It is impossible to predict what the next four years will hold for the city of Everett.
Will the next four years bring as much new development to the city as the past four years?
This is a good question.
It appears that way to most businesspeople and observers who weigh and measure the national economy.
The national economy is important to Everett because how the nation goes, so goes the city of Everett.
The national economy right now is suffering a rapid inflation increase. We see this in the rapidly rising price of gasoline and food and products of all kinds used in the building industry.
Those combined all at once are a sign of possible difficulties to come.
There is also the worldwide disruption of delivery for import- ant goods and services that are holding back the economy.
Most of us understand that the car industry has been affected because electronic chips mostly produced in China are not abundantly available. Many American car production facilities have had to shut down until the chips are available.
The price for used cars has flown through the roof as there are not enough new cars being built and delivered.
The pandemic caused nearly all industrial production in the world to shut down for a period.
Now that the pandemic is nearly finished in many nations, demand for products has returned across the board.
However many industries are unable to meet the demands put upon them by the wave of orders nearly burying most industries and negatively affecting the supply line.
Millions of workers have lost their jobs. Millions of workers are needed to replace them. Many millions have quit their jobs and are looking for other jobs and on and on.
Millions more have simply disappeared from the job market.
Thinking about the next four years and what will be is difficult to impossible.
We know this…Everett’s local economy has come back quite a bit. It isn’t yet what existed before the pandemic slammed the city, the state, and the nation.
What will the city’s economy be like in four years?
Hopefully, it will be better than it is today but there are problems.
The national economy is slowing down after a quarter like no quarter ever before.
The national economy grew by only 2% this most recent quarter.
This is a certain sign that the economy is leveling off a bit – declining, really.
The leader of the city for the next four years must make certain that the city keeps its gunpowder dry, that’s a metaphor for storing up the city’s money in the bank and not spending everything.
The city needs a strong and conservative economic approach with regard to spending.
As much development as the city can tolerate needs to go on. The neighborhoods must be saved at the same time.
Public safety agencies like the fire department and the police department need to be expanded.
Efforts to improve racial equity must be advanced more rapidly.
It is hard to know what will happen in the next four years.