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March 2010: Looking at the current crisis in Nevada, there are many reasons to be scared for the future of this State. Some people call this a budget crisis but I prefer to call it a system crisis. The budget that does not match can be compared to the temperature of a patient, but a rising temperature, fever, is not the sickness: something else is causing the fever. Fever can be the crisis if the temperature gets too high and is in danger of being lethal, and in these situations, the immediate focus has to be on getting the temperature down. However, even then we need to understand the causes and identify the sickness causing the fever. Just fighting the temperature is not a solution.

For too long, the Nevada people and leaders have accepted a knowingly unhealthy situation and only half-heartedly or not at all tried to increase the options for the future. Economy in Nevada is based on very few pillars with little resilience. Education is undervalued and underdeveloped with some of the lowest scores and numbers in the country. In percentage of people working for the State and of the Gross State Product spent by the State government, the Nevada State government is the weakest in the Nation, and maybe one of the weakest in the world. Consequently, public goods are limited and the State is notoriously underfunded even in good economic times. In the housing bubble, Nevada took a leading position in construction work, with new settlements and urban areas rising out of the dessert in extremely short times. The Western frontier gold rush mentality was shining through. People proudly told stories of the money they were making by selling houses to their neighbors on one side and buying bigger ones from the neighbor on the next side. As a result, Nevada now is leading the Nation in foreclosures and the fraction of mortgages that are under water. Unemployment and homelessness are rising, tax revenues are falling, and the legislature responds with cuts of the already narrow portfolio of public goods. Nobody is planning for the future, all are focused on the budget crisis, the fever curve.

Visions for the future and plans how to cure the illness, not just deal with the fever, are not coming from the leaders, as they are busy with administering their own weakness. In a community where the leaders are weak, the citizens need to be strong. Where public goods are limited or not available, citizens need to take matters in their own hands. And institutions that are still there need to think of ways how they can support society, not just in their traditional area but by putting their resources to new uses for the benefit of the region. UNR is among the crucial resources, both in terms of knowledge, expertise, and human capital. Therefore, UNR has it in its own hands to create a situation favorable of higher eduction, research and development instead of passively waiting for the State and its leaders to do this. By engaging in the development of the region, UNR can shape it own destiny. But UNR cannot do this alone, it needs to team up with the people.

What options do the people living on the Reno/Sparks urban island want for themselves? What scenarios can we think of? What visions can we develop? Here, UNR can be a leader and facilitator. Let's look at a few potential scenarios:

  • The adventure park: The Reno-Sparks area develops into a multi-faceted adventure park for the country and beyond. Gambling, rifle and gun shows, off-road driving, hunting, sex, could all be elements of this park. It would cultivate the western frontier image and develop it into a 21st century version of the wild west.
  • The retirement city: Like many other place, Reno and Sparks reserve large parts of the city for retired, sun-hungry citizens. All infrastructure is developed with a focus on the retired and well-situated citizens.
  • Business as usual: Reno and Sparks let things develop just as in the past. Likely, the area would face a declining population, less public goods, and the state income would dependent on a declining tourism, declining gambling, some mining, etc.
  • The hydrogen island: Reno and Sparks realize that the urban island these two cities form in the wide rural and often desert-like landscape of Western Nevada is a strength and a unique opportunity to reach for the future. On such an island, people can develop their own way of doing things and by that develop a template for other cities in the U.S. The future needs new ways of doing things. A hydrogen society is the most promising alternative.
Being as island-like as Reno-Sparks is, the area has the option to go for this already now. Like on any other island, much of the infrastructure can be developed without too much concerns about what the rest of the world is doing because exchanges are limited.

If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.