News

…The benefits of living and working next to public lands are well-documented. Headwaters Economics found that rural Western counties containing over 30 percent protected federal lands experienced 345 percent job growth between 1970 and 2010, compared to only 83 percent in counties with no protected public lands. National parks, in particular, have a huge economic impact. Visitors to Grand Canyon National Park, for example, spent nearly $430 million in the area in 2010, and the park supported almost 7,000 jobs between NPS staff and local tourism employees. If the sequestration goes through, Grand Canyon stands to cut a million dollars from its FY 2013 budget of $21.3 million.…

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…A new economic study shows that the western United States is outperforming the rest of the country in job creation, personal income, and population growth, and that protected federal lands–such as national parks, monuments, and wilderness–are providing western states with a competitive economic advantage that has helped create more jobs and increase per capita income. The outdoor quality of life has also enabled rural and urban western communities to recruit entrepreneurs and retain talented employees, leading to a diverse and growing economy.…

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…We need to do more: stop giving taxpayer protection, and indirectly encouraging development, to communities behind levees. We also need to actively protect our most valuable flood protection infrastructure – wetlands, barrier islands, and dune beaches.

Similar opportunities lie in the nation’s wildfire “red zones,” where the government is spending $3 billion a year on wildfire protection. “We ain’t seen nothing yet,” says Ray Rasker, an economist and director of Headwaters Economics. Only 16 percent of private wildland now has homes, he says. “Put climate change on top of new development, and you have a crisis.” He suggests cutting support for construction of at-risk homes, doing away with breaks like the federal mortgage tax deduction.…

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…Stop giving taxpayer protection, and indirectly encouraging development, to communities behind levees. We also need to actively protect our most valuable flood protection infrastructure – wetlands, barrier islands, and dune beaches. Similar opportunities lie in the nation’s wildfire "red zones," where the government is spending $3 billion a year on wildfire protection. "We ain’t seen nothing yet," says Ray Rasker, an economist and director of Headwaters Economics. Only 16 percent of private wildland now has homes, he says. "Put climate change on top of new development, and you have a crisis." He suggests cutting support for construction of at-risk homes, doing away with breaks like the federal mortgage tax deduction.…

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…Pagosa Springs is surrounded by vast public lands and wilderness. Only 31% of Archuleta County is privately owned and 49% is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. According to Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonprofit research group whose mission is to improve community development and land management decisions in the West, these public lands create a competitive economic advantage—one that we have not recognized and capitalized on as yet.

Headwaters Economics released a research report in November, 2012 that found that the West’s popular national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and other public lands offer its growing high-tech and services industries a competitive advantage, which is a major reason why the western economy has outperformed the rest of the U.S. economy in key measures of growth—employment, population, and personal income—during the last four decades.

The economy of the West, like that of the U.S. and other industrialized economies, has shifted over time from a primary reliance on the extraction and processing of raw materials to the deployment of human skills, technology, and innovation. In today’s economy, the West’s largest economic drivers are not directly tied to wood, gold, cattle, or other basic commodities, but rather stem from the growing value-added contributions of knowledge-based sectors across the region.…

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…Salesforce.com was said to be considering Salt Lake City or Portland for its big expansion; despite their iconic status, cities like New York, Chicago and Boston weren’t on the list. This is not an anomaly but an acknowledgment of the reality that to attract the technical creative class, firms need to locate in the western United States.

The numbers back it up as well: According to a recent report from Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Mont., over the past 40 years employment in the West grew by 152 percent, compared with 78 percent for the rest of the country. Furthermore, this western job growth was almost entirely in industries such as health care, real estate, high-tech, and finance and insurance, which created 19.3 million net new jobs, many of them high-paying, according to the report.

So that leads to a natural question: Why have so many western cities become dominant hubs for software innovation? Other than the Bay Area, we don’t have any particular educational advantage, higher population density or historical incumbency. What we do share is unfettered access to beautiful, wild, protected public lands. To put it in perspective, the federal government manages 355 million acres in the West, or 46 percent of all land in the region; by contrast, the government manages only 15 percent of all land in the rest of the country.…

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…Collectively, we are working hard to help entrepreneurs launch and grow new businesses; ensure that established companies don’t leave the area; and bring new companies to town.

Headwaters Economics, an independent nonpartisan research group based in Montana, just released an important report titled, "West is Best: How Public Lands Create a Competitive Economic Advantage," which is extremely relevant to our local efforts to grow our economy. What the report finds is that our quality of life here in the West, based on close proximity to protected public lands and the beauty, fresh air and outdoor recreation opportunities they offer, gives us a competitive advantage that pays off in spades.…

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…Public lands provide competitive economic advantages, according to nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics. In the study “West Is Best,” regional economic strength was found in western portions of the United States where the Great Recession hasn’t decimated the economy as badly as other areas.

Buttressing economic stability and job creation in 11 Western states was the transition to a service economy whose dominant industries include health care and social assistance, real estate, finance and insurance, government, professional and technical services, education, hospitality, arts, entertainment and recreation.

“From 1970 to 2010,” the report states, “service sectors created more than 2 million net new jobs, or nearly 100 percent of net new job growth in the non-metro West. Non-services have been roughly flat over this same period.”

Industries identified by Headwaters Economics that have fared the worst include manufacturing, farm employment and wood products manufacturing.…

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The High Desert’s bounty of nature and open space has a measurable economic benefit, according to a study conducted by Headwaters Economics, an economic think tank. The California desert region provides residents with highly desirable lifestyle amenities, including the varied terrain of a wide open desert as well as proximity to mountains, lakes and rivers, and even open sky. Serving as a gateway to National Parks and public lands, including Joshua Tree National Park, the Angeles National Forest, and the Mojave National Preserve, the High Desert is rife with assets that can help the region recruit high quality businesses, talented professionals and residents that seek out high quality outdoor environments.…

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Headwaters Economics, an outfit out of Montana, has a report out once again arguing that protecting lands — in wilderness, monuments, parks, what have you — does far more for the economy than we tend to give it credit for when we think locking it up keeps it from economically productive use. The bullet points:

From 1970 to 2010, the West’s employment grew by 152 percent compared to 78 percent for the rest of the country.

This western job growth was almost entirely in services industries such as health care, real estate, high-tech, and finance and insurance, which created 19.3 million net new jobs, many of them high-paying.

Western non-metropolitan counties with more than 30 percent of the county’s land base in federal protected status such as national parks, monuments, wilderness, and other similar designations increased jobs by 345 percent over the last 40 years. By comparison, similar counties with no protected federal public lands increased employment by 83 percent.

In 2010, per capita income in western non-metropolitan counties with 100,000 acres of protected public lands is on average $4,360 higher than per capita income in similar counties with no protected public lands.…

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By Ray Rasker, Headwaters Economics— …A combination of factors — warming temperatures, longer, more intense fire seasons, a rapidly growing western population — have dramatically increased the cost and risk from wildfires, and now is the time to enact sensible policies that improve safety and hold down taxpayer expenses.

Without action, fire trends will most likely worsen in the near future. Our research in California’s Sierra Nevada found that an annual increase in average summer temperature of 1 degree Fahrenheit is associated with a 35 percent increase in area burned. And in Oregon, a rise in average summer temperature of 1 degree F is associated with an increase of 420 wildfires — a large effect given that, on average, 1,800 wildfires now burn in Oregon per year.

These fires increasingly are happening in and around homes — known as the wildland-urban interface, the area where private and commercial development abuts public, fire-prone lands. CoreLogic, a research company in California, found that from 1990 to 2008, 10 million new homes — more than half of all new homes constructed — were built in the wildland-urban interface.

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…Earlier this year, a Bozeman-based research group, Headwaters Economics, released a report correlating the growth of the state’s economy with its high percentage of federally protected lands.

The report found that between 1970 and 2009 rural western counties with more than 30 percent of the land under federal protection increased jobs at a rate four times greater than rural counties with no federally protected lands.…

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…Earlier this year, a Bozeman-based research group, Headwaters Economics, released a report correlating the growth of the state’s economy with its high percentage of federally protected lands.

The report found that between 1970 and 2009 rural western counties with more than 30 percent of the land under federal protection increased jobs at a rate four times greater than rural counties with no federally protected lands.…

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…But there are advantages to not cutting the forests as well. A new study released by Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics found that Montana’s fastest-growing employment sector was in service jobs, including health care, professional and technical trades and real estate sales. And the single driving factor was proximity to protected public lands, Headwaters director Ray Rasker said.

“What we found was employers are using the lifestyle of the West as a way to attract talent,” Rasker said. “The average salary is about $35,000 a year in the West, per capita. But there’s a 10 percent premium for areas located next to 100,000 acres of public lands. It’s one of the unique circumstances that set the West aside from the rest of the country.”…

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By Ray Rasker, Headwaters Economics— The West’s extensive federal lands, considered by some to be an economic hindrance, are today providing an economic advantage to many communities and businesses in parts of Utah and across the West.

Recent research shows that Western protected public lands — national parks, monuments, wilderness and other areas — provide the region’s growing high-tech and services industries a competitive edge. It is a major reason why the Western economy has outperformed the rest of the U.S. key measures of employment growth, population, and personal income during the last four decades

From 1970 to 2010, the West’s employment, for example, grew by 152 percent compared to 78 percent for the rest of the country. This job growth was almost entirely in services industries, such as health care, real estate, high-tech, and finance and insurance. It created 19.3 million net new jobs, many of them high-paying, during the past 40 years.…

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…Here in Colorado, we wrestle with balancing oil and gas development with protections for the outdoors. We depend on water from the Colorado River for our ranches and homes; our public lands and rivers also boost tourism and outdoor recreation, and even lure high-tech businesses here, growing jobs and our economy. That means restoring balance to the management of our public lands is essential.…

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…The Headwaters Economics report, “West is Best: How public lands in the West create a competitive economic advantage,” shows that those protected public lands are giving western states a competitive economic advantage in creating more jobs, especially in high-tech and services industries, and increased personal income. The Central Valley reaps the benefits of being the gateway to some of those protected lands…

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By Ray Rasker, Headwaters Economics— …Wildland firefighting costs federal agencies more than $3 billion per year, more than twice the cost from a decade ago. Our research shows that the cost to U.S. taxpayers of protecting privately owned properties in the WUI are as high as $1 billion each year.

This may be just the beginning. Across the West, only 14 percent of the WUI [Wildland-Urban Interface] currently is in residential use — leaving 86 percent of private land available for future development.

Today, the federal government and national taxpayers pay most firefighting costs in the West. These expenses will continue to escalate unless there is a financial disincentive to building homes on fire-prone lands, so that more of the costs are carried by private landowners and local governments.

Most studies of wildland fire and residential development have focused on solutions such as fuel reduction and fire-safe home building. This approach may work for existing structures, but it fails to address the rapidly rising cost of new development and could even unintentionally increase WUI building and subsequent fire suppression costs.…

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…Gardner’s and Balyo’s analyses corroborate an independent study by Headwaters Economics, which clearly shows that parks are engines driving local economies…

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