The Idea (and Ideal) Of True Progress
We traveled down to New York University last week for three presentations about the Catskills for city, state and federal policy wonks. The story’s on page one, outlining how well things have gone on a regional basis since the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement ten years ago, but also how much more needs to be done to better all our towns and villages; how good our water still is, but what we need to do to keep it that way; and how we stand economically, as well as where we started slipping even before the onslaught of the current recession.
The presentations, by top analysts in each field, will likely be sniffed at and dismissed by some who’ll say that they were created by people who don’t live here, who are not of our community, etc. But that’s just a knee-jerk reaction that represents, at a base level, a fundamental fear of the sorts of changes life entails. Better, we think, to look at the date presented, and the findings, for take-away lessons we can hold onto and judge over time…
That the MOA created a number of good programs in the area, from septic replacements and repairs to wastewater treatment plants for most of our communities, goes without saying. As does the fact that we’ve all done better for ourselves, at least on a municipal level, by working together more, by meeting on a monthly basis, by actually starting to pay attention to what’s going on on a regional, and not just town by town, community by community basis. But that we need more activity in this direction, and greater city-funding to ensure bigger and better programs, is also a given… along with such facts as the limitations we’ve reached not having enough people to do septic replacements in the area, or the way there’s no training apparatus to enable us to gain such expertise locally.
. That any worsening of water quality will not only effect the city, forcing it to spend billions building a filtration plant, but also likely result in localized health hazards… as well as the ripple effects of higher water use costs in an already maxed out downstate metro area would have, from cut program aid to more people moving up here.
That countering fears of mass unemployment, our population is better off than the average Joes and Joans of all our larger regional counties, similarly rural areas, and much of the state and country. We’ve got new businesses and adequate economic growth under our belts as a result of our better relationship with New York. But also worse wages than practically anywhere else one can think of. And a worsening retail climate that some are saying is now over-reliant on outside, tourist dollars.
We bring this all up because we remember past junctures where new facts and choices were brought forth ten years ago. In particular, we recall attending a meeting of local business leaders and elected officials to discuss a New York City proposal that it pay prevailing wages, based on a downstate scale, for all the work it would be doing throughout the watershed. And the local folks turning it down because they were worried such higher wages might create a “bubble” that would hurt local employers.
Damned if that decision hasn’t now come back to bit us… via both lower wages, and the fact that many have chosen to move elsewhere for better paid work, leaving our region understaffed. Which in turn, has limited the amount of money available for local businesses, making the growth of big box stores on the edges of our region that much more disastrous to the small mom and pop stores we’ve maintained in the Catskills.
Why bring all this up now?
Because, first of all, we feel we are again at an important juncture, both locally and globally. The life we’re facing ten years from now is very likely going to be as unpredictably different from today’s point-of-view as our current world of constant computer use, $4 a gallon gasoline, and blistering us vs them battles between and within communities is from Catskills life in the 1990s. As a result, we think we have to be very careful about how we shape the future based on current attitudes.
It is our belief that the best place to start would be to look at what we want to keep the same and build from there. Because once gone, we won’t be able to retrieve what we allow to slip away. Furthermore, we think we should continuously look to what is best for our communities’ newer members, in age or investment, because they’re the ones who will still be there to carry the weight of our decisions in the future.
Secondly, in terms of why we feel this all needs attention, is our belief that the more seriously we take the unknown quantities of the future, the greater chance we have of escaping the current divisions based on our histories. The only way to share our love for this special corner of the earth, in the long run, will come from looking ahead, and not protecting our already etched-out positions.
In other words, it’s time for true progress.
PS