smaller towns (some of which are part of the local school…

America, Economics, Economy, Education, Labor, Newspapers

A Telling Comparison

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People in small towns, nearly everywhere in this country, have access to national programming & news on television and online. As easily as one could subscribe online to something like the Janesville Gazette, one could subscribe to the Chicago Tribune or Washington Post. Imagine, then, a choice between editorials in the Gazette and the Post…

City, Economy, Local Government, University

How a Campus Masks Local Mistakes

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Many small towns, looking for something to attract visitors and newcomers, probably dream about the possibility of a college campus. Whitewater has a public university campus, and the majority of the city’s residents are students at that school. Thousands of students in the city assure a steady stream of retail traffic we would not otherwise…

City, Culture, Economy

Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 11: ‘Fiestas and Apple Orchards’)

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This is the eleventh post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. In the Wall Street Journal, Pennsylvanian Crispin Sartwell writes of Fiestas and Apple Orchards: Small-Town Life Before Trump (“My corner of Pennsylvania was thriving again—until immigration agents began carting people away”): I live in York Springs,…

City, Culture, Economy, University

Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 9: Small-Town Harvards)

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This is the ninth post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. Alana Semuels asks Could Small-Town Harvards Revive Rural Economies? Her contention, as she succinctly describes it:   College campuses and educational institutions can bolster the economies of small towns that otherwise would be struggling like many…

City, Culture, Economy, Local Government

Whitewater, Cultures & Communications, June 2017 (Part 1: Introduction)

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This is the first post in a series considering related local topics of cultures & communications within the city. I’ll start with an introductory series of assumptions, some I’ll flesh out in greater detail in the series, but all of which state plainly my views. 1.  In America’s current political climate, it’s national politics that necessarily…