Comments by sciguy
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Posted on August 30 at 11:06 p.m.
That's quite an economic plan you have there, LifeGoesOn. Support Emporia businesses by ensuring a population so poor they can't afford anything else.
There are some professional and creative jobs in Emporia. There used to be more--such as when Birch and its predecessor employed a sizable computer programming staff here.
Relying on retail only, or even retail and manufacturing, is a losing proposition for any city in Emporia's position. We need a diversified economy that is capable of weathering difficult economic conditions and that employs a wide variety of lower and higher skilled jobs and professional positions. Retail and manufacturing (whatever hasn't been moved to Mexico/China) can be a part of that economy, but they can not be the foundation of it.
Fifty years ago, a heavy manufacturing economy made sense here--but it hasn't made sense in almost thirty years. It is time for Emporia to refocus on building the economy that will take it through the 21st century--not to try and rebuild the economy that took it through the 20th.
Posted on August 28 at 6:27 p.m.
Perhaps Lifegoeson can try doing some economic calculations. What happens to the economic health of the community if the production and professional jobs go away and are replaced by retail?
Who, exactly, will be shopping at those stores? Retail jobs aren't going to bring in the kind of growth needed to sustain retail businesses.
Posted on August 28 at 3:43 a.m.
Perhaps what we need is better language to describe employment positions.
A "Job" would be a career-track position that pays a wage or salary at least high enough for a young parent in a dual-income home to get by on. Generally: management, professional, creative, or advanced trades.
A...what shall we call it..."Assistant Job", "Subjob", what have you...is a non-career-track position that pays a wage or salary at or below 2x minimum wage. Generally: retail floor/register jobs, non-licensed positions, non-management food service, and entry-level heavy labor.
What Emporia needs is JOBS. What Lowes will bring is perhaps four JOBS and a couple of dozen SUBJOBS. And probably two to three of those JOBS will be filled by existing Lowes employees.
Posted on August 26 at 3:09 a.m.
Lowes will no doubt be part of the wave of companies that will be shutting underperforming stores as the current economic problems worsen.
I would not hold my breath that they will be opening a store in a town that is already in such financial difficulty. Perhaps a few years from now, but if they open it before Emporia's job market improves then you can probably expect them to go Cracker Barrel fairly soon.
Posted on August 5 at 11:02 p.m.
Good. Show them what the life they are choosing to lead will become if they do not learn from their actions.
A life in chains.
Posted on July 29 at 5:44 p.m.
"Otherwise, when inflation is brought under control and the economy swings again toward stability, Emporia could find itself no longer an economically healthy community but only an outpost of faceless national retailers."
Surely you don't think Emporia is currently economically healthy. If so, you need to take a look around town, and attend a few city government meetings.
Posted on July 21 at 2:58 p.m.
The police and community should keep an eye on these "children" from now on. Cruelty to animals is one rung on the ladder toward serial killer.
Posted on July 18 at 9:04 p.m.
It will be nice to see Brittz Salon expand into a larger facility. Walburns is smart to add more than just weight and fitness training to their offerings.
Posted on July 17 at 4:32 p.m.
What is really bewildering is that they aren't even offering it to LIBRARIES, and I doubt that schools are getting it any more either.
Kudos to the Topeka Capitol-Journal and the Wall Street Journal, both of which had solicitations to us within a week of the Star's failure.
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Posted on September 5 at 12:16 a.m.
Mid-20th-century is a little optomistic. I know of this happening in a small town in Southeast MO as recently as the late 1980s. Angry phone calls from community members asking why so-and-so (the relative I knew) had a non-white friend in visiting from Kansas City, and warning that he'd better be out of town...yep, by sundown.
It is stunning to think that kind of attitude existed as recently as the 1980s--and, as far as I know, it might still.
On ‘Sundown towns’ focus of Bonner lecture