Protect the Adirondacks reviewed 40 years of U.S. Census Bureau and other data that show park towns and their 130,000 inhabitants mirror national trends in some economic categories while outperforming most small communities in others.
Micro-grants help farms address social, environment issues
“Sustainable farms, local food and local businesses are essential to the park’s quality of life,” Adirondack Council Executive Director William Janeway said
Snowmobile power struggle revs up
Snowmobilers spend money in communities, but their machines also cause noise and fumes that wilderness seekers shun.
Asbestos contamination closes Adirondack mineral plant
The closure brings the latest round of job uncertainties for a mine that New York voters in 2013 agreed to support by amending the state constitution to allow an Adirondack land swap that has yet to happen.
Who is next in line?
Research revealed there are 45,633 businesses in the 14-county Adirondack North Country region, which spills out of the park on its northern and western flanks. Taking into account demographic trends, at least 10,000 of those business owners could be getting ready to retire in the next few years.
Housing crunch limits Adirondack economy
The good news is that overall unemployment is low, meaning that a lot of park residents have jobs. The bad news is that economic growth is almost impossible without additional workers to perform the work.
Mountaineer enters a new era
In the mid-1970s, the McClelland family built The Mountaineer gear store in Keene Valley out of local hemlock and spruce. “I pounded the nails into this thing,” Vinny McClelland said.
Election could boost Adirondack conservation bills
The November election removed a GOP roadblock in the Senate that has stopped several conservation measures in the past, advocates said.
Trekkers test route as Hamlets to Huts seeks a place in the wild
Hamlets to Huts’s goal is to connect Adirondack villages and outposts via people power in all seasons, allowing them to experience the backcountry without lugging all the gear. It’s patterned after European hut-to-hut systems, and the yurt trails of Vermont and Colorado. In the Adirondacks, the emphasis is community-based lodging, in part because new structures are prohibited in the state Forest Preserve.
Broadband access improving in the Adirondacks
Need proof that getting universal high- speed broadband internet access in the Adirondacks is a vital piece of the region’s economic jigsaw puzzle? Just ask Suzanne Hurtado, who lives on Lost Pond. Within days of getting fiber-optic access in 2017, she was able to live video chat several times a day with students she teaches in China.