I’ll write over the next few posts about the state of the economy in Whitewater. I mentioned economic problems as one of the challenges facing Whitewater when I wrote that
Our municipal government is narrow-minded, with a poor grasp of economics, and clings to burdensome regulations that make Whitewater unattractive to businesses. We gain housing, but lose industry: a recipe for perpetual second-class status. Our economic development is less about a free market economy than about any number of empty municipal gestures. We could hang birdhouses, or painted chairs and wooden fish, from our lampposts forever and still businesses would close and go elsewhere.
The recent completion of a roadway Bypass (could it have been any more aptly but ominously named than ‘bypass?’) around Whitewater diverts customers from our merchants. (A special note to every resident who looked forward to the competition of the Bypass to reduce traffic along Main Street: you got what you wanted, but lost traffic doesn’t put food on anyone’s table.)
I will consider the demographics and economic metrics of our city, as part of my analysis. Still and all, sometimes the best way to understand a community is to walk around and see what it looks like. That’s where I’ll begin, starting Monday.