Demographics are a big concern here. In 2013 deaths exceeded births in Maine. A hospital further north is shutting down their birthing section due to lack of business.
Not many McMansions in these depressed rural areas but there are plenty of perfectly good homes for sale in the $80K to $150K range that have no buyers, so the net effect is the same, and proportional to net worth so is the economic hurdle it poses to the current owners.
Maine has the oldest average age among all states and climbing. Accordingly, we rank at or near the top for the percentage of the state economy that is driven by things like Social Security, retirement benefits, and the various Federal support programs.
Current policies and choices being made in many spheres run counter to that reality. I do think we need immigration to breathe some life into our local economy. Or we can watch local business activity and jobs be hollowed out by a lack of customers while we continue the youth and brain drain. People here need to accept that the golden age of paper making and high value timber products is largely over and they need to make some realistic choices if they want to get out of the downward economic spiral.
It is interesting to contemplate what Maine will look like 20-40 years on if that spiral continues but I don't have any solid ideas about that. I suspect the attraction of Maine summer weather and coastal cachet will continue and probably grow the second/third? home market, but I don't think Martha Stewart will be moving to Industry, Maine anytime soon. :laughing:
We have some of the same problems here in Michigan. We were the only state to lose population between 2000 and 2010. Even now, our growth rate is minuscule, some tiny fraction of 1%. Our local hospital shut down the birthing unit about 4 years ago. Our population is aging, we will be about Florida's level in a few years.
As far as economic development, all the politicians talk about is bringing manufacturing jobs back. 20 years ago, there was attempts to diversify the economy here, but they have apparently given up on that. Recently, the local paper reported that if our current job boom continued, we would get back to having 1/2 the jobs we had in 2000, by 2020. It will take 5 more years to get half way? That's a big hill to climb, and no guarantee that hiring will continue for 5 more years. We are short a lot of trades here, but nobody wants to train anybody, so very few apprentices. Manufacturing still sucks. They say they need workers, but only if they will work cheap, with zero bennies. We have quite a bit of construction here, but the biggest projects are for over 55 communities, assisted living, nursing homes, and condos. Very few single family homes, since you can buy an existing home cheaper than you can build it.
Folks here don't seem to be able to think of anything other than auto manufacturing. Inevitably, any discussion brings up Detroit as the "arsenal of democracy" during ww2. BFD, that was in my grandfathers day, and I am retired! One constant here seems to be to cut education. I don't see that as anything that improves the future.
