Two years ago a Democrat governor of Kentucky and a Republican senior member of the Kentucky Congressional delegation began talking about working together to lead an effort to turn around Eastern Kentucky economically.
They named this effort SOAR (Shaping Our Appalachian Region) and planned to make it a citizen-driven effort.
In the last two years, SOAR has achieved much for the rural community of East Kentucky, as The Courier-Journal reports.
However, public opinion of the program varies, with some citizens concerned that SOAR is focussing on fixing the wrong problems.
In Kentucky.com‘s opinion section, Dee Davis (president for the Center for Rural Strategies and publisher of the Daily Yonder) expresses his concern for the urgency surrounding East Kentucky’s hard-hit communities, but he believes that SOAR can still achieve its goal if it focuses on the right issues:
“What we can’t afford is to puff ourselves up or make believe that what got us in this mess is going to get us out. We can’t keep saying that widening the Mountain Parkway is strategic development or pretend that tourism is going to transform our economy. It won’t, even if we build a zipline from Topmost to Toulouse. Even if they double the visiting days at all the federal prisons.
But SOAR can be an honest broker.
There is no joy in knowing that ours is the poorest congressional district in America, but more important is whether that reality grounds us or grinds us toward where we want to go. We can rebuild an economy that makes this place better, includes people who’ve been left out, fixes the stuff that is broken — land, water, infrastructure — or we can just keep selling off our assets.”
As Mr. Davis points out “There are no easy solutions, but there are solutions.”
With the next SOAR Summit gathering, there is hope that those involved will reach realistic goals for fixing crucial infrastructure in this hard-hit region.
Inframanage.com notes that one of the key components of infrastructure management is understanding and getting the agreement of the levels of service to be delivered.
At the most fundamental level, communities own infrastructure to deliver levels of service – be it roads, water utilities, schools, or parks.
Getting community agreement on what levels of service are required, and can be afforded can take some time and a lot of consultation and discussion.
The infrastructure and services that a community has currently deployed are the results of many years of previous decisions.
As the SOAR discussion highlights, communities and economies change, and this can lead to a re-evaluation of what is important, and what needs to be funded.
The development and setting of levels of service is a major component of infrastructure management practice, and industry manuals provide a range of guidance and practice notes on this topic.
PHOTO CREDIT: Wigwams at Cave City, Kentucky by Christopher P. Bills via Flickr Creative Commons License
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