Last year, I wrote about a large project being developed jointly by Greensboro and Randolph County, a 420 acre megasite to which local elected officials hoped to lure a large automobile manufacturer. As I said in the Greensboro News & Record at the time,
City and county governments should stick to core functions, things like schools, police, fire, public streets and sidewalks. They should steer well clear of speculative business ventures that put taxpayers on the hook.
This week, that same News & Record ran a story about all the ways that economic and international business conditions have changed in the past year and how the appetite for manufacturing in the United States has increased.
And as I read that piece, I couldn’t help but think that it illustrated beautifully exactly why local governments shouldn’t get involved in projects like the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite. What made sense a year ago, doesn’t necessarily anymore. Is auto manufacturing really the right industry for the Triad? Are there options that might be better for the local economy and workforce, but that aren’t well suited to the megasite as planned? Or is it possible that in the current climate, businesses are willing to invest more in manufacturing facilities and pay more for land on which to build them? Could the megasite actually be totally unnecessary, something private businesses would have built themselves without spending millions in taxpayer dollars?
The fact that the business environment can change so quickly and dramatically is precisely why local governments should avoid risking taxpayer dollars on these sorts of speculative business ventures.
