But let's say I get my banker to spring for the $5 million to set up, get my steel building, my parcel including zoning change, my Chinese tools and wood fasteners, and find a couple workers who still have most of their fingers. Find some decent wood and have it flown in and start making furniture, and beat on Frank to get the railroad extended to Canada.
There is no industry here. Mining put the town on the map, but mining supports a couple 1000. What are the other 100,000 doing? People b**ch that the private sector cannot compete with the public sector. It's about 50-50. This is a gov't town. That's our industry. The town was built on Lend-Lease and that's all it is now.
So why would anyone with more than half a brain be trying to get some industry going in Fairbanks? A row of scrapers and front-end loaders doesn't count because that's all here to do construction on gov't money. No manufacturing industry would survive its original bank loan: can't ship product anywhere, transportation kills, and can't beat the cheap factory seconds imports. That's all we get here--factory seconds. And labor--American labor values itself highly. Don't know how they justify this anymore since they offer nothing spoecial.
I don't believe this situation is particularly unusual. Somewhat extreme toward the bad transportation end of the spectrum, and no decent local raw materials. Probably similar to business stories everywhere. That's why industry is non-existent here. The oil business, of course, is totally independent of local conditions. Oil is not expected to be part of the community forever. 20 years and out. Bu-bye, and thanks for the infrastructure that connects East Overshoe and West Beardump.