Ever since he plied the business beat at the Erie Times-News, Peter Panepento has been asking the difficult questions of Erie’s leaders, proposing preferred futures for Erie’s economy, and spotlighting best practice in business growth. Even though he is a Rochester boy living in the metro D.C. area, his love and passion for Erie and our region’s health remains unquestioned.

One conversation that bubbles up frequently on his blog Outside Erie centers around the false argument that many in our town hold that we need to decide to be either a manufacturing city or a tourist town. Panepento gets the concept that in a global economy, you need multiple engines of economic growth for the health of a region.

However, in his recent post, “Want to Reverse the Cycle? Focus on Making Something“, Peter warns that our local and state governments have made major bets on the tourism side of the see-saw, while the more difficult manufacturing base seems to be neglected:

As we watch both the Erie and U.S. jobless rates rise to previously unfathomable levels, the important question becomes what will it take to put people back to work.

In Erie, the answer lies in our roots. We have to recreate the area as a center of industry — as a place that makes something.

Too often in recent years, energy and resources have gone to building service-based institutions. Millions have been spent to build convention centers, visitors centers, and casinos.

But what has been done to develop the resources and facilities needed to attract and incubate actual industry?

You need to read the rest of the post and the subsequent comments (including a particularly cogent one by yours truly) to get your creative juices flowing and just maybe experience that contagious emotion that I often get from reading Peter’s posts: hope.

Joel is the editor of the Erie media blog Press and Tower.