You can go your own way!

Appalachia's dependence on coal, forestry and tobacco has kept the region in poverty. Now, farmers and community activists are building a new economy -- one that can sustain people, their unique culture and the region's ecosystems for generations to come.

In Dungannon, Virginia, they know how workers in Spencer felt when their employer abruptly closed its doors, because it happened to them. Greeted by a small group of management representatives from out of town, but not their local managers, they were told to go home. The plant was closed permanently. No notice was given. The profit from this plant, these management strangers said, was not high enough to keep it operating.

The Appalachian region of Tennessee and Virginia is not in crisis. It's strikingly similar to Spencer, Iowa -- suffering from long-term economic stagnation, cultural and economic subordination, and the loosening of the bonds that made it a place like no other.

There is another Appalachian story unfolding right now that could be a Spencer, Iowa story one day. It is the story of community-based initiatives regenerating the region's economy and culture from within.

Those out-of-towners who told workers in Dungannon to go home? They had only opened the Dungannon plant seven years prior to great fanfare and great economic incentive from the city and county? Is this story starting to sound familiar?

At Appalachian Sustainable Development, they focus on an area of southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee that has sustained jobless rates two to three times higher than US national rates, approaching 20 percent in some counties; poverty rates exceed 30 percent in some counties. We're not as bad off in Spencer -- or are we? Don't 40 percent of our kids qualify for free and reduced lunches at school?

Their plan was clear but ambitious: to help the community build a more sustainable economy from networks of small, local endeavors. ASD set itself the task of transforming two central legs of Appalachia's economy: agriculture and timber.

ASD has lessons we can apply here in Spencer. According to Anthony Flaccavetto of ASD, "building an alternative regional economy -- one that is more just, more ecologically sound and more self-reliant -- requires networks of relationships that are synergistic, and a means of capturing and accumulating knowledge and assets. We have come to call this an infrastructure for community sustainability."

The short version is that the strategy focuses on restoring ecological health, creating livelihoods and economic systems that are ecologically sustainable, and building the financial and physical capital needed to add value to the region's natural resources and bridge the gap between producers and the marketplace.

They're building a living economy -- one that does not depend on offering the right economic incentives to out of towners who don't care about Spencer or its people, who would shut down a plant, not because it's unprofitable, but because it's not profitable enough, and never look back.

I've said it in blogs before, but why couldn't our collective (tax) money go to local people who have skills that are not being utilized right now? How many press operators and people with similar skills who worked at RR Donnelly are unemployed or underemployed? The economic incentive money that could go out to a corporation that doesn't care about us could go to these locals to build up a press operation, hire local workers, and get the economy going again.

We can't have our tax money going to corporate welfare.

Why not? It is now.

Since it's going out to corporations to bail them out now, why can't our local tax money go to bail out our own? Create training and jobs that will sustain our economy. Why not ask our local businesses to tell us what it would take to get them to the next level, to where they could hire more employees?

It's my understanding that when a large employer comes to Spencer to talk about their future plans, they get a large turnout of citizens worried about "what will come in" as a result of this immigration to our town. What they want to know is "who" will come in? I've heard from a couple of citizens on my blog that they "like Spencer at the size and scope it is."

Fine. We want to be insular. Or at the very least, the attitude of some scares off potential good employers from out of town. Want to be insular -- let's not do it half hogged, let's go whole hog.

We support local businesses that will sustain growth -- not those that serve to enrich only a few.

I'll be an example -- I've given up getting a job in this area, in this economy, that I'm capable of and is capable of putting up with me. I'm making a growing income from writing and editing. It's been ten years growing this business, and right now I can't hire anyone else.

Another caveat -- I don't have any local clients. I had one here in Iowa and was burned pretty bad. I'd love to try again with local clients and even if that never happens, if I could expand my business with a better website and technology, I could hire local graphic designers for some projects, or partner with them to reach more clients -- possibly the printing press outlined above.

That's just me and my little, inconsequential microbusiness.

What if someone with actual marketable skills came to the table. Technical people. Agricultural people. Manufacturing people. People with skills off the board but who have hit the big 5-0 and short of a miracle are unlikely to get hired until the economy really picks up.

Maybe there's something to being insular -- we solve our own problems given our circumstances. Bush did what he did. Obama is doing what he's doing. If we have a sustainable, local economy it doesn't have to rule our daily lives.

With all the energy we put in to kvetching about the state of the greater union, what if we were to unite with one another -- Clay County side by side not handing out to those less fortunate, but helping to make everyone more fortunate.

We elect our city council and county supervisors to handle our tax money with care. Their focus has been on bringing in big factories from out of state. Maybe that helps them look good in Des Moines, but what does it really do for you and me, looking ahead to the next half of 2010?

Yes. I hope this is not the end, but the beginning of something new. Call a city council member or county supervisor and ask if those incentives can be used to grow businesses that are already here, or new businesses that we have the extraordinary human capital to create.

Ask how we're coming on becoming an arts and cultural destination in Iowa. The arts is one reason I moved here with my family almost four years ago, and I have to say while I have had wonderful experiences with Arts on Grand and the Spencer Community Theatre, I think we can do more there, too.

I've said in earlier blogs that investing in the arts do not create jobs just for artists but for electricians, builders, and nearly every kind of vendor.

We have a gifted set of citizenry here. We have the ability to love and care for one another (even you, Down with Dems!) We have creativity, ingenuity, and I need not mention, an ethic of hard work and independence.

We can move beyond hope and change, change and hope, and really do something.