"The piece should be read not just as a sad tale of a preventable pandemic, but as a warning against building an economy based on any one employer." I'm curious about this... to some degree, this isn't intentional, right? Most small towns can only do so much to diversify their employers. And of course, you're not an advocate of towns offering lots of incentives to entice employers. I feel like they don't intentionally "base" their economy around one employer, they just don't have that many tools to avoid the issue, and having one big employer is better than having zero big employers?
"The piece should be read not just as a sad tale of a preventable pandemic, but as a warning against building an economy based on any one employer." I'm curious about this... to some degree, this isn't intentional, right? Most small towns can only do so much to diversify their employers. And of course, you're not an advocate of towns offering lots of incentives to entice employers. I feel like they don't intentionally "base" their economy around one employer, they just don't have that many tools to avoid the issue, and having one big employer is better than having zero big employers?