Why I'm Running

I spent 11 years saving land that ultimately joined the national park system. 10k people voiced their concerns about saving this land and it really begs the question why aren't there measures in place to save our most valued places.

I’ve always been told that in order to save or create public land you have to take an economic hit, but this just isn’t true. Many successful places around the country are utilizing their open spaces to drive economic value. Monroe County, Pennsylvania, Denver, Colorado, Bentonville, Arkansas, Greenville South Carolina, and scores more.

We have some tough decisions to make about our identity. In recent years, many of our traditional economic pillars have packed up and left in full or partial force. The Chrysler plant, AstraZeneca, Dupont our most storied institutions are no longer contributing to our local economy in the way we're used to - and we have to make fast decisions about how to cover for these losses.

To make matters worse, we are living in a time where you can live in one place and work in another. Remote work has increased by 400% nationwide in the last 5 years. People can now decide where they want to live, independently of where they want to work. That means we’re now competing with every county and every city across the nation. This is why we have to create a reason for people to want to live here outside of large corporate employers. 

We are situated within 100 miles of four major cities. If we try to compete with them on urban infrastructure alone we’ll never win. And if we turn our limited open space into suburban sprawl, the surrounding cities will drain us of our residents. 

Fortunately for us, what we have that these cities don't is Green Gold: this beautiful vibrant open space that's in close proximity to where people live. If we make Green Gold our identity, we’ll be able to fulfill a very real need that these surrounding cities will never be able to. In order to survive in this new economy, our open space can no longer be treated as a development resource because it can actually be our economic engine. By trading our open spaces for housing developments we’re unknowingly robbing ourselves of our long-term viability.

And if you look across the nation, there are large cities and small towns alike who are leveraging their open space in this way. Places that were once defunct rose from the ashes by building infrastructure around outdoor living and recreation. Who would have thought that creating a place that people like to live could be so economically successful?

I am running for office because I want to bring long-term economic sustainability to New Castle County through open space preservation.

Jason Hoover