I've heard this bit of Madison lore in a couple of permutations. Back in the 1960s, a contractor on a new project was planning to pay his workers wages higher than the local going rate. One of the city fathers (has Madison ever had a "city mother", a powerful woman going around and laying down the law?) went to the contractor and told him he couldn't do that. Pay your workers more, said the concerned civic leader, and everybody else will have to pay their workers more to compete. And heaven knows Madison doesn't want competition.
This story jumps to mind as I read Aaron Renn, who asks whether cities really want economic development and the change inherent in growth:
economic struggle can be a cultural unifier in a community that people tacitly want to hold onto in order to preserve civic cohesion.
Jane Jacobs took it even further. As she noted in The Economy of Cities, “Economic development, whenever and wherever it occurs, is profoundly subversive of the status quo.” And it isn’t hard to figure out that even in cities and states with serious problems, many people inside the system are benefiting from the status quo.
They have political power, an inside track on government contracts, a nice gig at a civic organization or nonprofit, and so on. All of these people, who are disproportionately in the power broker class of most places, potentially stand to lose if economic decline is reversed. That’s not to say they are evil, but they all have an interest to protect [Aaron Renn, "Do Cities Really Want Economic Development?" Governing, July 2014].
Replace cities with South Dakota (o.k., and do with does and want with wants). Does South Dakota really want a huge class of well-paid workers who are not bound by local history or state assistance? Does South Dakota really want to invite a creative class that might revitalize local economies but would also include a bunch of people who don't look or pray or vote the way everyone else does? Does South Dakota really want to build an education system that guides students to become something other than cogs in a managerial machine and an economy that invites those independent thinkers to stay and thrive?
It seems nuts that a community of any size would throttle economic development and hold back its own general welfare. But combine concentrated power with an identity built on struggle (oh, life on the prairie is so hard, we're just barely hanging on, just like our homesteading ancestors...), and you can get a community that chooses a plodding status quo over dynamic growth.
I think it is clear sense of protecting what you have. I know in my town, we wallow along with no clear sense of growth or bringing in new business because it may hurt the businesses already here. The problem is that this hurts long term growth. One would like to say the problem would become less as the bigger the city, but lets face it. I am sure Sanford, Premiere Bank, and Citibank are all protected industries in the big city.
OK students, now you have a post that promotes Neo-Fascism.
MJL is saying what I've been thinking since the primary. South Dakotans signed the Raise the Wage petitions in droves. Yet the Dem party chose a candidate that votes against labor. This smells of a way to keep the wages down and keep anything but selected businesses out. Funny in an unfunny way.
This is a wise post. Jane Jacobs is very insightful. Fear is an extremely powerful motivator.
This brings to mind something I noticed over the past 25 years: back then Madison and Brookings seemed to be very much alike. Then Brookings took off, and left Madison in the dust. What happened?
Socialism drives Brookings: it's just that simple.
Back in the 80s Hardees wanted to come into Madison but the city fathers said no. So Hardees approached the people who owned the gas station and café just across the street from the park on the west side of town. You see, the 34 bypass separated the city (where the park is) and the county (where the station and café were). The city fathers didn't want DQ to have competition. So the corner was sold to Hardees. Since then McDucks has arrived and so has Tacky Juans and Subway and several gas stations that have take out, but DQ is going just as strong as ever.
Now there's a petition drive to bring HyVee in to Madison -- and there's talk that the people who own Sunshine will close the store if there's competition. Madison is an interesting town. As one of you have already said, fear is a driving force -- but it's driving economic development away -- unless it's a thrift store. Go figure.
Anything not growing, or not adapting to changes, is dying.
Taco Johns came before Hardees, circa 1979.
Anne, is the Brookings–Madison difference as simple as I-29... which Madison missed out on when certain civic leaders objected to Senator Mundt's offer to bend the road at Sioux Falls and run it to Madison because they were afraid everyone would go shop in Sioux Falls? Or, if you peg the divergence at 25 years ago, did it happen because Janklow drastically narrowed DSU's mission while SDSU remained a complete university?
JeniW, is it possible to adapt to changes by appropriately and healthily downsizing? Does GDP have to grow for a community to stay healthy?
Downsizing can be a form of adapting to changes as long, has it has positive outcome. Does GDP have to grow to stay healthy, I guess it depends on the community.
My point is that when there is the inability, or unwillingness to adapt to changes, death will happen. If a community, or anything else, is unable or unwilling to adapt, then it dies either quickly or slowly. That is obvious by the number of communities that once were thriving, but now barely, or do not exist.
HyVee isn't coming to Madison and it has nothing to do with some fictitious threats or denial of a petition. Madison doesn't have the customer base to even get on HyVee's radar. You may have better luck with a Country Fair, a similar smaller chain, or even a co-op.
Madison's location is it's main downfall being situated between 3 larger economic centers. I'm sure there are many other factors but that is what drastically cuts the area to pull in customers. If a large chain wants to come to Madison, they will do it and no one is going to stop them. The fear mongering is nothing more than gossip.
Yeah, we have no need for a thrift store. Don't mind the Goodwill Truck shipping thousands of dollars of items out of the city every quarter(it will be in town in the next week), not to mention the overflowing bins located on main, near Nicky's, and near El Vaquero. Let's just keep letting that slip away while someone will fully fund a venture by taking worthless taxpayer assets and turning it into something good. It's a need that can't be filled by one of the many consignment shops in town.
"Stop making excuses and start looking for solutions."
--Stephenie Zamora
Sheldon, IA: population 5,119
~40 miles from larger economic centers of Spencer & Worthington
~60 miles from Sioux Falls and Sioux City
Has a HyVee AND a Fareway
Is the excuse that Madison can't compete economically anything other than anecdotal? It's trumpeted often, but I have yet to see any hard data to back it up. I can find several examples of similar cities that don't let their population and vicinity to larger towns get in the way of thriving retail and entertainment.
It's too late to divert the interstate to Madison, but we would make an ideal hub to connect the Brookings and Sioux Falls bike trail systems!
I'm working on that city mother thing. ;)
Solution #1: Elect Jennifer Wolff and Ashley Allen (and prior to that, keep the pressure on them to stay engaged with local politics).
Solution #2: Do exactly the kind of research that Wolff does, looking at comparable prairie towns, finding out what works and what doesn't in those towns, publicizing those lessons, and putting them to work in Madison.
Solution #3: Promote the bicycling tourism angle! The MS 150 makes Madison its midway point for a reason. Let's expand that push to summer-long tourism, encouraging people to make a weekend of it, enjoying bike meccas like Brookings and Sioux Falls and using Madison and Lake Herman State Park as a midway rural oasis. (And build that bike path all the way around Lake Herman!)
better not let rcjournalist sanborn hear about those stinkin bikes!
Sheldon, IA has a much larger population saturation in the immediate area. Accounting for Lake county and maybe a little more would be at most 15k people. Take the same area around sheldon and I bet it is pushing 30k+ people. Sioux county alone has 3x the population as Lake county. Also, if you notice, Hy-Vee only operates in SD along I-29. What other expenses get added by routing outside of that? And do they have lower operating expenses being an Iowa company? I don't doubt we could get another grocery store, I just don't think Hy-Vee is the most viable option to be pursuing. The new North side Wal-mart in Sioux Falls is going to throw a wrench in the mix for retail as well when it becomes even easier for people to commute in that direction for goods.
DB is correct.... It is public record that there is a legal non-compete between Hy-Vee and Sunshine after they bought the Sioux Falls Sunshine store. It expires in a few years. Until then, Fareway, Country Fare, and Coburns would be good ideas to investigate. I contacted a couple of these in 2010 for research for my local "Madison wants a big box/grocery store group" and found that it will not happen until we have a population of 10,000 and some tax incentives. Because Lewis, Shopko, and Dollar General serve as secondary grocery options, it will be hard to get another full service store to town.... But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try!
From a 2010 Hy-Vee press release:
Under the terms of the agreement, Sunshine Foods will close its store at 3809 East 10th Street in Sioux Falls. The company will continue to operate its downtown Sioux Falls store and stores in nine other communities: Brandon, Madison, Hartford, Tea, Lennox and Canton, South Dakota; Jackson and Madelia, Minnesota; and Rock Rapids, Iowa. Bosch said Sunshine is planning upgrades for some of its stores, including the downtown Sioux Falls store.
http://www.hy-vee.com/company/press-room/press-releases/hy-vee-acquires-sunshine-stores-in-sioux-falls-windom.aspx