Northeast Texas is our home. We believe in it. We see its potential. Yet, for decades now, limited access to capital, expertise, and markets in our towns and countrysides has pushed the good people this region nurtures to downsize their dreams—or build them elsewhere. We don’t think this is right—or that things have to stay this way.
In our opinion, the conventional wisdom on how rural regions like ours should respond to these problems has been profoundly self-defeating. According to mainstream legal and policy thinking, the only “serious” way for rural communities to pursue economic development is by offering hefty incentives to attract national chains and industries. The evidence, however, shows the opposite: According to researchers from across the political spectrum, these incentives almost never sway corporate decisions—but almost always damage rural economies by exporting local wealth, depressing local wages, or weakening local business development.
Northeast Texas is our home. We believe in it. We see its potential. Yet, for decades now, limited access to capital, expertise, and markets in our towns and countrysides has pushed the good people this region nurtures to downsize their dreams—or build them elsewhere. We don’t think this is right—or that things have to stay this way.
In our opinion, the conventional wisdom on how rural regions like ours should respond to these problems has been profoundly self-defeating. According to mainstream legal and policy thinking, the only “serious” way for rural communities to pursue economic development is by offering hefty incentives to attract national chains and industries. The evidence, however, shows the opposite: According to researchers from across the political spectrum, these incentives almost never sway corporate decisions—but almost always damage rural economies by exporting local wealth, depressing local wages, or weakening local business development.
We build expertise in the complex web of government programs, regulatory frameworks, and transactional tools that rural stakeholders—public and private—can use to mobilize local capital and advance local initiatives. We distill this expertise into specific strategies for various stakeholder sectors and offer a free, regularly-updated knowledge base—OpenBasel—to support community implementation. And when local stakeholders need legal support to navigate transactional or regulatory challenges, we make premier talent and expertise available at a mission-driven price everyone can afford.