GALVESTON, Texas — A blogger branded Galveston one of "America’s Ten Dead Cities" this week — and the ether ran hot with debate about it almost immediately, with Mayor Joe Jaworski referring to the article as "vitriol."
Douglas McIntyre, one of the owners of 247wallst.com’s parent company and a former editor of Financial World magazine, included the island in a list he posted in his blog Monday evening.
By Tuesday morning, islanders were e-mailing each other with comments for and against the listing. Some were putting their own spin on the subject.
Jaworski jumped to the city’s defense, calling on city hall to issue a news release headlined, "Galveston’s alive, thriving and open for business!"
He was responding to McIntyre’s comment the city, "had become something of the Sodom and Gomorrah of the southern US. There was a large gambling industry there, some of it illegal, which was controlled by criminals. The regulated tourist trade could not replace the illegal business."
The blog concluded Hurricane Ike "destroyed a large part of the city’s tax base and set back the tourism industry once again."
McIntyre based his list, which includes New Orleans and Detroit, on a group of 150 "forgotten cities" identified by a 2007 report published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The MIT report, based on a study by urban housing professor Lorlene Hoyt, set out "innovative revitalization coalitions in America’s older small cities" and announced on its front cover: "Practitioners, political leaders and scholars speak about understanding and renewing smaller cities when resources are scarce and the economy has changed."
It identified 21 such cities in Pennsylvania, 20 in New York, 15 in Ohio and 11 in Illinois.
Texas had four cities in the report’s list, including Marshall, Sherman and Waco.
McIntyre wrote Monday: "The municipalities on their (MIT’s) list were medium-sized and ranked by measurements that included poverty. The reasons for their demise largely match the cities on the 24/7 Wall St list."
One of the first island residents to jump on the blog’s bandwagon was Galveston Open Government Project leader David Stanowski, who sent out a wide-circulation e-mail attributing the blog to The Wall Street Journal.
That infuriated Jaworski, who answered in his own e-mail: "This is not an article from the well-respected Wall Street Journal. Rather, it is an ‘article’ expressing a dubious subjective opinion from an Internet publication called 24/7 Wall Street.
"We are interred into this publication’s cyber vault along with other great American cities like New Orleans, Buffalo, Cleveland and Albany, NY."
Soon, the mayor was receiving messages on both sides of the argument.
Jacquelyn Tarpy, who is married to Stanowski, wrote back: "There is no hope for this community if we don’t face reality. We are a poor city, losing population, ... with our local businesses barely hanging on, with a significant reduction in our sales tax and property tax base ... We may not be dead yet, but it sure feels that we are on life support!"
Former Galveston Historical Foundation President David Bowers, however, wrote: "What a strange article. In less than 10 years, Galveston has risen to be the biggest home port in the Gulf of Mexico and continues to grow in the cruise industry.
"Has anyone counted the number of hotels built in the last three years? Seriously, this is a town that has made a remarkable recovery since the 2008 hurricane.
"I don’t know how this writer could possibly write such untruths ... Irresponsible journalism."
To which another former foundation president, Tom Schwenk, replied: "The same journalist that chose to ignore us and continue to cover" New Orleans.
Meanwhile, Galveston Independent School District trustee Norman Pappous accused the mayor of wanting life both ways.
He responded to the city’s news release with an e-mail that said: "If we are thriving, then let the private real-estate market house people ... But, if we are a city in economic trouble, then housing assistance is warranted.
"So which is it, Mayor?"
Island financier Shrub Kempner was not party to the e-mail exchanges, but he did have a comment about the website article.
He said: "What’s important to realize is that Galveston has a far better jobs-to-population ratio than any American city other than Huntsville with its large prison community.
"We have some 30,000 full-time-equivalent jobs in a city now housing less than 50,000 permanent inhabitants. That’s a ratio that economic development people slaver over."
He said McIntyre was right about the declining population but wrong about the city’s economic engines.
"The University of Texas Medical Branch alone has some 11,000 jobs, the port and tourism several thousand each and also the island’s financial industry, which everyone usually ignores," he said.
"To say the city is dead is nonsense. It’s just silliness. Most people elsewhere would give a part of their anatomy for our jobs situation."
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Council Responds
Galveston City Council’s official response to 247wallst.com’s ranking of the city among "America’s Ten Dead Cities" was contained in a press release that listed the positive aspects of life on the island.
Among its observations were:
• Galveston hosts about 5 million visitors annually;
• These visitors generate an $800 million economic impact to the island each year;
• The Port of Galveston is bustling with grain, cargo and cruise ship operations;
• Next year, two new cruise ships, the Carnival Magic and the Carnival Triumph, will call Galveston home and dock along the island’s waterfront;
• Galveston is ranked as the fourth-busiest cruise port in the nation and generates $1.1 billion in direct spending in Texas;
• Contractors are working to restore University of Texas Medical Branch buildings affected by Hurricane Ike and, by the end of 2010, almost 1,000 contract workers will be employed helping to rebuild the campus;
• The medical branch’s Blocker Burn Unit, world renowned for its innovations in the treatment of burns, is undergoing a $10 million renovation; and
• The class size for the medical branch’s school of medicine is back to capacity, at 230 students.
This story was brought to you thanks to khou.com’s partnership with The Galveston County Daily News.
