ANTI-DEVELOPMENT UPSTATE STAKEHOLDERS
The New York City Watershed Economic Impact Assessment Report. Rep. N.p., May 2009. Web. <http://dcecodev.com/documents/NYCWatershedImpactStudy-FinalReport.pdf>.
PG 39-47
Upstate New York counties have a relatively higher employment rate than NYC. Most of this employment is proprietorship. However, high proprietorship also indicates that the region “does not offer enough viable employment opportunities, which forces people to create their own businesses. Delaware County’s unusually high proprietary employment rates when coupled with lower income rates indicate that the county’s job opportunities may be low. This could also be the result of the given nature of a rural county that is highly reliant on natural resources and agriculture. This may be the case in Delaware County as both the natural resource and agriculture sectors have a disposition toward proprietorships and lower earnings.”
Many of the small businesses are doing well, however they heavily rely on natural resources for their business and are vulnerable to new environmental changes like the land acquisition by NYC for water filtration.
The infrastructure supporting agriculture has declined significantly over the past few decades and will continue to decline. Agriculture is a demanding industry that is labor intensive and requires high capital investments. It remains a high risk for personal and financial safety. For these reasons the average age of farmer’s increases as young adults, who are willing to become farmers, do not take on the line of work because of all the burdens.
NYC’s plans for upstate watershed land acquisition have increased the demand for land. Not only does this increase the price for land, it also limits farmers from purchasing land for their agricultural business. Due to these reasons, agriculture has been decreasing in the upstate region. It is traditional for farmers to own the land they farm on in order to stay in business. Without the ability to own land, young farmers are leaving upstate NY county areas in search of cheaper and readily available land in areas like Pennsylvania. Farmers in these areas have expressed their concerns about the agricultural situation as they have had friends and family leave the County to farm elsewhere in recent years.
Manufacturing in the Delaware County is the largest economic sector in the area. It has remained relatively stable however recent flooding from NYC’s water filtration systems “has increased concerns about the sector’s concentrated nature and the potential disruption to the economy.” The most recent data on increases in unemployment has shown that the majority of job loss has occurred in this sector. “While the sector is the economy’s largest generator of jobs, it also faces some of the greatest challenges in terms of growing global competition. The general lack of diversity within the sector itself is another cause for concern as the sector has a small number of large enterprises, any one of which could create considerable local disruption if it were to encounter further difficulties or reduced profitability.”
