The director of a pro-growth business organization is seldom invited to guest lecture the no-growth grassroots, but Michael Harvey of the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development (TJPED) did just that September 18 at a meeting of Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP).
ASAP vainly opposed Albemarle County’s decision to join TJPED, which is funded by 80 banks, utilities, realtors, and other businesses, including UVA and community colleges, plus eight county governments. Nonetheless, when Harvey took over TJPED, he called Jack Marshall, president of ASAP.
“I had never encountered a group like ASAP before,” explains Harvey, who had managed an economic development budget in Knoxville 10 times his current one. “I thought it was important to immerse myself in the community to try to better understand what I was up against and how to move forward.”
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"I would rather have them recruit someone to the region than employ someone in Bath, England, or India," said Michael Harvey. |
Thus, an amiable but slightly nervous-seeming Harvey told audience members that “growth for the sake of growth is counterproductive to our goals. We need to focus on quality over quantity”—high-wage, low-footprint businesses in the region that stretches from Culpeper to Nelson to Louisa counties.
Since incoming businesses are only about 20 percent of the region’s annual growth, TJPED supports existing local businesses, entrepreneurs and workers. Harvey pointed out that “18,000 people leave the region every day to work somewhere else,” while local employers want more people than they can find and pockets of poverty persist. How can we keep those commuters closer to home and connect the underemployed with employers? “Is it transportation?” Harvey asked. “Skills? To me, that’s economic development—resolve local inefficiencies, take that local guy and get him into a higher-paid position with a chance to improve.” Thus, he hoped that TJPED and ASAP “might not see eye-to-eye on some things, but we might see eye-to-shoulder.”
Dave Shreve, leading the discussion for ASAP, was “pleasantly surprised” by TJPED’s emphasis on workforce training. Nonetheless, some eyes still only saw shoulders. What if local workers didn’t want or couldn’t do those jobs? “I would rather have them recruit someone to the region,” answered Harvey, “than employ someone in Bath, England, or India.” He chuckled at predictions that such moves could make the county’s population leap exponentially, noting that baby boomers are dying off.
Marshall observed, “An essential correlate of what ASAP’s organizing for, a sustainable population size, is an economic system that doesn’t demand endless growth and taking of the environment.” Harvey said he “can’t apologize” that economic growth, including attracting new businesses, is one of TJPED’s goals. He also could not say how much relocated workers cost in new infrastructure or environmental degradation versus the wages they spend.
Asked ASAP board member Steve Levine, wouldn’t sending workers to Wal-Mart’s distribution center undermine mom-and-pops that enhanced local life?
“I’m not playing God,” Harvey said, by supporting one business model over another. “I’m just trying to facilitate an opportunity.”
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