QOTD: Jobs Vs NIMBYs
We reported yesterday about the resistance Ford is facing toward building a new plant. So naturally, I wanted to hear what you think.
To me, there's a lot of contradictory stuff at play. On the one hand, the country could always use more manufacturing jobs. On the other, I understand why someone living in a quiet, peaceful rural area wouldn't want a large plant near their home. There are also environmental concerns to think of, as well.
So, what say you, B and B? Are locals being unreasonable or should Ford try to find a spot where either the locals are offering less resistance -- or there are fewer locals in the first place?
You know the drill. Sound off below.
[Image: Jenson/Shutterstock.com]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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I have family that will now walk out their front door and be staring at the new Ford battery plant in tiny Glendale, Kentucky(population ~1,700). My dad is just a few minutes drive away and will now have to deal with the light pollution. The property the plant is being built on was originally farmland that was bought up by the state twenty years ago to entice Hyundai to build the plant that eventually went to Alabama. My family were the lone holdouts and didn't sell their farm. The governor at the time called out my great aunt and her sons by name when giving the reasons they lost their bid. It was wildly more complicated than that. This time around the state and Ford decided they didn't need that parcel. My family members are still opposed but there wasn't anything they could do to stop it. They say they will employ up to 5,000 people but I think that's a wildly high estimate. My dad is worried about the traffic and crime that he thinks will come with the growth. I build material handling equipment for manufacturing plants and I'm trying to get my hands in the pie. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
It would be nice to have the factory in Detroit proper. I can point to at least two abandoned auto factories here (the famous, and famously dilapidated, Packard plant being one of them) that are begging to be torn down and replaced with something useful. Unions, maybe?
Build on the dilapidated brownfield sites that already went through a factory closing down and turning the supporting town into a dead-end.
The same people asking for high wage jobs are the first to force Ford to move production to Canada or Mexico.