When our Lake Oconee first backed up in 1979 and flooded valuable river bottoms and farmland, it created an entirely new economic engine for our county. As small lakefront developments began to emerge, some saw greater potential with large yet-to-be developed tracts of shoreline property. Pete Baily and Bill Harrington paved the way with our first gated golf course community, Port Armour. After that, we became known as Georgias best kept secret followed by the Souths next Hilton Head. All of that sounded great but my very first fear was that if we werent careful, we would neglect our existing local middle-income manufacturing economy and our proud local community might decline into an impoverished second-class service industry for newcomers...much as illustrated in this link. The difference here is that they had a natural advancement transition from slavery, to servitude, to modern service jobs. Ours, on the other hand, would be an economic status decline chosen by the ones entrusted to create and attract suitable jobs and a stable economy for all of Greene County. Service industry jobs should certainly be a part of the new local economic equation. However, it should not be the predominate one. We really should take a look at the motives of the ones weve entrusted to foster our economy over the past 20+ years. Have they done their best to diversify our economy? Or, have they done what was best suited for their own interests? Take a look at this link and tell me what you think. While its not a condemnation of their status quo, it does reflect a great economic disparity. Is this what we want for the county at large going forward? I think we can all do better for our younger generation. thestate/2014/12/25/3893748/camera-captures-the-fleeting-shadows.html?sp=%2F99%2F132%2F154%2F760%2F1049%2F
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 00:36:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015