I started a garden back in February, inside my house. I purchased some seed packets, used a little potting soil, and set the small planters by the sunporch windows. I moved them outside in May, and now, as I type this in June, I have loads of healthy peppers and tomatoes soaking up the sun on my back patio. I realize you probably don’t care about my gardening, but let me tell you why you should.

You should care because gardening ought to be our model for economic development. I know I am not the first person to realize this, but the truth of it just fully dawned on me, so a little indulgence, please. In gardening, we take some inexpensive inputs, provide them with proper conditions, and tend to them, and the result is drastically more valuable outputs. Gardening is taking a little patience, a little maintenance, and growing something we want—something we value.

Local economic development should follow the same model if there is any hope of creating local wealth. Take the seeds—in this instance, those seeds are humans. Provide those humans with a little sun and water, and (to carry on with the analogy) sun and water are training and education. Tend to those humans and create positive conditions. These simple and affordable inputs should grow into something tremendously valuable: contributors to the local economy. Today’s seeds should be the entrepreneurs and real estate developers of tomorrow.

Instead of raising the next generation of entrepreneurs to run our towns, we rent out our local humans to national corporations, and thus their value is ultimately extracted from the community. That’s not gardening—it’s mining.

Sadly, we have lost the art of growing local, so instead of raising the next generation of entrepreneurs to run our towns, we rent out our local humans to national corporations, and thus their value is ultimately extracted from the community. That’s not gardening—it’s mining.

I can grow food in my backyard, year in and year out, and have plenty to provide for my family. Gardening is self-reliant, resilient, and renewable, and it generates lots of value. This is the model communities should strive for. But on the flip side, say I discovered a small gold mine in my backyard and sold it to an out-of-town company. They would come, dig up my backyard, and take away the gold. Yes, I would be compensated, but my backyard would be torn up, it would take time to grow plants again, and the gold would all be gone. I cannot sell it again; I get paid once, and then I’m left with a large mess to clean up.

When communities adopt the extraction model of economic development, they are selling themselves out. Yes, they are compensated, but do you think they end up making more than the company doing the extraction? Do you think the mining company would have taken a loss on digging up my backyard? Of course not. You extract something because you can sell the product for more later, and elsewhere.

Every business that comes to your town from elsewhere is automatically in the mining game, the extraction business. If they weren’t extracting money from your town, they would no longer be in business. This is their model. McDonald’s takes more money out of your town than they put in, I promise. The national developer leaves your town with more money in their bank account than they spent. I guarantee it. If this wasn’t the case, there would be no national developers or retail chains.

This is not to say these companies are doing anything wrong, but let’s be clear about what is happening: you, and your community, are losing. Every time you welcome a business from out of town, you are participating in the extraction form of economic development. You are being paid a small amount to have something of greater value removed. You are giving away value but telling yourself that you’re coming out ahead. However, the math just doesn’t add up. It can’t.

Sure, you can say a company added jobs or spent money on an investment and stop at the first step in the equation. But it requires looking just a little harder to understand that the jobs and investments were mechanisms to extract something of greater value. The fast-food company puts a little money in at the beginning so they can take more away every day after. The national housing developer is the same, and the national bank is the same. Because they don’t grow with your local ingredients, they have to take away something of greater value. This is extraction economic development, and every time your town takes part in it, your town is getting poorer.

This is how capitalism works, and although I am not arguing against it, I am arguing that cities and towns have options in how they choose to participate.

This is how capitalism works, and although I am not arguing against it, I am arguing that cities and towns have options in how they choose to participate. I suggest that gardening is superior to mining. The economic development industrial complex has convinced us that all jobs are good jobs and that all investment is good investment. This notion is laughable.

Jobs that give people a sense of self-worth and provide a living income are good jobs. Those are the types we should strive to grow. They also create local wealth and make our towns more interesting and lovable. Jobs that foster shipping more money out of town are depressing and tend to pay poorly because they have to. They are not good jobs, so let’s not pretend otherwise.

A developer can build a strip mall, and it would be an investment, but it would be an investment in making a place worse. This makes a place less attractive and, once again, facilitates more money leaving town. It does not add value, it does not make people happier, and it does not make the community more resilient, self-reliant, or prouder. These distinctions are significant and are the difference between communities that are growing and thriving versus communities that have been mined into oblivion.

Take a look at what is happening in your community: Has it been growing healthier, wealthier, stronger, and more resilient in recent years and decades? If yes, that’s great, and you have lost a few minutes reading this. If the answer is no, then your town has bought into the extraction model of economic development. Please stop. Next time a project comes down the pike, ask yourself a quick question: Will it grow local wealth, or is it extracting local wealth?

This essay originally appeared on the author’s website, Revitalize or Die. Featured image via Wikipedia Commons.