Abstract
State and local governance operates in the context of multiple competing economic development perspectives. This article highlights three perspectives: Thomas Friedman’s flat world metaphor, Richard Florida’s spiky creative class world, and Michael Shuman’s localism, and reviews their resulting implications for a specific case in Mississippi. The examination of whether to revitalize the Columbus and Greenville Railroad in Mississippi or turn it into a recreational trail illustrates that the assumptions derived from these perspectives affects policy process and implementation. The implications are that public administration needs to operate with an agency perspective in the sense expressed in the “Blacksburg Manifesto.”
Introduction
Describing two of the most popular metaphors for globalization, Thomas Friedman’s “flat world” and Richard Florida’s “spiky world,” Feiock, Moon, and Park (2008) identify these as competing visions of the global economic development landscape. However, these are not the only visions in our landscape. Michael Shuman provides another vision for our global age, that of a localism, which is gaining attention with the global financial crisis. A popular economic development text book (Blair & Carroll, 2009) refers to these visions as “concepts” that shape economic development approaches. For this article, the term “perspectives” will be used to describe the battle of ideas between the flat world, the spiky world, and the local world. Governments have actualized these concepts across the world into differing economic development approaches so it is useful to examine how these perspectives influence policy making.
This article applies these perspectives to a local governance case involving a region’s decision of what to do with a short-line railroad in north central Mississippi. The analysis of this case illustrates how the perspective through which economic development is viewed can shape policy choices directly. For public administration, it is important to recognize that stakeholders, who shape the economic development perspective used and limit the alternative perspectives considered, can direct the operational choices.
We contend that in these situations, public administrators should look to the Blacksburg perspective for guidance. In the Blacksburg perspective, public administrators are agents for a variety of principals, including the public interest. Public administrators serve as active catalysts in two ways. First, they serve as a point where all citizens, even those with a contrarian perspective such as localism, can become involved with the policy-making process. Second, public administrators need to serve agentially by shifting the concerns to a broad public interest, including social equity and community. Public administrators must serve this role because it represents “an indispensable repository of specialized knowledge, historical experience, time-tested wisdom, and consensus on where the public interest lies in their given domains. Together, these characteristics form a behavioral gyroscope or center of gravity that guides professional conduct” (Goodsell, 2006, p. 630).
Economic development in a flat world
According to Thomas Friedman’s (2006) popular book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, we now live in a new economy characterized by decentralized organizations that view work processes as functional pieces that can be arranged ad hoc to create the highest value for customers. Information, innovation, rapid development, horizontal integration, and better quality for lower prices drive global markets. The spread of Hayekian free markets, advances in information technology, the rise of network organizations, and improvements in logistics are flatteners leveling the economic playing field.
Comparison of How Improved Transportation Infrastructure Leads to Economic Development (Florida, 2002; Friedman, 2006; Shuman, 2006)
In a flat world, place is not a crucial factor provided the necessary human, legal, and physical infrastructure exists. Ensuring that this prerequisite infrastructure is in place is the economic development responsibility of local, regional, and state governments. Having a highly educated, technically proficient, motivated, and flexible workforce is crucial to economic development. Government needs to ensure that companies and citizens have information technology capabilities such as broadband Internet access. The legal and institutional structure needs to ensure efficient free markets while promoting local culture in the face of culturally homogenizing forces. And most relevant to this case, having the transportation infrastructure so that companies can conduct business efficiently through networks of suppliers, retailers, and customers is essential to economic development in the flat world paradigm.
Economic development in a spiky world
Florida does not contradict the whole flat world premise but disagrees that people can innovate without having to emigrate (Florida, 2005b). In the spiky world paradigm, innovation is the engine of economic growth. Creativity does not happen in a vacuum, so place does matter for innovation because smart people need face-to-face interaction with other smart people to develop new ideas. Because globalization has increased the returns to innovation and allows creative products and services to quickly reach consumers worldwide, it has strengthened the lure that innovation centers hold for the world’s best and brightest, reinforcing the spikiness of wealth and economic production. The local governments, cities, and regions that drive the world economy are growing into megaregions as they attract more creative people whereas those areas that cannot attract the creative class languish (Florida, 2007).
The spiky world is a “human resources”–based perspective of economic development in which place matters. Florida’s basic tenet for economic development is that “Regional economic growth is powered by creative people, who prefer places that are diverse, tolerant, and open to new ideas” (Florida, 2005a, p. 249). Viewing economic development from this perspective, communities and local governments need to develop the lifestyle amenities that attract smart people and encourage them to interact. The managers, high-skilled service providers, and scientists who comprise the creative class are willing to move to authentic bourgeois yet bohemian places with experiential lifestyle and work-style environments. In this perspective, state and local economic development specialists need to promote Florida’s 3Ts: technology, talent, and tolerance. Transit-oriented economic development and bike trails are examples of a spiky world–inspired approach that is at the nexus of transportation economic development policy. Despite criticism and the lack of academic support that growth can be powered by attracting cool hip people, the creative class concept for economic development remains popular (Peck, 2005; Reese & Sands, 2008).
Economic development in a local ideal
There is another perspective that views “local” as crucial in the global age. This is the local economy movement as presented by Michael Shuman (2006) in The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition, “Economic Renewals: Rocky Mountain Institute” (Kinsley, 1997), and “Economic Gardening” (Barrios & Barrios, 2004). The basis of all their arguments is that growth needs to be endogenous. For the former two perspectives, the objectives are focused on making communities more self-reliant. The latter approach is to internally create a healthy base of entrepreneurs. Even economic development professional journals, such as Site Selection Magazine, are acknowledging the movement (Starner, 2008). The global credit contagion is likely to further strengthen the validity of this perspective.
This local ideal is a reaction to globalization’s highly mobile capital, cultural homogenization, and general loss of control experienced by communities and local governments. Localism has made perhaps the most progress with food systems and promoting local food in the wake of various global food crises like Salmonella and Mad Cow Disease (Pollan, 2006). This approach attempts to create community self-reliance by anchoring wealth in communities, encouraging local ownership, promoting import substitution, and lessening the flow of capital from the local economy (Gunn & Gunn, 1991).
The “economic gardening” and local ownership import substitution (LOIS) approaches eschew business attraction and concentrate on the cultivation of local entrepreneurship (Imbroscio, Williamson, & Alperovitz, 2003; Shuman, 1998). Wealth is built from the inside and efforts are made to lessen the leakage of wealth from the local economy. This translates into small business assistance programs, business incubators, local venture capital funding, and creating an entrepreneurial environment. Leakage reduction programs include energy efficiency, alternate forms of locally produced energy (e.g., solar, wind, and biofuels), buy-local campaigns, and improved public transit. Small business is part of most economic development programs, but the other aspects of this approach, such as leakage programs, are just starting to gain attention in places like Littleton, Colorado, or the Katahdin region of Maine.
Localism calls for a different set of questions that mostly involve the flow of capital but also the location of control (e.g., Does the policy move control from the boardrooms of distant corporations back to the community?). The mainstream approach to economic development is based on the premise that a successful community is one that brings in more mobile capital than leaks out of the local economy. For example, this capital coming into the region can be in the form of inward investments, exports, and tourism dollars and this capital will churn around the local economy before flowing out of the community in the form of buying imports, investments out of the region, wages paid to people outside of the local economy, money expatriated by nonlocal owners, and so on.
Proponents of localism have a different perspective about the flow of capital from mainstream economic development. Instead of the emphasis being on bringing capital into the local economy, the priority is on keeping the dollars churning and not going outside the local economy. Thus, this approach promotes businesses that are financially and socially anchored to the community, including firms owned by locals, cooperatives, or even publicly traded stock companies if the shares are traded locally. Hershey Chocolate Company is an example of the latter. Import substitution approaches such as buy-local campaigns (e.g., farmers markets) and energy-efficiency programs to lessen the amount of capital that needs to flow out of the local economy to buy energy would be part of a localism strategy. Public transit would be a means to lower energy usage. Clearly, if a community is trying to become more self-reliant, it must try to use its limited natural resources sustainably.
Defining the geography of local can be tricky, but Shuman (2002) and other localism proponents are wary of regionalism. They argue that it is oversold by academics who have become “regionaholics.” They note that there are almost no elected regional governments in the United States, and regional governance typically consists of backdoor deals with mobile capital concerns supposedly made in the interest of the citizens. This represents a clever end-run around democratic economic policy making at the local, city, county, and state levels. This is particularly problematic as it relates to freight rail infrastructure which is rarely solely local in its existence or movement of goods. Thereby in this case, a regional rail authority was created that covers the entire geography of the 9 county, 11 municipality rail corridor. The rail authority members are not elected but appointed by their respective city or county governments and, thus, indeed function as an “end-run” around democratic economic policy making.
Perspective Comparison and the Inadequacies of Standard Policy Theory
These three perspectives (flat, spiky, and local) will now be used to examine the economic development decision that needs to be made regarding the Columbus & Greenville Railway (C&G) in Mississippi. The debate over the fate of the C&G is currently framed as a binary choice between either (a) to publicly invest an estimated US$80 million in upgrades to make the 207 miles of track contemporarily operational for hauling freight or (b) to invest an estimated US$10 million to make the rail right-of-way a multiuse recreational trail. Instead of limiting ourselves to this binary approach, we will apply the three perspectives (flat, spiky, and local) to address the economic development decision that needs to be made. Let us see how improved transportation infrastructure could lead to economic development under these perspectives:
Flat World Perspective: Allows firms to efficiently conduct business with global networks of suppliers, retailers, and customers.
Spiky World Perspective: Improves quality of life for the creative class and connecting to megaregions.
Localism Perspective: Reduces energy imports (e.g., public transit) and facilitating business transactions within the local economy.
Most policy theories (see advocacy coalition framework, policy streams, etc.) maintain that localism, flat world, and spiky world should be considered belief systems that act on and within the policy system which results in policy that dictates an operational decision such as whether to invest public funds to maintain a railroad. The basic strategy of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) framework is to use the structure of beliefs in the governing coalitions of policy subsystems to predict changes in shared beliefs that lead to changes in policy over time (Sabatier, 1988). Belief systems are less of a factor in Multiple Streams theory, but national mood, such as a public consensus that the world is flat, is considered a factor in the political stream that allows policies to be put on the agenda for policy making. The theories stop with the enactment of policy. However, Mississippi’s legislated short-line policy is such that there is considerable discretion in the policy implementation and this allows the perspectives to directly impact an operational decision via how the cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which substitutes for policy, is framed. The causality assumptions drive the implementation choices.
The state’s freight rail transportation policy objective is to provide a transportation system that encourages and supports the state’s economic development in an effective, cost efficient, and environmentally sensitive manner. Specifically, the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) “strives to preserve and enhance the state’s rail system, and provides the states’ agricultural and industrial shippers a needed transportation choice that is vital for continued economic development” (MDOT, 2009, para. 3). In 2007, MDOT commissioned a statewide rail needs assessment and determined
the economic impact to the State of Mississippi will need to be made for each rail line to see if the investment of public funds is warranted. The benefit to the local economy in the form of jobs, businesses retained and attracted, quality of life, and local tax base need to be considered in the politically charged decisions to invest public money in the neglected short-line railroads.
Thus, the state policy toward short lines is to conduct a CBA for each individual short line to determine whether state investment is warranted, but the policy does not provide specifics on how to frame the analysis.
This policy leaves open to discretion the options to be considered for public investment and the underlying assumptions on how to create economic development. The flat, spiky, and local perspectives have fundamental disagreements on the underlying assumptions of how to achieve economic development. This means the actual policy implementation of attempting to benefit the local economy in the form of jobs, businesses retained and attracted, quality of life, and local tax base through public investment is not only discretionary but also contingent on what underlying assumptions are utilized. This allows what would be considered in policy theory to be a belief system, which is assumed to only drive policy enactment, to directly influence an operational decision. In the case discussed in this article, the state legislated policy is to conduct a CBA to decide on the appropriate operational decision, which as discussed in the following is influenced by the perspective that forms the basis of the CBA.
The case of the C&G revitalization
The current C&G began operation in 1975 to transport freight between Columbus, on the Alabama border, to Greenville, on the Arkansas border, effectively connecting the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway with the Mississippi River.
However, the railroad has played a major role in Mississippi’s agricultural economy since the 1800s, when it was first built to transport cotton and other products from the Mississippi Delta to the southeastern United States as part of the Southern Railway. Today, the company’s haulage base has expanded to include bricks, plastic products, feed grains for catfish and swine, finished and raw steel, and biodiesel as well as cotton and rice products. Despite 93 of the 104 miles of track being out of service, the company continues to run four trains a day between Greenwood and Greenville on the west end and between West Point and Columbus on the east end.
Results: Rail-to-Trail or Short-line Railway
Communities are under growing pressure to attract the creative class and build livable communities. Converting short-line railroads into recreational trails for walking and biking is a consistent theme in this effort to develop the amenities deemed necessary to maintain the attractive and healthy communities sought by today’s knowledge workers. However, short-line railroads play an increasingly important role in moving the nation’s freight and are often crucial to keeping rural- and community-based shippers globally and locally competitive. The current debate on what do to with the C&G shows what a quandary these divergent forces can create.
The spiky world economic development case for rail-to-trail
Trails and green space are increasingly being conceived as crucial community amenities that improve quality of life and spur economic development. The high-skilled workers that Mississippi hopes to attract and retain demand a certain “cool” lifestyle and amenity mix. This “cool initiative” typically includes “new urbanism” approaches such as mixed-used residential/commercial buildings; pedestrian-friendly development; the leveraging of public and private resources to revitalize historic districts through the construction of lofts, river walks, and sidewalks; and other street-level cultural amenities such as bookstores, music shops, cafes, and theaters. Public money and vocal local community and national organizations support these livable community initiatives and a rail-to-trail project is often iconic in these efforts.
In addition to helping promote small-town revitalization, trails are increasingly being viewed as an economic development tool. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) argues that trails can be an economic engine. They point out that trails are the number one amenity potential homeowners cite when asked what they would like to see in a new community. Economic impact studies support these contentions. The Virginia Creeper Trail in rural southwest Virginia brings in US$1.5 million annually in tourism dollars (Bowker, Bergstrom, & Gill, 2004). In Austin, Texas, a single greenway was estimated to result in US$13 million of new property tax revenue (Bowker et al., 2004).
Nationwide, there are currently 1,465 open rail trails for a total of 13,994 miles. These trails are improving the quality of life and creating economic development for citizens across the country (Bowker et al., 2004). According to the RTC, Mississippi has only six trails for a total of 59 miles. However, another 11 projects with an additional 150 miles are under way.
The conversion of part of the abandoned Mississippi Central Railroad into the Long Leaf Trace is an example of how a rails-to-trails project can improve the quality of life of a community and create economic development in a state such as Mississippi. In 1995, efforts began to pave a 10-foot wide asphalt trail on the abandoned rail right-of-way that ran from Natchez to Mobile. In 2000, 40 miles of the abandoned railroad between Hattiesburg and Prentiss were paved and converted to a bike-and-hike trail with further expansion being planned.
The Long Leaf Trace gets an estimated 75,000 users and attracts 5,000 tourists annually (H. Pierce, personal communication, April 22, 2008). Several businesses including restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and rental shops have opened up because of the trail whereas some existing businesses including hotels, restaurants, and bike shops have seen increased sales. According to Wilson Carroll, founder of the C&G Rail Trails Coalition, the Long Leaf Trace generates US$4.8 million in direct economic impact. He estimates that the indirect impact within the communities along the Trace may be as high as US$30 million (Darden, 2008).
Converting the C&G to a recreational trail
On June 14, 2007, the C&G Company filed for a “Notice of Exemption” with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) for the “Discontinuance of Service” of 89.5 miles of track. This meant that the railroad company (C&G) intended only to discontinue rail service on the corridor; they would maintain property rights and did not have plans to file for abandonment; on this point there was some confusion with the rail activists. For the track to be legally eligible for a rails-to-trails project, the C&G Company must first officially abandon the line. Though this has not happened to date, once the rail traffic ceased and to preempt any rail auction whereby adjacent property owners could divvy up the rail corridor, interested parties mobilized in pursuing the rail corridor as a rails-to-trails opportunity.
The RTC strongly urged citizens, local, regional, and/or state agencies or organizations to file a “boiler-plate” letter with the STB and the C&G. RTC pointed out that filing the letter did not commit the citizen (or the agency which filed) to acquire this corridor, it merely gave the citizens or agency time to develop a rail–trail proposal and undertake negotiations with the railroad. In addition, the RTC strongly recommended that interested parties contact Mississippi’s state trails coordinator. The coordinator provided how-to manuals, including “Secrets of Successful Rail-Trails” and “Acquiring Rail Corridors” as valuable tools for those citizens and agencies interested in converting the C&G out-of-service corridor to a trail way.
RTC argued that although none of the nearby communities wanted to lose rail traffic or the local economic benefits of the railroad, the C&G was “abandoned” and thus could be developed into a community asset such as a multipurpose recreation and transportation trail to help to replace the lost income to the community. RTC argued that trails such as these can improve the overall quality of life for people in the community by providing a safe place for children to ride their bikes and for older people to recreate and enjoy life, creating safe places for equestrians to ride, encouraging older businesses to remain in the area and new businesses to relocate there, improving property values of landowners near the trail, and providing a convenient location for all area citizens to exercise, socialize, and enjoy the outdoors.
Through the efforts of RTC and local citizens who formed the C&G Rails Trails Coalition, a few of the cities and counties along the corridor passed proposals naming themselves Rails-to-Trails Recreational Districts. These included the cities of Winona and Greenwood and the county of Montgomery. The coalition systematically visited city council and board of supervisor meetings along the corridor encouraging the establishment of districts throughout the out-of-service portion of the C&G. In these meetings, the coalition highlighted the success of the Longleaf Rails-to-Trails project in Hattiesburg, MS. The coalition’s goal was to create a continuous recreation district throughout the rail corridor so that, in the event the C&G filed abandonment paperwork, the district would be in a position to take ownership of the right-of-way.
However, after these meetings with the coalition, Roger Bell, President of the C&G Company, met with the cities and county and explained that the out-of-service corridor could not be converted to a trail way unless the railroad is abandoned, which it is not, and, furthermore, the Company has no plans to abandon it. Bell told the cities and county that efforts are under way to revitalize the railroad. After these meetings, the City of Winona rescinded the proposal establishing the Rails-to-Trails Recreational District, and Montgomery County refused to approve the minutes from the meeting where the Rails-to-Trails Recreational District was established. The Rails-to-Trails Recreational District is still in existence in Greenwood.
The economic development case for maintaining short-line railroads
Class I railroads are the major railroad companies like CSX and Norfolk Southern that move goods across the country whereas regional and short lines traditionally tended to be locally owned. Short-line freight railroads are not typically considered “cool,” but they are lifelines for keeping many manufacturers competitive in the global marketplace. According to the American Short-line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA), short lines (Class III), which have less than 350 miles of track, and regional railroads (Class II), with at least 350 miles of track, but less than US$271.9 million in revenue, are an important component of the railroad industry (American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, 2008). Today, smaller railroads operate and maintain 29% of the American railroad industry’s route mileage and account for 9% of the rail industry’s freight revenue and 11% of railroad employment. Due to competition from trucks and other industry factors, short-line railroads declined from more than 1,000 in 1916 to around 200 in 1970. This left hundreds of abandoned lines; but since the Staggers Act of 1980, 1 the number of non–Class I freight railroads has grown by about 260%.
Changes in rail operations are aiding the revival of short lines. Class I railroads are selling off many of their low density lines to fit their new business model of long-distance, heavy-volume hauling (wholesaling). Small railroads (Class II and Class III) now act as feeder lines (retailing; Allen, Sussman, & Miller, 2002). Unless a company is near an intermodal facility where groups of railcars can be bound up to provide sufficient volume, they will have difficulty using a Class I railroad. With rising trucking prices and global supply chains, small railroads are becoming more important for rural economies (Babcock, Russell, Prater, & Morrill, 1993; Batson, Bearer, & Norton, 1997; Due, Leever, & Noyes, 2002; Sternberg & Banks, 2006).
Economic analyses of short-line railroads show they have a significant economic impact. An analysis of the possible abandonment of Saukville to Kiel railroad by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (2004) found direct losses that include shipping costs rising by US$210,690 per year and potential job losses of 4,170. Indirect losses would result in an impact of US$133 million in personal income and a greatly reduced chance of attracting or expanding a number of businesses. Likewise, a North Dakota State analysis of the Carrington to Turtle Lake rail line indicated that the rail removal would increase transportation costs for shippers by US$329,000 annually, raise road maintenance costs by more than US$1 million, and reduce industrial property values by US$155,000 (Bangsund, Honeyman, & Leistritz, 1996). Thus, short-line railroad abandonment adversely impacts economic development and public coffers in a number of ways.
Revitalizing the C&G into an operational short line
The C&G owns 207 miles of mainline track and 104 miles of sidings and passing track between Columbus and Greenville. Currently, the C&G offers services from the river port at Greenville to Greenwood, Mississippi and pronominally is the carrier of the feed grain products for Heathman Catfish Feed. It also carries cotton oil and cotton mill by-products for Pyco Industries. In addition, the C&G provides service between West Point and Columbus predominantly for Prestage Farms and Columbus Brick, two local commodity producers. Industries affected by rail closure or lack of cost-effective rail access include agriculture, wood and wood products, and metal scrap. The counties that experience the largest impact are located in the Mississippi Delta where the distressed economy is historically based on agriculture and agricultural products. State labor data reveal that from 2004 to a rolling 12-month average of May 2007, these three counties had a 10.9% decrease in employment (Mississippi Department of Employment Security, 2007). Although these counties currently have rail access, the lack of latitudinal service for agricultural, forest, and scrap metal products have negatively affected business development (Stich, Martin, Waide, & Eksioglu, 2007).
If the entire line is restored, the C&G could provide attractive new capacity and efficiencies for long-distance Class I carriers such as the Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern, CSX, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) as well as offering improved shipping efficiencies for local firms. Overall, Mississippi’s logistics costs 2 are 48% higher than the rest of the nation because of poor intermodal connectivity (Bureau of Long Range Economic Forecasts, 2003). The revitalization of the C&G could provide improved connectivity and, thereby, lower the state’s overall logistics costs.
Smaller industries that rely 100% on trucking present an unquantifiable potential for economic development in the region. Burdensome transportation costs significantly hinder the growth of such smaller industries. For example, these high logistics costs are hurting the timber and wood products sector. This sector represents a major portion of the economy in Mississippi. Forestry ranks as Mississippi’s number two agricultural commodity with more than 61% of the state’s total land devoted to this commodity. According to a 2005 study conducted by Virginia Tech, 93% of the wood and wood products by volume are shipped by truck with an average haul of around 100 miles for logs and 355 miles for wood products (Miller, Smith, Parhizkar, & Stich, 2005). When asked whether transportation costs are hurting competitiveness, 80% of Mississippi companies surveyed responded “Yes.” The revitalization of the railroad and the creation of an intermodal terminal in Winona along the C&G could alleviate congested terminals at New Orleans and Memphis by taking some of the inland shipments away from these major terminals while simultaneously providing a collection location for local industries which could make outbound rail shipping more feasible. This would significantly reduce trucking costs, especially in northwest Mississippi.
However, the easternmost county along the rail corridor, Lowndes County, MS, has enjoyed a surge of economic development in the last couple of years. Companies such as Severcorr, Eurocopter, and Paccar Inc. have located in Lowndes County and Toyota has recently located in nearby Union County. These are examples of increased interest in Mississippi’s economic development model. However, one should note that these counties have access to Class I and short-line rail service, unlike their western county counterparts.
Findings: Viewing the Issue From the Perspectives
Examining the public policy question of what the local, regional, and state governments should politically and financially support yields different results depending on the perspective utilized. Viewing the question from a flat world perspective it seems clear that it is good for the region to efficiently haul freight on the short-line railroad to stay competitive in global markets. However, viewing it from the spiky or localism perspective, the best public policy choice is less clear.
Being connected to fast, efficient, and effective supply chains to deliver products from anywhere is an important prerequisite for economic success in the flat world. In all, 95% of consumers are outside the United States and to stay competitive with these customers, companies that sell products need to have effective supply-chain management systems; successful examples include Wal-Mart, UPS, and FedEx. This logistic function can be outsourced or insourced, but the physical infrastructure needs to be in place for the supply chain to operate efficiently. With the rising cost of trucking and improvements in the overall railroad system, it is important to have short-line railroads like C&G to link the region into the markets of the flat world.
The calculations become different if the goal of economic development becomes the attraction and retention of the creative class, the fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depend. These young hip people value active outdoor recreation highly and are drawn to places and communities where many outdoor activities are prevalent such as biking and jogging. A freight train does not fit with this but a rails-to-trails project does. This and other creative infrastructure might help break the “institutional sclerosis” of the region and open the way for new organizational and cultural patterns. This entails actively working to cultivate diversity and investing in the lifestyle amenities that creative people really want as opposed to using financial incentives to attract companies or develop retail complexes as Mississippi has traditionally done.
The choice of what to do with the C&G clearly has important economic development implications for a region that needs to create jobs, raise incomes, and increase the local tax base. Both the US$10 million rails-to-trails option and helping the C&G raise the estimated US$56 million to restore the rail line have the potential to create economic development for the region. The best choice depends on the realistic economic vision of the region, but this vision is greatly dependent on the perspective through which globalization is conceived. Thus, it is important that multiple perspectives are considered, but the local interest group system might not include all perspectives, such as the LOIS perspective.
Localism means nurturing locally owned businesses that use local resources sustainably, employ local workers at decent wages, and serve primarily local consumers. Both the revitalization and trail options would appear to give control to the local community. C&G is a locally owned private company in Columbus, Mississippi and employs 45 workers from the region at decent wages. The companies directly benefiting through lower transportation costs are a mixture of locally owned and distantly controlled corporations. The community would need to conduct a leakage analysis to determine whether and how a project such as the revitalization of a short-line railroad helps keep capital and control within the local economy (see. Shuman & Hoffer, 2007).
However, the bike and hiking trail would be publicly owned and most of the companies helped or created would be locally owned. The hotel and restaurant chains could be an exception. Many of the tourism industry jobs would be minimum wage and seasonal. Overall employment would initially decrease if the rail line was abandoned and a trail constructed.
The second aspect to explore is whether the policy allows the region to become more self-sufficient and less dependent on imports. The rail line does require fuel and equipment imports but lessens the dependence on the imported fuel needed for trucks. The rail line will lower the transportation costs of imports and might encourage some firms to buy more from outside the region, but railroad also supports regional trade among locally owned firms. For example, when the C&G ceased continuous west–east operations, Prestage Farms ceased buying Mississippi Delta grain due to transportation cost increases of US$2,500 per shipment and is now forced to buy its grain out of Iowa. The rail line has mixed impact regarding encouraging import substitution.
Likewise, the bike and hiking trail is unlikely to have much impact on self-sufficiency and imports. The trail would not likely be used by commuters, and businesses related to the trail are likely to need imported products. Neither of these approaches does much to attract or anchor mobile capital to the localities. As localism calls for prioritization of public infrastructure investment that primarily supports locally owned and import-substituting businesses and distrusts outside capital, neither the renovated short line nor rails-to-trails is a clear choice from the localism perspective, but this perspective should be included in the community discussion.
Considering Other Options
Other options may need to be added to the ongoing binary choices. Other options not being put forth by the interested groups currently involved could be rails-with-trails (RWTs) or adding some kind of passenger service to the rail line. There are some potential compromise solutions such as RWTs, which is a shared-use path or trail located on or directly adjacent to an active railroad corridor. About 65 RWTs encompass 240 miles in 30 states today. The U.S. Department of Transportation is still examining safety, design, and liability issues associated with the development of shared-use paths and other trails within or adjacent to active railroad and transit rights-of-way. Railroads generally oppose RWTs because the trails are not related to railroad operations and generally do not generate revenue for the railroads. Furthermore, the rights-of-way taken for the trail may be needed for future enhancements to system capacity as well as safety and legal concerns. However, the C&G, being a locally owned railroad, has agreed to consider a RWTs option.
Another potential compromise would be to restore the tracks and have the C&G provide both freight and passenger service. An example of this is the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad, which is an independent, Class III railroad serving a 139 mile corridor from Fort Smith, AR to Monett, MO. The railroad’s primary business is hauling freight, but it also operates a passenger excursion train. The train makes a scenic trip through an extension of the Ozarks, which has become a major tourism attraction. The RWT and the addition of passenger services are potential solutions that also would need to be examined by the communities through the perspectives discussed above.
Conclusions
Mississippi’s policy on short-line railroad revitalization to select the operational choice through a CBA process that has the greatest economic development return for the public investment at first blush appears to provide clear guidance. Implementation would seem to be a matter of selecting an economic analysis tool (e.g., REMI, Implan) and running the numbers to make the decision as to whether to invest public funds in the railroad or not. However, when viewed from different perspectives, the causality of events that lead toward increased jobs, businesses retained, and new industry attracted changes. In a spiky world, a bike trail would attract the creative class who would make existing business competitive and make others want to move to Mississippi. In a flat world, the short-line railroad would keep goods flowing efficiently with world markets, which would retain and attract businesses. In contrast, a local self-reliant community perspective might even eschew the assumption that public money should be spent to attract new businesses. How the analysis is framed leads to the operational decision when the policy specifies economic development outcomes as the decision factor without specifying how to achieve those outcomes. For example, if the jobs are assumed to be created through connecting to global markets, then the analysis would forecast a very different outcome than if jobs are assumed to be created through endogenously creating your own self-reliant businesses.
This leads to our main conclusion from this case study.
Conclusion 1 (C1): The implementation of policies based on economic development outcomes can be shaped by the global economic development perspective used to frame the outcome analysis.
Although this is a study of one case, it has implications for public administration in general. Public administrators need to bring differing perspectives, and options, to the policy deliberation process and need to present the costs and benefits of these options. They also need to be able to critically analyze the casual assumptions of economic development fads. Though none of the four options (revitalization, rails-to-trails, RWTs, or passenger service) mentioned in the discussion are easy, free, or immediate solutions, the region needs to work together to determine which option is best for central Mississippi and work together to see that option becomes a reality.
This will not be easy but it can be achieved if public administrators act as agential leaders as proposed in the Blacksburg perspective (Wamsley et al., 1990; Wamsley & Wolf, 1996). Public administration must
go beyond the mirroring of manifest and latent representation of interests suggested by theories of pressure groups or interest group liberalism. That would be a daunting task in itself. The agency must however, also pursue a common good–one that is distinguished from a society (even one faithfully represented) thinks it wants. (Wamsley et al., 1990, p. 117)
The so-called “Blacksburg Manifesto” goes on to present four normative guides for public administration, including Constitutionally based action, seeking the public interest, active citizenship, and most importantly for this case, the agency perspective.
The agency perspective, which calls for the public administrator to see him- or herself as a citizen agent exerting power to ensure that all perspectives are considered, provides important and relevant guidance. An example of public administration working agentially was noted by Frederickson (1999) when he called for a repositioning of public administration in today’s fragmented and disarticulated state. He noted the declining relationship between jurisdiction and public management in the Kansas City metropolitan region but found governance is proceeding because of administrative conjunction. The public administrators are using their discretion to work with other public administrators to make shared operational decisions in a disjointed policy environment. Public administrators are working through their professional networks, rather than (or despite) formal political channels, to manage complex, social, economic, and political issues. Public administrators could use similar means to ensure that all perspectives are being considered.
The Chair of the regional railroad authority is attempting to take a similar repositioned approach. She is working directly with public administrators involved with transportation, economic development, and related areas along the line often circumventing political channels. Working around the system is necessary because a major railroad not served by the C&G has the ear of top-elected officials in state capitol. These lobbyist argue that public money should only be spent when it benefits their interests.
Citizens’ forums are being held to gather the input of the underrepresented and those with alternate perspectives. A new study was conducted that included the varying economic development perspectives in the CBA analysis. The public administrators are using their agency to pursue a common good that considers multiple perspectives of economic development.
Through the examination of an actual public policy issue it becomes clear that the economic development perspective used to view a public policy decision will impact what options are considered. There is discretion in policy implementation. Therefore, it is crucial for public administration to work agentially with strong normative grounding to ensure that all perspectives are considered during the democratic process.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors received funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission that partially funded the research on the C&G railroad.