ABQ living should make us optimistic
Plenty to be cheerful about in the Duke City
As we enter a new year, leaving behind a very tumultuous one, it somehow feels important to cast about looking for things to be positive about, to be optimistic about.
In the current issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows, a highly regarded and longtime observer of the American experience, said he remains “... personally and professionally, and increasingly, an American optimist.”
Why? After traveling extensively through middle America over the past decade, while also spending significant time in China observing America through a more global lens, he has concluded that we are simply going through “another painful, but remarkable reinvention” of who we are as a nation, and that we are doing more than many other countries to position ourselves for a new period of prosperity, opportunity and hope.
And the interesting part is that this feeling arises not from some sort of national movement, but rather is manifesting itself again and again on the local, city level.
A Heartland Monitor report published this past year indicated that 67 percent of Americans felt that good ideas for dealing with social and economic challenges were coming from their towns rather than national institutions.
A Pew study in 2014 supported this idea when it determined that only 25 percent of those polled were satisfied with the direction of our national policy, but that over 60 percent were happy with events in their local communities.
Fallows points to Erie, Pa., a city of abandoned factory buildings and “a generation of laid-off blue-collar workers” who, rather than giving up, are actively engaged in a civic reform movement, led by young people in their 20s and 30s who are convinced that they can create new businesses and, in the process, a renewed life for themselves.
The last time I checked, Albuquerque isn’t littered with abandoned factories and the jobs they represented, and I would like to think has a heck of a lot more going for it than Erie, not the least of which, of course, is our weather.
Several years ago, I spent a very brief and unremarkable time in Erie, and I can tell you they don’t have an International Balloon Fiesta, stunning mountains blessed with otherworldly sunsets, a national laboratory, a richly diverse culture, a vibrant forest running through its urban core, and, especially, red and green enchiladas.
As a result, I am thinking that, if Erie can be so positive with so little going for it, why can’t we be extraordinarily optimistic, given all that we have that is uniquely ours?
In addition, there are some very good things happening that should point to a period of renewed confidence and optimism for us: The Facebook facility, Innovate ABQ, new developments within our urban core, a nationally recognized brewery scene and an admirably innovative Millennial cohort, to name just a few.
So, I’ve decided this year, rather than move to Erie to be optimistic, I am going to stay here and continue my tour of new brew pubs.