Thursday, January 7, 2010

The trends that shaped a decade of local news

With the dawn of a new decade, there's been a lot of looking back going on — people looking back over the past 10 years and trying to put into terms how the world has changed in the past decade.

Having read a number of national "stories of the decade" articles, I started thinking about what local events might be considered in a similar ranking. After all, just last week, the Courier News released its list of the Top 10 Stories of 2009. Why not a ranking of the Top 10 Stories of the decade?

I have a unique perspective on this, I think, in that the last decade exactly coincides with my time as a Blytheville resident. I began my stint here at the Courier News on Jan. 3, 2000, just over 10 years ago. So anything that's happened since I've been here fits within the window of time we are looking at.

But as I ponder the top news stories of the decade, I find myself struggling to pinpoint specific stories that would warrant inclusion on such a list. Instead, what I see are the trends that have dominated the news for the past 10 years. And the two trends which have been the most important over the past decade have been economic development and community development.

By economic development, I mean jobs. Jobs are considered the lifeblood of any community, and with the Blytheville area in a continual battle for prosperity, economic development has supplied a steady stream of news over the past 10 years.

Some of it has been good news. Perhaps topping the list would be the arrival of Denso to Osceola. Other new plants have included the likes of Aviation Repair Technologies, Roll Coater and JMS Processing.

There's been bad news as well. The closure of the Milwaukee Tool plant was one of the biggest. Others have included the shuttering of the Borg Warner plant in Blytheville and the Fruit of the Loom factory in Osceola.

Atlas Tube in Blytheville has been both a good news and a bad news story, with the plant both opening and closing in the past decade.

Central in the economic development story has been the county's sales tax dedicated to pursuing projects that will spur job development. Mississippi County voters approved the tax earlier in the decade, and local officials can tout a long list of successes, both in new plants and expansion of existing ones. At the same time, if the ultimate goal of such a program is community prosperity, reviews of the sales tax might be mixed, with population still stagnant or declining in parts of the county.

By community development, I mean the things that make life better for those who live here. This could include everything from education, to public services, to the retail sector.

This has been another good news/bad news trend.

On the good side, one of the biggest stories in the area of community development in the past decade has been the development of the Youth Sportsplex on the Arkansas Aeroplex. The taxpayer-funded facility includes baseball fields, softball fields, soccer fields and a walking trail. The facility has drawn numerous state and regional tournaments to the area, and hundreds of local children have benefited from its existence. Only the most obtuse of observers would fail to see the benefits of this facility.

The nearby Thunder Bayou Golf Links has likewise drawn people into the community and provided enhanced recreational opportunities for local citizens. But because of its continued cost to the city, the golf course remains a source of controversy.

Leading the way on the bad news side of the community development trend would probably be the ongoing woes of the local hospital system. At the start of the decade, the hospitals were run by Baptist Memorial Hospital. Even then, the hospitals battled an image problem, with many local patients heading out of the county for medical care. As management was passed to Ameris, then to QHR (and the name changed to Great River Medical Center), those problems have only intensified.

Retail development in the past decade has been another good news/bad news situation. Success stories include Lowe's, most of the Porter Commons Shopping Center, Zaxby's, Captain D's, Comfort Inn and Suites and many of the stores in the Porter Commons Shopping Center. There have also been numerous new businesses to open on Main Street in the past decade.

On the flip side, empty store fronts such as Mazzios, Bonanza, Starbucks and Price Chopper, as well as the absence of stores like Stage, Crossroads and Westbrooks are reminders of work that remains to be done.

To look back on the past decade is to see a patchwork of good news and bad news, stories of success and stories of failure. Without a doubt, there are lessons to be learned.

The decade ahead will no doubt be no different. All we can hope for is that at the end of the day, the good news outweighs the bad, and the successes outnumber the failures.

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