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Economic Opportunities and Challenges
for the Central Catskills

Telecommunications

Telecommunications offers a unique opportunity for rural development. It represents a tool with which rural businesses and citizens can directly participate in national and global economies by allowing urban-based industries and customers to access rural products, services, and markets more easily.

• The Role of Telecommunications in Rural Economic Development - part of an overview of rural telecommunications by AeRie (Applied Rural Telecommunications), which provides rural communities the tools they need to apply telecommunications to meet their community and economic development goals

• Future Possibilities for Communication Services in Rural Communities - This paper that talks about how physical distance, social isolation, and small community sizes pose numerous obstacles to rural economic development and how telecommunications help overcome these obstacles by linking rural communities with urban communities and resources.

• Rural Broadband Access: Congress Finally Barks Up the Right Tree - As a part of its rural broadband initiative, the Federal Communications Commission is exceptionally active in making high-speed Internet services in rural areas a high priority.

Cultural & Heritage Tourism

According to Jack Walter, former president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, heritage tourism "is the fastest growing category of travel in the United States. Heritage travelers spend twice as much as average tourists and are extraordinarily sensitive to unique and fragile community cultures and resources. Because heritage travelers are interested in authentic, real, natural and interesting experiences, communities do not need to build theme parks or other single-purpose infrastructure in order to attract their business. It goes without saying that historic preservation, heritage development, travel and tourism, and economic development groups have figured out that heritage tourism presents enormous opportunities."

• Heritage Tourism: A Timely Marriage of History and Economics - This article from Preservation lists five principles to guide communities in developing successful heritage tourism programs while preserving and enhancing fragile resources: 1. Focus on authenticity and equality. 2. Preserve and protect resources. 3. Make sites come alive. 4. Find the fit between your community and tourism. 5. Collaborate.

• Tourism Trends for the 1990's - This site states that heritage and cultural tourism is emerging as the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry. Heritage tourists represent an upscale market of consumers. The kinds of amenities they desire are often what keeps tourism dollars in the local economy.

• HandMade in America - craftspeople, community leaders, educators, and business people joining together in active partnership to promote and develop the handcraft industry in Asheville and Western North Carolina. By bringing together individuals and organizations throughout the region in a variety of projects, HandMade in America is a way for Western North Carolina to return to its roots - handmade objects - while generating over $122 million annually.

Historic Preservation

• The Economic Benefits of Historic Residential Districts - The Los Angeles Conservancy has compiled the most pertinent studies nationwide on the economic impacts of historic residential districts such as a case study in Richmond, Virginia where one historic district's assessment total made a quantum leap upward by 245%, compared to a 8.9% increase in the citywide aggregate during the same period.

• Profiting From The Past: Study Finds Georgia Makes Cents of History - This news release by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation describes a "study which examines the economic impact of historic preservation in the state, reports that preservation is an economic powerhouse that creates jobs, brings tourist dollars to communities, creates resources for investment in homes and small businesses, and revitalizes downtown business districts." Click here to view the study in its entirety.

• Profiting from Preservation - This study of the economic benefits of preservation in a rural area in Virginia clearly indicates that communities profit from preservation. The low public investment in preservation generates an excellent return to the local economy and to a community’s high quality of life. The study indicates that renovation of historic structures contributed millions of dollars to local household income and created many new jobs.

The Cost of Rural Sprawl

• The Three Myths of Growth - "While growth does increase the tax base, it does so at a substantial cost to taxpayers...New development requires public infrastructure in the form of roads, sewers, water, electricity, schools, parks, police, fire protection, and other services. If new development does not pay the full cost of its impact on the community, then the public ends up subsidizing growth. Public funds are depleted and taxes go up." Planning Commissioners Journal

• Sprawl and Land Use - This paper by the Rural Heritage Program suggests combating sprawl through protecting the economic viability of historic downtowns and neighborhoods and preserving the countryside and local community character.

• Stopping Sprawl by Growing Smarter - This summary about sprawl and its impacts argues that, economically, environmentally, and socially, sprawl is spawning some of the costliest problems America faces.

• Vermont Forum On Sprawl - These remarks on rural sprawl include a discussion on how resort development has altered the character of Vermont communities and overwhelmed local services. "In spite of the passage of state laws to help address this situation, resort communities are often ill-equipped to cope with the pressures brought on from sophisticated developers and ski resort companies."

• They Can't Do That (Can They?!!) - This multiple-choice quiz from the University of Connecticut states economic studies show that most residential development creates increased needs for community services such as fire, police, education and public works that are not covered by the tax revenue from new homes.

• Transitions: New Incentives for Rural Communities - "Some rural communities have turned to recreation for their dominant economic base. Yet large-scale recreation has often completely transformed the communities that rely on it...Once an area is discovered by outsiders, it is often beyond the power of local residents to prevent major sprawl and land development. Individual landowners are pressured to develop their land before the land boom dies. Large numbers of transient visitors tax the road, water, and sewage treatments systems far beyond the ability of full-time residents to pay. A few people get rich; most pay higher taxes and accept low-paying jobs or move out. Can a community with a high recreation potential benefit from that potential without destroying the very things that make the community attractive to its residents? This paper suggests that the answer is yes, but only if new institutions are developed that give people an incentive to cooperate rather than fight over their alternative goals for their towns."

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