Spring brings good tidings and projections for summer

The premise today is The Berkshires is a tourist area, and its future is more focused on bringing visitors to the area who may eventually relocate here.

Where there are tourists, there are jobs.

Where there are retirement groups, there is the opportunity for more employment.

Together, it can create a robust economy along with non-profit arts and entertainment.

Expanded industry in these parts appear to be limited by ingenuity, lack of bank philosophy of underwriting growth that may or may not work and the fact that cities and towns here are chasing the same individuals, who have a “blue sky” approach with incentives and tax reductions, which basically does not help a community in the short term.

In the long term, it may pave the way for more employment, a plant that comes on the tax roll and some type of opportunity that brings an icon to the region.

No one has tried to bring technology from Silicon Valley to The Berkshires. Why? Development people representing communities want to bring in industry that represents the old factory type jobs – not the future of America, which, if tied to the FIBER rather than the old mold of electric grid and waterpower, could change The Berkshires’ landscape.

Take this idea one more step: It could create jobs for our graduates and make them self-sustaining. Wow! What family wouldn’t buy into this idea?

An example of old thinking might be General Electric in the old golden days or some mold company in yesterday’s configuration.

An art colony like Pittsfield has tried to develop a plan to bring people to North Street which has potential but no jobs other than the self-employed artists. They have a place in our community in making the common man a better man.

Communities like Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge and Great Barrington have individual followings for the non-profits, much like MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams.

Maybe it’s time to not chase the rainbow of employment, but to settle for creating jobs within the industries that serve the wealthy retirees like home health care, retirement villages that need to hire vendors and suppliers for daily needs, expansion of our medical services and an industry of banking and affiliation of financial planners, who can work off the web via FIBER and integrate with the major populous areas from New York to Chicago to Denver to L.A. and from San Francisco to Omaha, Neb., to Kansas City to St. Louis to Atlanta.

The factory of yesterday is the house/office of today and development of our own self worth to guide others into the future through technology located within the larger Berkshire village.

We can expand our educational campuses like Williams College, draw on our non-profits and interact together to make our Berkshires productive and enjoyable and meet the needs of the future.

One idea: Let’s cater to our visitors. Perhaps they can bring the mix of tomorrow’s technology and create today’s employment, acknowledging The Berkshires are inclusive, not exclusive.

So, too, The Berkshire Beacon looks forward to facing the future with award-winning stories and actively promoting businesses through its website and by advertising on its pages.

Print may be under fire by critics, but there is a future here in The Berkshires for this weekly market.

People walk up to our staff daily with a smile and offer congratulations on a job well done.

We have the product and like the 32-cities and towns in The Berkshires, we want to earn your advertising dollars, just like collectively they (businesses) want to grow their own economy for the next generation.

Posted by George C. Jordan III on May 9, 2013. Filed under Editorials,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry