Developing A Happy Town

The Fairfield Hills Authority last week selected a real estate agent to serve as the exclusive broker for commercial leases at the 185-acre campus. It sounds like a plum job until you reflect on the record of frustration and disappointment that has marked efforts at economic development at the site so far and the critical questions about the best use of the property in the coming years. When the pending review of the Fairfield Hills Master Plan may well downplay or even eliminate economic development from the development equation for the campus, the newly appointed exclusive agent may want to pick up some tips for passing time from the proverbial Maytag repair man.

It is true that Newtown offers a full menu of options for interested developers beyond the confines of the Fairfield Hills campus. There are opportunities for commercial development all along the I-84 corridor at Exits 9, 10, and 11, and on South Main Street, not to mention the town’s empty tech park. Before completely foreclosing the possibility of economic development at Fairfield Hills in our zeal to turn the page through a revision of the master plan, however,  the town should first consider what it wants to accomplish, both at Fairfield Hills and through its economic development initiatives.

We have argued before in this space that pursuing economic development solely for the purpose of adding to the tax base and generating tax revenue is a fool’s errand. It sets up the build-tax-spend dynamic of urban sprawl that chews up towns with character and spits out ersatz anytowns designed to have a franchised familiarity but which are, in reality, alien because of their distinct lack of identity. We have all visited towns like this and have been grateful that we still have a real place to call home. Yet real places have real economies powered by real business opportunities, and the best places have economic development that, first and foremost, enhances the quality of life of the people who live there.

Let’s distill the “quality of life” cliché into the simpler concept of “happiness” for a moment. Psychologists have identified health, challenging work, and close social relationships as the key components of happiness. So it makes sense that a town with a clean and protected environment, jobs that foster innovation and good wages, and a social network of “third places” — not home, not work, but some other place like a coffee shop, restaurant, or entertainment venue — where people can connect and interact will be a happy town. Economic development that promotes those three components — health, challenging work, and close social relationships — yields significant benefits for a town, even before the first property tax dollar is collected.

If the scenic ambience of Fairfield Hills can be used to attract that kind of development, we believe the people of Newtown will be “happy” to have it there. In order for that to happen, however, we need to keep our options open. Removing all economic development from the master plan for Fairfield Hills without first considering the potential benefits beyond mere tax revenue places unnecessary limits on our potential to become a better town.