[Vision2020] The Future
Phil Nisbet
pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com
Fri Jul 1 09:14:13 PDT 2005
Tom
You can have all the little stores in downtown that you dream of and it will
not replace any lose of high paying University Salaries. And other
Universities are snapping up what this one either turns away or ships to
other locations.
Just as an example, the plastics industry is moving to include
nanotechnology into its designs to make nano-composite materials that will
help to improve the life of products. If a plastic bummer is stronger than
steel and has half the weight, energy savings result. If a nano-composite
can make a house less flammable, lives are saved and inert nano-composites
can be used to replace more toxic fire retardants.
So the plastics industry sees growth in those types of materials going from
less than 1% of their sales to 30-40% of their sales in the next decade,
from a current sales of just under a $100,000,000 to in excess of 4 trillion
dollars.
University of Alaska Fairbanks just snagged $17,000,000 in a grant to study
just one aspect of nanotech composites. University of Pennsylvania picked
up some research initially done here in Moscow and got a DOE grant for about
ten million to look at how nano particles could assist in nuke waste
disposal. Heck, the NIST of the Department of Commerce is handing away
$600,000,000 a year in grants and do we have any active here in Moscow?
You have to sell one heck of a lot of Wild Women Traders dresses or a pot of
Tie Die T-shirts to equal even a fraction of whats out there in terms of
research money, let alone the potential for spin off technology businesses
that this kind of work could be bringing in.
If we keep losing jobs at U of I and refuse to get in touch with the future
of technology, this will end up being nothing more than an admin center for
branch campuses that get all the good jobs and all the Research Grants. How
many shops can we have in Downtown, Tom, if the University loses more jobs
and payroll?
The reason that the non-conforming businesses are siting in downtown is that
the business climate here makes downtown space cheap. Housing costs are
through the roof here and what sort of disposable income do you think that
kids making minimum wage at Wendys or Tri-State have once they pay their
landlords? Half the school year population is living hand to mouth and we
offer no better paying jobs to them. Want to see non-conforming uses move?
Increase disposable income by getting some real jobs in here. If downtown
businesses could make more profits, they would of a matter of course push
those other businesses out and expand.
How many jobs will beating the CCers up and forcing them to leave bring in?
How many jobs will turning Wallmart out end up ponying up here in Moscow?
And its not that I concur with Doug Wilsons ideology or that I am in love
with Wally Worlds stores, I just see people chasing their tails and
refusing to deal with real economic development issues. This area needs
jobs and yet this very list felt free to jump all over Barbara and claim she
was part of an evile conspiracy for even suggesting that we need economic
development. As the person in charge of Economic Development in the county,
rather than assist her and get some desirable growth, she ends up fighting
an uphill battle to get even a few things going in the Alturas Park.
So stop whining about downtown and tell us, what sort of development should
we be looking at? How should we as a community get with the University to
see that it ships no more jobs out to Boise or CDA? How should we go about
attracting firms to move here and use our access to a large intellectual
community to increase hob opportunity here?
Thats what the FUTURE is about, not NSA or LOGOS or any of the other
piddling issues that absorb your time.
Phil Nisbet
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