I was checking one of my e-mail accounts today and one of the news items on top of their homepage was this gem about American Ghost Towns of the 21st Century. Just check out number 4:
4. Worcester County, Md.
Number of homes: 55,749
Vacancy rate: 60%
Population: 49,274The Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation recently estimated that the county would have a sharp drop in its tax base in fiscal year 2012 and “another, more drastic, revenue decrease” for the fiscal year that follows. The twin engines of county’s economy are tourism and agriculture. Experts believe the tourism business in Maryland’s Eastern Shore could stay crippled for years.
Now, we locals know what article writer Douglas A. McIntyre may not necessarily grasp: at the time the Census was dated (April 1, 2010) there wouldn’t have been all that many tourists in Ocean City – or any other of the featured Midwestern tourist areas which depend on snowmobiling or ice fishing in the winter and recreational activities in the summer. The moment in time the Census was taken was betwixt and between these peak periods, which made the vacancy rate scarily high.
But he may be correct on his last sentence regarding Worcester County. Having myself been a casualty of the demise of the local building business over the last half-decade, I can vouch for how much we’d overbuilt in that time. At one time I checked a condo project I worked on and found just five of 23 units had sold two years after completion – certainly other projects I worked on had similar numbers. In Salisbury we only have to look along our Wicomico River to find a reminder of what happened to the local real estate industry once the mid-2000’s boom went bust; the building sits as a half-completed memorial to a better economic era. I was thinking the other day that I could name nearly as many projects I’d started on which were cancelled as ones I worked on which were built – there’s at least three decent-sized buildings or renovations catering to the tourist/second home trade I could think of which were once planned for Ocean City but were shelved by the building bust.
We thought we were at the early stages of a boom time for the lower Eastern Shore, but apparently our local area was only attractive to retirees – and who can retire now in these uncertain financial times when half of a home’s value has been wiped away? Just try selling a second home.
Then couple with that with the prospect for both rampant inflation and higher gasoline prices for the next several years, and one can see why those who depend on the tourist trade are right to worry. The difference between having $4 a gallon gas in 2008 and the prospect of $4 a gallon gas in 2011 is that unemployment had barely edged above 5% as the summer season loomed in 2008 – now three years hence we’re talking an “official” rate of nearly 9 percent but when those who consider themselves ‘underemployed’ because they want more hours or those who have stopped looking are added to it, we’re close to 20 percent of the workforce. Moreover, the nest eggs people still had in 2008 aren’t there in 2011.
Sure, Ocean City will likely survive this relatively intact, but given those indications the writer may be citing the correct information when he restates that “the tourism business in Maryland’s Eastern Shore could stay crippled for years.” It may not be so much Ocean City but the ancillary areas like Salisbury, Crisfield, and inland Delaware which feel the blow.
This illustrates the need for diversifying our local economy. Now I realize that Governor O’Malley and Maryland Democrats are thinking that allowing a racino at Ocean Downs and building a wind farm offshore will provide us an economic shot in the arm. But Maryland’s system of adding features to casinos each two years (since any change needs an affirmative vote of the people) and reliance on an energy source which proves to be cost-ineffective will likely mean neither of these so-called panaceas will have much of an impact.
Instead, cutting taxes, easing onerous state regulations, and making business startup simpler, along with needed infrastructure improvements like a interstate-grade highway connecting the lower Eastern Shore to I-95 near Wilmington, Delaware (and eventually south to Norfolk, Virginia) are solutions which wouldn’t be nearly as sexy but would be a lot more effective.
Obviously there were people attracted to this area for something, whether it was the water, a rural small-town lifestyle, or the vibe which comes from living in a resort area. Even in these economic doldrums we have a lot of assets many other areas covet. Think someone who moved to North Dakota to toil in the oil fields there wouldn’t kill to have a beach nearby and better weather? But they have a job – North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate – and a lot of us don’t.
I realize our area is the red-headed stepchild of the state, and no less than former Governor William Donald Schaefer called the Eastern Shore a “shithouse.” Their general attitude is one of us being ‘flythrough’ country – speeding through Delmarva until they can get to their beachfront houses or condos in Ocean City or up along the Delaware coast. Out of a population of nearly 6 million in the state, our scant 450,000 or so really doesn’t matter – especially since we vote Republican.
So there’s a lot of strikes against us, and we truly need some ingenuity to work around the handicaps the state of Maryland throws at us. Thus, be advised that, until we get a good source of jobs, we’re going to have that insanely high vacancy rate even in areas well off the ocean.