By Jim Siplon, President, Warren County EDC
When I first came to this area more than a decade ago, I was struck by the sense that this was a place that punched way above its weight. It had assets that communities many times its size were lacking like a 400 bed hospital, a professional hockey team and arena, a SUNY college campus, a world-class art collection…I could go on as you know with many more attributes. I tell people who haven’t been here that we are the gateway to the Adirondack Park and the bridge to the Capital Region all at the same time.
The federal government developed the concept of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) nearly 75 years ago and refined it to the current criteria in the 1980’s. My predecessor Ed Bartholomew and others worked to get this area adopted officially as an MSA as an aggregation of Warren and Washington Counties and ours is one of the smallest in the country…smaller than all but 17%. Put another way, more than 4 out of 5 metropolitan areas in the U.S. are bigger.
A recent report from Area Development Magazine and Chmura Economics and Analytics examined economic fundamentals in both every MSA and economic market in the country ranging from the NY-NJ-White Plains MSA (population 11,588,916) to Pecos, Tx (population 10,618). While the study identified many high preforming areas in the South and Western U.S., it also had a surprising and robust set of measures for our modest Glens Falls MSA despite our small size.
To summarize the many pages of data and rankings, our Glens Falls MSA is in the top 18% (175 of 949) of all U.S. markets. In the primary category (Economic Strength) our area was in the top 10% nationally (92 of 949), top 6% (5 of 84) of Mid-Atlantic markets and top 4% (3 of 58) of New York and Northern New England markets. The news is not uniformly good though-as one would expect. The major area we lag behind in is our workforce. We know our workforce has been flat or declining for some time and continues to age with a median age approaching 50. We rank in the bottom half at 50% (488 of 949) in this critical component. We simply don’t have enough workers to fully satisfy our existing economy, essentially throttling our otherwise remarkable output and productivity.
Besides feeling proud and perhaps somewhat surprised, what else should we be drawing from all of this information? First, the narrative of inevitable decline of upstate New York is not entirely true, especially for the Glens Falls MSA. We have always had a diversified and robust economy relative to our neighbors, buoyed by a tourism component that brings a third of our economic output from those living elsewhere. Second, our unique geographic positioning at the edge of the Adirondack Park, the largest state park in the nation nearly the size of New Jersey, means we will continue to be a retail, professional services and healthcare nexus for a large region including the Adk Park north and west of us. Finally, our ability to offer a place where unmatched natural resources and enterprise can both be had has always attracted people and continues to beckon new generations of talent.
The EDC has helped define this unique mix of three economic components (Experience, Services and Enterprise) in its core strategy for the regions economy. We continue to help develop a year round tourism economy that is more profitable for all, protecting our assets that are fully or partially publicly funded-especially healthcare, supporting our existing businesses and manufacturers while expanding entrepreneurial support and investing in natural resource protection, like fresh water, as its own economic engine. This is the unique strategy for not only our immediate area (i.e. the Glens Falls MSA) but the larger Adirondack region that shares many of the same components and constraints.
All of this validates the need for ongoing capacity development that will allow the ongoing retention, attraction and support for residents that makeup our workforce with the same intensity we used to reserve for business recruitment alone. We need to create housing and the associated attributes of sustainable communities to bring the right mix of new workers, skills and demographics to fuel our existing economy in ways that is aligned with our unique place. This is the hard work of “soft infrastructure” like housing, broadband, public transportation and childcare along with the traditional water, wastewater, power and roads that we often think of. The EDC and LDC were full partners in the Warren County Housing Study of two years ago that detailed the need for significant new housing and continue to look for ways to offer resources and appropriate development opportunities to meet it. By fueling the strategy with the universal elements of placemaking and community resources, we optimize our future.
Examples abound…the remarkable rebirth of downtown Glens Falls spurred by the now 10 year ago DRI that has levered the initial $10M into more than $47M of total investment, the ongoing commercial and residential development of Queensbury, the recent Lake George DRI, the renewal of North Creek built on its first ever wastewater system that has generated nearly $40M in total investment that is aligned with the resources of the ADK park. The innovative LDC pre-development fund to support strategies for both communities inside and outside the Adirondack Park boundary is another. We are succeeding, you can see that by simply looking around but there is more to do to refine our strategy, align resources and help lead this remarkable area become the place we all know it has been and will continue to be.
Yeah, we punch above our weight…always have and always will.