Partnerships called key to rural development

DEDHAM – Businesses that once dominated Maine’s one-industry towns may be on their way out, but on the way in are new ideas for stopping communities from reaching the financial abyss.

On Thursday, Mark Drabenstott, director of the Center for the Study of Rural America based in Kansas City, Mo., shared his thoughts on helping small towns pick up the economic pieces.

He was in the area to attend a University of Maine-sponsored program on rural economic development initiatives. Drabenstott also is vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“Why do we have to wait for things to get so bad?” Drabenstott said. “Why can’t we come together to create ways to compete before things get so bad. If we can’t get beyond regional and county lines, we all get the failure we deserve.”

Rural towns have been victims of globalization, where business consolidation and technology are creating low-cost producers that can compete more effectively worldwide than privately owned businesses surviving on local turf, Drabenstott said.

“If you are not the low-cost producer, the market will be the first to inform you,” he said. “You have to be big or you’ll be gone. We should not be surprised by a consolidated economy. We are no longer in an economy where one community can go to the global economy and succeed.”

Drabenstott suggested that rural communities form an organization that focuses on developing regional partnerships, a group that will meet regularly and produce results rather than getting together every once in a while.

“We are of the view that you can’t have two chicken dinners a year and call it a region,” he said.

Drabenstott said an area needs to figure out its niche or “something the region can be world-class at.” Not every region in the country can be the best at biotechnology or life sciences, he said.

“Copy-cat development – in my opinion, those days are gone,” he said.

Drabenstott said local “high-growth entrepreneurs” should be tapped to promote development policies instead of hiring an outside consultant who doesn’t know the region. Also, rural communities need to improve and leverage local amenities such as transportation routes, information technology systems and quality-of-life opportunities.

They also need to invest in improving the work skills of people and building strong financial resources, such as venture capitalists and banks, in rural towns.

Drabenstott’s appearance was one of a number of recent events focusing on boosting rural towns especially hit hard by the downsizing of their primary industries.

Most of the discussions have had the theme of forming partnerships between public and private development groups and universities, and alliances among communities or possibly other states and provinces.

The biggest initiative under way is the creation of Atlantica, an economic corridor that links Maine, upper New Hampshire, Vermont and New York with the Maritimes and Quebec.

Within 500 miles from the center of Maine, businesses have access to 43 million people, according to Jonathan Daniels, president of Eastern Maine Development Corp. in Bangor.

“I feel pretty darn good about where we are right now,” Daniels said of the process of Atlantica’s creation.

But Daniels, Drabenstott and others who participated in Thursday’s conference agreed that more must be done to place a regional emphasis on economic development and job creation instead of rural towns going out and doing it alone.

Laurie Lachance, president of the Maine Development Foundation, said change is imperative because “huge economic and demographic factors” are affecting Maine and hindering its growth. Outmigration of youth and slow wage growth rates are among the elements holding back the state, she said.

By identifying Maine’s strengths and growing them stronger, Lachance said, Maine can succeed.

“There’s no need to accept what’s given to us,” she said. “We have opportunities to change our future.”

One asset is that because Maine is a small state, its people are familiar with each other and can work solidly together, Lachance said.

“We all know each other,” she said. “We all trust each other. That provides us with tremendous opportunities. We should take advantage of that.”