My Home Towns

My original home town gets a visit from The New Republic, and they can learn a lesson from my home town now. I fear Jason Zengerle gets Johnstown's economic future right. The community's leadership sees a diversified economy, moving away from dependence on government contracting in the same way that Phoenix's leadership saw our economy diversifying from dependence on real estate. (Look at all the finance, law, accounting, and title insurance firms! Tourism! Retail! Call centers!)

The temptation to credit success to your own virtue is fairly impossible to resist. Once luck runs out, however, the result isn't pretty.