Building a New Long Island Economy: Part One

Some more inter-related topics:

One on cutting "red tape."

One on regional planning.

One on the Long Island economy.

As we've posted previously it seems a fairly obvious observation that the above issues among many others, are inter-related. Often times we can not change one thing without causing change in one or more other areas.

We've also spoken about the "diversity" of organizations (some might say duplication or redundancy of organizations) on Long Island, not only in government but across many different disciplines. Never-the-less, this is the current state of affairs and changing it by reduction may take more time and effort than its worth. Many organizations exist because of something, not in spite of it and have the constituencies to prove it.

As previously stated, organizations, of all types, that are no longer necessary will become extinct naturally if there is a dynamic philosophy on Long Island, which concentrates on innovation and self-renewal.

So, what to do?

There seems to be a general consensus on the big issues. The problem is that the consensus has been reached using the only data available to organizations and that data has not been standardized or normalized (the term my friend Mark Fasciano uses and which the correct one, he's the PhD not me), also an issue we've spoke about previously with among other posts the Long Island Dublin Core Initiative idea among other concepts. Additionally the methodology utilized to reach these various conclusions is similarly not uniform, has not been vetted and is generally in a static format rather than a dynamic format making it only semi-useful.

Therefore, conclusions reached using these various data will never be "bullet proof" and as such are subject to attack, justified or unjustified.

Once the information leaves the area of verifiable fact and enters the world of opinion, then, constructive action is virtually impossible as the various competing interests jostle over who is correct.

We are not suggesting that informed opinion should not be solicited, but it can not be the sole basis for or a major component in building a new Long Island economic model or creating a Long Island Philosophy.

Without a flexible, dynamic structure in place we will continue to make only sporadic progress and remain stuck in the "cycle of stagnation" we've spoken about previously.

More in Part II.