Missoulian - Rural center gives western Montana high marks for ‘amenities'

KALISPELL - Northwest Montana shines bright blue on Sarah Low's map, the color chosen to fete places with the most “human amenities.”

Those are things such as wild mountains and clean waters, national parks and a high quality of life, gauges Low used to help color her version of America's new economy.

“In terms of long-term economic growth,” she said, “it's real important to be talking about these things.”

Low is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Rural America, an arm of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. She was exploring entrepreneurship - “what drives it?” - when she began to notice a significant trend.

“Something that kept popping up over and over were these natural amenities,” she said.

And so she reframed her research questions. Why were lots of new businesses sprouting in places with lots of scenic amenities?

“The entrepreneurs are specifically relocating into these areas,” she concluded. “They see a beautiful place with a great quality of life - a quiet community, with skiing or fishing or whatever, and they choose to do business there.”

It's a trend most western Montanans are familiar with by now, a trend plotted by homegrown economists at places such as Missoula's own Center for the Rocky Mountain West.

But now the Fed, by way of Low, is confirming this emergent economic reality. Her latest report, “Regional Asset Indicators: Human Amenities,” concludes that both employment and income growth are directly related to wild open spaces and a high quality of life.

“Especially now that we have things like broadband Internet technology,” she said, “amenity living is really driving economies.” Retirees have always gravitated toward such places, Low said, “but now everyone's getting on board.”

Her map shows a broad swath of blue tracking down the Rocky Mountain crest from Montana into Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona. A second strip of blue spills down the Pacific Coast from Washington to Baja, pouring inland to stain the High Sierra.

In Montana, though, the bluest blue is centered on two natural wonders widely known to be regional economic engines - Glacier and Yellowstone national parks.

In between are the greens, the places with moderate amounts of “human amenities.” Out east of the Continental Divide is a big, broad patch parched yellow, where those amenities are hardest to find.

Chart economic prosperity, population growth or business diversity, and the color distribution would look much the same.

And that fact got Low to thinking, once again, about the scope of her research. She had looked first at entrepreneurship, then at how entrepreneurship was impacted by natural amenities. It was time to look at those amenities in light of their effect on overall economic health.

Lots of the blue spots she mapped were rural places that traditionally supported relatively low wages. They were often natural-resource dependent, she said, places where below-average pay attracted companies such as call centers.

“But today,” she said, “the amenities are driving a whole new kind of business growth.”

Question is, how to maximize the potential? After all, she said, “you can't move a mountain into your backyard.”

But you can invest in the human amenities that most often translate into economic prosperity. She cataloged five of those amenities in crafting her colorful index: proximity to a national park, proximity to natural amenities such as lakes and mountains, availability of quality health care, opportunities for cultural entertainment, and the number of patents per capita (often a measure of higher-education opportunities.)

You might not be able to move a mountain, she said, but you can invest in education, in cultural venues, in protected forest and agricultural lands, in water quality, in venture capital.

Doing so, she concluded, “brings a real economic benefit to the community.”

Other economists have reached similar results in their own investigations.

Four recent economic studies from the Yellowstone area, synthesized in a report titled “Gateways to Yellowstone,” concluded that “the strong appeal of their wildlands and wildlife to residents and newcomers is at the heart of this supercharged economic performance.”

Per-capita income among Yellowstone's gateway communities increased

33 percent during the 1990s. The number of businesses increased 42 percent. Unemployment is at all-time lows around Montana's national parks.

In her study, Low reports that “population growth in rural recreation counties has consistently exceeded those in other rural areas, as well as the national average.”

Perhaps most telling, the Montana “gateway” studies showed that a full 40 percent of business owners operating near Yellowstone came to the area because of the natural amenities.

It's simple, according to Low's research: “Human amenities appeal to high-demand professionals who prefer to live in a pleasing environment.”

The Yellowstone and Glacier gateway reports both conclude that places with parks - places such as Montana's Flathead Valley - have faster growth, more in-migration, better employment, higher wages and more personal income than do places without parks.

In Montana's “bluest” spots, business is big in construction, in finance and banking, in insurance and real estate, in medical, in legal, in software and pharmaceuticals and biotech, and in engineering.

Those economists concur with Low: People no longer follow jobs. Jobs follow people, and quite often they follow them to gateway communities, where the latest influx of residents has brought education, skills, capital and new ideas to small-town America.

Of course, all that influx can conspire to smother the very amenities that are at the heart of the new economy. Roads can jam, views can haze over, houses can replace habitat.

“A lot of communities aren't thinking about it until it's a little too late,” Low said, “until there are a few too many houses dotted across that scenic mountainside.”

Tools such as open space bonds - Missoula has one on November's ballot and the Flathead is likely not far behind - are critical to extending the economic boom, Low said.

“It's smart,” she said of conserving open space. “It's good for business.”

Lots of communities focus on the immediate revenue from immediate development, she said, but “you don't have long-term sustainable economic growth without clean water and quality of life.”

For proof, she points no further than that map of America, where Montana looks mighty blue, but Detroit remains a dreary shade of yellow-gray.

On the Net

To read Sarah Low's Federal Reserve Bank report, visit http://www.kansascityfed.org/ and follow the links to FRB's Center for the Study of Rural America.

To read the economic studies synthesized in both the Glacier and Yellowstone gateway reports, log onto www.npca.org/northernrockies/gateway

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