Spinning Plates

The accompanying video offers the startling statistic that the upper one per cent of our nation owns 90% of the wealth of the nation.

In light of that figure, one should ask how much of the nation's upper one per cent has chosen to live in New Albany, and what are the consequences of this disparity when assessing our seeming inability to keep the plates of our community spinning?

Undoubtedly the fiscal problems New Albany faces are not unique. The manufacturing base of this country has been off-shored, and the replacement jobs have often been out of reach to those displaced due to their prior, now irrelevant training. I don't believe we can create meaningful prosperity by shuffling an increasing number of cheap imported goods among ourselves.

We can only build a prosperous future by building a sustainable economy which offers needed goods and services to a populace that understands the need for this cooperative equation. People who are stretched to the limit by layoffs, downsizing, rising health care costs, and a throttled civic compact which sees good only in lower taxes, won't participate in a vibrant local economy. They understandably see salvation in Wal-Mart's low prices, and value meals at fast food joints.

New Albany's up swinging commercial district is testament to the vision some have shown. It is also a testament to the pump-priming value of the Caesar/Horseshoe foundation's benevolence in regard to the YMCA. We need to heed that lesson and support the second phase of downtown revitalization.

Last night we went to Wick's and were shutout by a two hour wait. That would have been acceptable to my wife and I but we were accompanied by two grandchildren for whom a two hour wait at the bar would have been mutually distressing. It seems that New Albany has proven to be fertile ground for restaurants and bars; with Phase Two on the horizon we need to look at a broader vision for downtown. If that broader vision is realized, it can and will contribute to a more sustainable local economy that will benefit us all.