Dr. Richard Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University and Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, was quoted in an Associated Press article on “Ohio 32: A road of unintended consequences.”
Dr. Richard Vedder
Just outside Jackson stands another Rhodes legacy, Ohio Highway 32. It’s a four-lane road he championed that now bears his name – the James A. Rhodes Appalachian Highway.
The road, stitched together from a patchwork of smaller roads starting in the late-1960s, was supposed to be a path from despair to hope, a game-changer for the impoverished region of Appalachian Ohio. Some grumbled it was expensive and pointless – a highway to nowhere….
Richard Vedder is still a pessimist about the Appalachian Highway.
In 2000, the long-time Ohio University economics professor told a reporter the road was probably the “most desolate in Ohio” and had done little to develop the area’s economy. When recently reminded of his comments, he reviewed some economic data, and said he still believes what he said then.
“I can’t say the highway achieved all the lofty hopes and expectations of the people who promoted it from the beginning,” he said.
The counties along the highway still have per capita median incomes below the state average of $48,000 a year and well under the national average of $52,000. With a few exceptions, little has changed since 2000, he said.
“These are counties that even today are 20 to 35 percent below the national average for income,” he said. “The gap is big. The gap is not narrowing.”
Read more in the Washington Times.
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