[Vision2020] Some comments for Jeff Harkins

[Mark Solomon]

Jeff,

A point of clarification is needed here re 
population numbers. Somehow, a conflation of City 
of Moscow and Latah County numbers seems to have 
occurred. I'm going to admit I'm too busy at the 
moment to dig out the census numbers but to my 
knowledge there has never been a negative growth 
period in Moscow. There has been a 15 year trend 
in shrinking rural Latah County populations 
(including populations within the county's small 
cities only now reversing in a few) that has been 
precipitated by changes within the rural natural 
resource based economy due to a combination of 
market forces, federal land use policies, 
corporate decision-making (sometimes seen as a 
subset of market forces) and automation of 
previously labor-intensive job-producing 
industries.

So yes, there may have been a county-wide 
negative growth at some point, but Moscow has 
only seen a steady increase which to my knowledge 
is very close to the 1% reported by Mr. Holmquist.

Mark Solomon

>Also in response to BJ, you wrote:
>>To maintain the status quo in
>>growth (.6% to .7%), we must find a way to house
>>about 150 - 200 families each year in Latah
>>County - that is a mathematical fact.  The
>>challenge in all of this is that those families
>>must have a way to feed and house themselves -
>>they must have economic opportunity.
>
>The mathematical fact is a conditional one: IF 
>growth continues at a rate of .6% to .7% per 
>year, then 150 - 200 families will need housing. 
>The mathematical fact is not the claim that 
>â*œwe must find a way to house about 150 - 200 
>families each year in Latah County.â* It takes 
>more than just the conditional, mathematical 
>fact to support that value claim. First, it 
>takes the truth of the antecedent of the 
>conditional: that Moscow will continue to grow 
>at the same rate. Second, it takes other value 
>claims, like â*œgrow or die,â* with which folks 
>like BJ and I would disagree.

I think I have responded to this point a couple 
of times, so I will keep my response brief. My 
point on the growth issue was to refute the 
"highly emotional but devoid of fact" comment by 
Mr. Antone Holmquist.  If you need Holmquist's 
quote, let me know.  Agreed, the mathematical 
argument is conditional - conditional on the 
growth rate.  Before we digress too  far, please 
note that the rate that I used was the average 
growth rate for the last 25 years or so.  If we 
look at more recent history, we have years which 
reported negative growth.