That Forbes list? Ain’t as good as it sounds

The Albany Herald ran the story. The Economic Development Commission apparently gave it to them. The whole purpose was to supposedly highlight the good news that Albany made Forbes’ list of Best Small Places for Business and Careers. Our rank, 179th, isn’t that high but that’s OK right? After all, we’re on the list.

Of course, so is everyone else.

The list, compiled by Forbes, contains 184 metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs. There are a total of 384, 200 of which are classified as “large” MSAs. Since the Albany MSA is classified as “small”, that means we weren’t competing with places like Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, or anywhere else like that. No, we’re competing with places like Iowa City, IA and Auburn, AL and Battle Creek, MI.

Yet, when the Economic Development Commission released the story, they use phrases like:

The city was listed among 183 others in the country as one of the “Best Small Places for Business and Careers” by Forbes.com earlier this month.

“It’s the low cost of doing business and the low cost of living,” explained Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission Spokeswoman Barbara Rivera Holmes.

And, of course, there’s this little gem:

“This (the ranking) is one more thing we can put in our arsenal,” she said.

Now, let me ask you what is worth putting into our arsenal? Darton associate professor of Economics Aaron Johnson points out some positives, saying:

“Primarily, our cost of living stands out and ranks among the upper third of the U.S. We are also fairly competitive in terms of cost of doing business, which focuses on cost of labor, energy, taxes and office space. In fact, our cost of business is lower in comparison to other smaller metro areas such as nearby Macon, Warner Robins, Athens and Brunswick. Our area colleges were also competitive and near the U.S. median within this ranking.”

He’s right, there are positives. But nothing from the Economic Development Commission indicates an understanding that, ultimately, this wasn’t a compliment from Forbes.

The truth of the matter is that we’re in pretty bad shape. We’re horrible on pretty much any metric you want to use. Our cost of living is low, but that is partially related to the low median income for the region, one of the ten poorest – again rated as such by Forbes I might add. Only five communities were rated lower. And yet, our leadership seems incapable of grasping this fact.

Now, my critics will argue that I’m tearing Albany down again. Frankly, my critics are full of crap. They don’t have the guts to call me out by name anyways, so they’re pretty irrelevant, but they also happen to be wrong.

You see, I’m not upset at the low ranking. OK, I am, but what I’m really worked up about is that the EDC seems to not grasp that this is negative. I can’t help but believe that failure to see the criticisms and negatives makes it impossible to improve the overall position of where Albany will be. They need to see the low points in order to raise them up.

If they can’t acknowledge the bad, they can’t eliminate it. And, without that, we’re doomed to the same old same old, rather than the destiny we could attain if we would just get our heads out of the sand and reach for it.