IS IT TRUE? February 21, 2011
IS IT TRUE that other media sources are finally publishing articles about the vanishing population of the City of Evansville?…that it has only taken 50 years for them to start?…that finally the Courier and Press ran an editorial yesterday that addressed the topic of population declines?…that the Downtown loft program, Front Door Pride, the Pigeon Creek Greenway, a public smoking ban, Amazonia, Bosse Field, the LST and the Downtown arena were all cited in the article as efforts that have been made to make Evansville more attractive?…that population shrinkage is about people and not about stuff?…that with the exception of a public smoking ban which incidentally has NOT BEEN ADOPTED by the Evansville City Council that all of these things are targeted at tourists or at very small numbers of people?…that if these are the things that are being done to alleviate the symptom of population shrinkage that Evansville is seriously misguided?
IS IT TRUE that the Manhattan Institute released a study that concluded that the most influential attribute to the growth of a city is the SKILLS of its residents?…that not one of the things listed above does one thing to improve the SKILLS or educational attainment of so much as one Evansvillian?…that the same study concluded that SKILLED people look for cities that have good schools, safe neighborhoods, short commutes, and other SKILLED people when deciding where to live?…that not one of the things listed above does one thing to improve the schools, the safety of neighborhoods, or attracts or inspires other SKILLED people to choose Evansville as home?
IS IT TRUE that the Front Door Pride homes and the IDEA Home are absolutely stunning and setting neighborhood aside some of the best priced homes in America?…that selling homes for half of what they cost to build is not sustainable for local governments and benefits only a few people?…that price does not matter to young professionals ready to start a family unless the neighborhood schools are top performers and crime is minimal?…that if the FDP neighborhood had schools that compete with Scott Elementary on ISTEP performance and the low crime rates of northern Vanderburgh County that all of these houses would be sold at double the price?…that there is still the ugly reality that adding homes when the population is shrinking defies the logic of free markets?
IS IT TRUE that population flight really is a problem for the City of Evansville?…that breaking down the numbers for the first decade of the millennium reveals that Evansville shrunk by roughly 10 people per week when annexations are considered?…that some of these people left for better opportunities and others passed away?…that there are only two ways to grow a population?…that having babies and having people that move here are the only growth mechanisms available?…that an aging demographic as is typical for Evansville are rapidly getting beyond the age of having more babies?…that the growth of the population of Evansville will depend on being the choice of people who were not born here as a home?…that people choose where to live based on economic opportunity, safety, schools, and then on entertainment options?…that I have never ever know anyone to relocate to a city because of an arena, a ball field complex, a rain forest exhibit, or a WWII boat?…that if the City of Evansville does not start doing something to inspire economic opportunity that the exodus will continue?…that two arenas, five zoos, a hundred miles of bike paths, a chicken in every pot, a half priced house in a crime ridden neighborhood, or even consolidated government will not make up for the deficiency of career opportunities with a good future for young educated professionals.
IS IT TRUE that band aids and games will not solve the population problem? …that an intervention may just be required to get things on a path to growth?…that from an economic perspective it will take the equivalent of chemotherapy, followed by multiple organ transplants to really get the City of Evansville onto a path to relevance and prosperity?
Is it true that “skilled” is a very subjective term?
Is it true that a trip to monster.com yields a marketplace looking for rudimentary staff?
The words skilled in the Manhattan study was used to describe a skill or expertise that was clearly above a rudimentary level. We encourage you to read the entire study as the word skilled takes on more dimension when it is embedded in the complete document.
Why don’t we quit dancing around here. Just come right out with it! What skill sets do we need to increase here in Vanderburgh county?
I ask this question because I am tired of people beating up on the local (tri-state) workforce.
Any student of local history knows the rich history this area has had in commerce. The workers who made all that possible were not shipped in here by the trainload to do those jobs, they were, for the most part, of the home grown variety.
How many people reading this, who have retired, can look back at careers where they changed employers and skills more than once?
We turn out university graduates in large numbers here and many of them cannot find work. I know the people in this community and I know they have talents that go untapped. They have always risen to the occasion in the past, regardless of the type of industry that chose to locate here.
So lets quit crying about some perceived lack of ability of the local workforce to to do the jobs set before them, and instead focus our concentration on luring those jobs to the area.
Tell the local politicians that we do not need anymore taxpayer funded bling, what we need are jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
America’s best days lie ahead of her, not in her past. If you do not believe that I know you will not be starting a business of your own, and please do not run for elective office. Fish, cut bait, or get the hell out of the way!
I will give this a try. Our workforce to an outsider is the workforce that is currently available. Most of our best workers are presently employed and are not really in the market for a new job. The available workforce could use a lesson or two in life skills like showing up on time to work, attendance, and not stealing from their employers. I advise lots of businesses. One business that I am familiar with has two qualifications. One is to have a GED or high school diploma and the other is to pass a drug test. They have a 5% success rate hiring from applications. That is abysmal.
As for skills, I would say that the best skill is a high level of curiosity and the ability to think in a way that finds solutions to other peoples problems. That adds value that others can’t. We need to become a thinking society. From that will come solutions that will attract outside attention. Anyone can learn a robotic repetitive skill of about any kind. It is the ability to solve problems in elegant yet practical ways that build economies. Of course such people need to be able to raise funding to do this and be free of oppressive regulations and restrictions to thrive. If they are not eventually they will become brain drainers and head for other places.
Joe, that is beyond belief! And we are receiving cuts in education! To give you hope, I know a fine man who has worked with us for about a year off and on. He has a criminal record but has paid his debt and is now totally straight. He had a very diffcult time finding regular work because of his past but we were able to vouch for him and now he is working full time. I don’t want to sound like a pollyanna and the situation you described must be very frustrating. My point is that some people fall between the cracks, especially kids in school that could be real assets to this city. Throwing money toward education without a plan won’t help but taking more money out of the education system can’t help either. We have serious brain drains of all types.
The worst things to be in the local economy from an employment perspective are very highly educated with high skill levels and very lowly skilled with or without education. Evansville is notorious for having trailing spouses with MBA’s selling shoes or doing some other menial retail task. If we had 1,000 educated ambitious young professionals that we supposedly have shortages of like engineers, accountants, and technicians come to town we do not have the business base to do anything with even 50 of them. That is a problem. The skills that we need to attract to build a future can not find acceptable jobs and the skills that we seem to have an abundance of are not what attracts jobs to the area.
It is a real conundrum that needs some creative solutions with money backing them. This has been the case now for many years. Individuals on a one or two person basis can find a niche in which to flourish but building a cluster of relevance has just not happened.
Fish, cut bait…
Or work for the government: counting fishermen, counting fish, performance testing the fishing rods, inspecting the line for flaws, issuing fishing licenses, enforcing the licenses, analyzing the fishing stock and their collective “health”, changing and creating laws to protect the fish population from dwindling, setting size requirements, enforcing size requirements, inspecting bait sources, doling out incentives to make sure bait manufacturers owned by minorities are given a fair chance, etc, etc…
Never mind, Press, you got it all figured out…
I noticed that the study stated that large cities such as Detroit and Pittsburgh that depended on large manfacturing which had been lost, did not recover well. “Skilled” (highly educated) people did not navigate to such places. I am concerned that, although Evansville is not exactly a Detroit, there are similarities. We need to recognize that the phrase “business as usual” can not continue to apply. Indiana as a whole is guilty of trying to fix the employment problem by finding labor jobs first, probably because we have so many older laborers out of work with maybe 10-15 yrs work life left. With the exception of Purdue and some Indy and northern Indiana think tanks and other tech development centers, the whole state needs to understand that life is changing. My hope is that Evansville finds its uniqueness and the verve on which to sell itself. I see it occurring in small, isolated spots but not nearly enough. After reading the whole Manhattan study, it dawned on me that some of the contents applied to my unrest and uncertainty which I experienced not long after I moved here permanently. I wanted and expected more from the city than it was providing. Ironically, I see Evansville as having a great opportunity to be exactly what young, intelligent folks want and where they want to live. I see opportunity for short commutes and for good schools. I see 2 major 4 year universities and IV Tech. The crime rate in Evansville is much less than in downtown large cities. The first time I read through the desctiptive sentences that were pulled from the report, my impression was not a big metropolis but a small city. And Evansville is a small city. Lots to think about. Lots to do. But doable.
292: Here is a link to an article that the CCO published that has an interactive crime map. Some parts of our fair city are statistically as bad as nearly anything that Detroit has to offer. Other parts are safer than gated communities. Our averages look better than Detroit because of the areas in the north that have nearly no crime at all. There is an area just south of the downtown that rates a 3. That means that 97% of the census tracts in the country have less violent crime than that census tract. Location is very important in Evansville. It is not as important in Detroit and Gary because they are for the most part all crime ridden from a statistical perspective. Look over the map.
https://city-countyobserver.com/2011/01/03/is-it-true-part-2-january-3-2011-examining-the-crime-map/?preview=true&preview_id=4199&preview_nonce=f04b48f849
I am unable to view. But thanks for the info.
Owensboro kicks Evansville’s butt on attracting industry. Evansville/Vand. County need to take a lesson from what they are doing over there.
How does the Evansville area compare in size now compared to previously. Is Evansville shrinking because people are leaving the area completely, or are they just moving outside the city limits?
The answer to your question is BOTH. Unincorporated Vanderburgh and Warrick have grown quite allot at Evansville’s expense. Many of the young people who go away to college never return. Unfortunately that robs us of many of the smartest and most educated of our youth. Talk to any of the age 60 and above locals who raised multiple children, they will tell you.
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