Whale Hunting In Greensboro

Municipalities have for years thrown $Millions of Dollars of incentives into luring giant whales, aka corporations, in the name of economic development and in almost every instance the end result is a world wide economic war pitting city against city, state against state and nation against nation with the only winners being the whales who always avoid permanent capture. It would appear they simply allow themselves to be captured only long enough to be fattened up before swimming back out to the freedom of the seas.

In the comments to Ed Cone's post, Roll Your Own, David Hoggard writes:

"Here's a potential midget whale...

Double Hung, LLC is poised for tremendous growth in 2014. We are, for the uninitiated, a 13 year-old company that restores historic windows (and doors) throughout a large swath of the the Southeastern US (and beyond).

We are historic preservation. Specialized, passionate, driven and well respected in the niche of preservation trades.

A group of investors, bored of making money off of other money, think we - as a true, labor intensive trade - smell pretty good and want to expand on the idea. Based around the nucleus of my company, we are looking to create a community of historic preservation tradesmen (masons, roofers, plasterers, landscapers, mill working, wood wrights, etc) within a compact 'campus' somewhere in the vicinity. Been laying the groundwork for months.

THAT is the model, I think. Pods of small niche market companies who are inter-related. A labor force that creates value with their hands.

I'll keep you posted as we progress."

I couldn't agree more. Only with tangible products which have lasting value can our local economy or any economy become fully restored. Sadly, for too long, the economic development "gurus" seem not to have understood that reality, and in doing so they have allow us to fall far behind the nation and the world.

The same model which David writes of can be applied towards the manufacturing of durable goods and quality handmade products.

This is the direction in which the Greensboro City Council should be looking, not towards performing arts centers, shopping centers, Piedmont Triad International, downtown development or industrial parks 20 miles away from where the citizens of Greensboro's poorest neighborhoods live.