Why not Midland, James?
Category: Local...
Posted Tuesday, January 03, 2006 at 09:28 PM [GMT-6]

The Midland Development Corporation is staying busy with its attempts to attract new businesses to our city, with the obvious goals of increasing employment opportunities (although with a 3.5% unemployment rate, it's not clear where the workers will come from) and keeping the economy strong (not that $60 crude needs a lot of help in that respect). However, it occurs to me that they're overlooking one specific strategy that could work wonders for improving Midland's standing in the global community: recruiting of influential individuals who are seeking a change in residence.

Case in point: James Lileks is growing increasingly serious about escaping the frigid landscape of Minneapolis, and taking up residence in a hotter place. And while his current object of geographic affection is Phoenix (which has pretty much cornered the market on "hot"), I get the impression he could be swayed. This is where the MDC comes in. It would be a rather simple matter to create a customized package for Mr. Lileks explaining the advantages Midland has over Phoenix, using his own previously linked post as a starting point. For example:

• He wants hot weather. OK, but does he really? Why not point out that the all-time record high temperature for Midland of 116° is simply another day in June (or July or August) in Phoenix? I suspect that a steady diet of 116 is not really what James has in mind.


• He wants a house not adjacent to a freeway, which basically eliminates most of the housing in Phoenix. On the other hand, as long as one doesn't count the La Pacifica Entrada reliever route, it's pretty hard to find a nice big house in Midland that's anywhere close to a freeway.


• James seems to be balking a bit at the million dollar price tag for the nicer but still presumably upper middle class homes in Ph-town. He should understand that in Midland, he could get either three times the house for that amount, or pay 1/3 for the same house...and he wouldn't necessarily have to install a gravel lawn.


• Then there's the Arizona personal income tax. We don't have one (yet) in Texas. Of course, we in Midland do pay an extra tax in order to fund the attempts to attract attractive individuals like Mr. Lileks (assuming, of course, that strategy becomes viable), but all that means, really, is that he would be paying to attract himself and I think he'd appreciate the irony.

I could go on and on but you get the picture. If we could convince James Lileks to move to Midland (and Lord knows we could use his wife's legal skills somewhere), there's no telling what dominos might begin to fall. And it would be nice to have yet another A-list blog in town that's the toast of the MSM.