My mother told me “don’t place all your eggs in one basket”. As we know, if the basket is overturned, there goes all your eggs. This maxim applies to economies. A tourism economy makes sense due to our proximity to Zion Park, but it can be a boom/bust economy. A downturn in tourism means a downturn for Virgin businesses.
“When Zion National Park closed in March, Springdale was pretty much a ghost town,” said former Springdale Mayor Stan Smith. “There was no business and no revenue coming in, and we were quite concerned with how the year would turn out.”
by Ammon Teare from St. George News August 28, 2021
Whereas a diversified economy creates a sustainable economy and supports multiple businesses which continually feed off one another. More residential homes and families living in Virgin leads to growth of other supporting businesses such as neighborhood grocery stores, daycare centers, schools, small retail stores, and offices. These supporting businesses then lead to additional supporting businesses for their support. So how do we create a diversified economy. First protect and preserve our neighborhoods so families will want to move into Virgin creating more neighborhoods, and thus the need for these diversified businesses.
Virgin should find ways to encourage and incentivize diverse businesses to locate or start up in Virgin. The town should explore whether it is feasable to create an economic development zone or increment financing district where businesses could receive tax or other incentives to locate to Virgin. I will be exploring ways to entice new and varied businesses to locate to Virgin instead of approving more RV parks, short term rentals, and glamping businesses – just adding more eggs to the same basket.
