Brownsville's "Untouchable" Patrimonio
Joseph A Zavaletta, Jr.
Brownsville 2020
When was the last time you called a travel agent to book a flight? Or drove to a library to search for something? Or used an online 'shopping cart'?
In his #1 best-selling book The World is Flat (2006) Pulitzer prize-winning author and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman argues that recent technological advances such as broadband, digitization, VOIP, instant messaging, and videoconferencing have created a seamless integration of individuals, companies, communities, and even nations, to create a "flat" world that has forever changed the way we will live and work.
In this brave new flat world, whatever can be automated, digitized, or outsourced, will be. For example, workers at telephone call centers in Bengalore, India answer calls from Alabama-USA computer owners with a southern drawl to help their callers feel at ease. Our children's education is no longer limited to local school district teachers—-children are now being educated and tutored online by the best educators in the world. And in a few years China will have gone from “designed and manufactured in the USA, sold in China” to “designed in the USA, manufactured in China” to “designed and manufactured in China, sold in the USA.”
The implications of Friedman’s book on the future plans and operations of our local government and education institutions are clearly beyond the scope of this article. But in this new flat world, Friedman notes there are “untouchables” that will always be exempt from outsourcing because they are “anchored” goods and services that fall into three-broad categories: high-end work such as dentists, vocational work such as plumbers, and low-end work such as housekeepers.
In addition to these untouchables, Brownsville has at least three strategic untouchables that cannot be automated, digitized, or outsourced away. These untouchables, based on our geographic location, are natural resources endowed by the Creator and are Brownsville’s patrimonio (inheritance) forever: renewable energy (the sun and wind), international logistics (convergence of trucking, rail, bridge, port, and airport), and bio-diversity (natural vegetation, birds, and butterflies).
These strategic untouchables could form the foundation of a new ASSET-based (rather than a need-based) economy that is robust, sustainable, and relatively impervious to fluctuations in the peso, as well as the vagaries of local and (inter) national politics. If responsibly developed and marketed, these virtually unlimited natural resources could create new jobs and wealth for all residents, including the 40% of our residents who are living below the poverty line. Educational programs in renewable energy, international logistics, and eco-tourism could be created to help develop these resources, as well as focused recruitment and renewable energy incubators (such as the one at UT Austin http://www.cleanenergyincubator.com/). A 2007 white paper by the Austin Technology Incubator at UT Austin’s School of Business, (http://www.ati.utexas.edu/) forecasts the creation of nearly 125,000 new high-wage, renewable energy research, design, and manufacturing jobs in Texas by 2020. Click Here for the Press Release: http://www.utexas.edu/opa/news/2007/06/solar29.html?AddInterest=1286 And Texas is already the national leader in wind energy.
Here's how renewable energy helps everyone: Brownsville-produced renewable energy --> means lower utility bills for tax-funded institutions--> which lowers our taxes --> giving us more spending money during the year --> so we buy more goods and services --> which increase sales tax revenues --> giving City more money to fix and maintain our infrastructure.
What will Brownsville be like in 2020? That depends on whether we can go from a city who has historically had its “hat in its hand” (need-based, dependent on external resources) to a city with its “hat on its head” (asset-based, less dependent) that understands it has much more to offer its residents, the great State of Texas, and the new flat world of Thomas Friedman.
6 comments:
Maybe if those asset-based 'untouchables' are formally enumerated and defined through the Imagine Brownsville process, the appropiate technical committee can work with BISD to modify its CATE and Career Pathways courses to more directly educate students on these fields.
Patricia A.
AMEN!
I would far rather see a young adult in a job that they want in place of being a college dropout and taking a job that they can get.
Will we start hearing this sort of language from the "City Fathers", now that the dogs are secure.
Maybe I should leave a note on their nightstands. ;)
M.
It would be great if all successful economic development models followed Friedman's analysis. Let's take it to another level. Zavaleta, can we have a book report on Richard Florida's book, "The Rise of the Creative Class?" I think that this book would more aptly describe Brownsville's potential for economic success.
The post on 'Patrimonio' was designed to foster discussion about Brownsville's future since we rarely see or hear much creative thought coming from our local economic development folks.
Florida is a professor at Carnegie Mellon U. His teaches and writes about regional development based on creativity and diversity. When YOU write the book report, we will gladly post it to the blog. Perhaps we can coax Florida to come visit us here on the border to see how we can increase diversity given our demographics. He uses Austin as an example. Well, we have a few things Austin doesn't: namely our strategic natural assets like sun, wind, port, bridge, etc. Of course we have many other things that Austin doesn't, but we won't go there.
For the three readers that visit this blog, you can learn more at Florida's website:
http://www.creativeclass.org
Here are some splats from Amazon.com:
From Booklist
Florida, an academic whose field is regional economic development, explains the rise of a new social class that he labels the creative class. Members include scientists, engineers, architects, educators, writers, artists, and entertainers. He defines this class as those whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and new creative content. In general this group shares common characteristics, such as creativity, individuality, diversity, and merit. The author estimates that this group has 38 million members, constitutes more than 30 percent of the U.S. workforce, and profoundly influences work and lifestyle issues. The purpose of this book is to examine how and why we value creativity more highly than ever and cultivate it more intensely. He concludes that it is time for the creative class to grow up--boomers and Xers, liberals and conservatives, urbanites and suburbanites--and evolve from an amorphous group of self-directed while high-achieving individuals into a responsible, more cohesive group interested in the common good. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
A maverick urbanist looks at the growing influence of today's newest "Creative Class" and offers innovative and practical lessons for business and workers. Many writers have commented on the massive social changes of the past few decades, but most of them have treated these shifts as something imposed on us, by technology or the marketplace. This is wrong, says Richard Florida: we've chosen to alter our values, work, and lifestyle, and for good economic reasons. Why have we done this?
Florida finds the answer in the rise of a new social class. Like other classes, its basis is economic. Just as the feudal aristocracy derived its identity and values from its hereditary control of land and people, and the bourgeoisie derived its identity and values from its role as merchants of goods, the Creative Class derives its identity and values from its role as purveyors of creativity. When we see ourselves as "creative," our self-image affects the choices we make in every area of our lives.
Based on a massive body of research, The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea-change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises nearly forty million Americans, or more than 30% of all employed people. The choices these people make have already had a huge economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.
Book Info
Offers innovative and practical lessons for business and workers. Chronicles the ongoing sea-change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change.
About the Author
Richard Florida is H. John Heinz III Professor of Regional Economic Development, Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University. A columnist for Information Week (circ. 400,000), he gives fifty to one hundred invited lectures a year, to mostly business audiences. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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