Ball State University sociologist David Terrell, left, and economist Dr. Michael Hicks speak with a resident who attended the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce’s “Community Conversation,” held Tuesday evening at the Syracuse Community Center. The two men spoke on a modern approach to economic development. InFreeNews photos by Keith Knepp.

By Keith Knepp
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — “If you build it, they will come.”

Perhaps that isn’t a completely accurate representation of the presentation given by Dr. Michael Hicks and David Terrell during Tuesday evening’s Community Conversation at the Syracuse Community Center. The event, hosted by the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce, drew a crowd of around 50 people, who came to hear the Ball State academic duo speak on building a successful community.

Terrell, a sociologist by trade, serves as the executive director of the Indiana Communities Institute; Hicks, an economist, is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State. The two men provided a tag team presentation on the changing needs of communities like Syracuse and greater Kosciusko County as it pertains to future economic and population growth.

David Terrell, executive director of the Indiana Communities Institute, spoke to a crowd of around 35 people at the Syracuse Community Center on Tuesday evening.

Hicks spoke on what he considers the outdated economic growth theory that the way to create economic development is to attract large manufacturing businesses, who in turn provide jobs and thus population growth. In that model, local governments are often coerced into providing tax breaks, abatements and other incentives to lure those businesses into the community.

Instead, the two men advocated for building infrastructure within a community, including strong schools, transportation, parks, restaurants and businesses, that make people want to live in those towns and areas. The suggestion is that companies will come to areas that can provide a strong workforce rather than the previously held model belief that suggested people followed job opportunities.

In what might be considered a controversial stance, Terrell provided data showing counties that provided lower tax rates for their residents were not the counties most successful in economic growth and stability. Rather, their research shows that communities with higher taxing rates were able to provide the positive infrastructure that attracted people and thus businesses offering higher paying jobs, using their modern approach to economic development.

Terrell and Hicks insist that conversations within local governments and community leaders must begin now to implement any type of change in the future. The last question posed by an audience member asked, “What happens if we just want to maintain status quo?”

Terrell’s simple answer: “You’ll decline.”

Dr. Michael Hicks, director of Ball State’s Center for Business and Economic Research, provided a Powerpoint presentation to the gathered audience.

A crowd of around 35 people came to the Syracuse Community Center for the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber’s Community Conversations event on Tuesday, April 26.