Marshtown’s Tech Bay - A Regeneration Masterclass!

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MARSHTOWN’S TECH BAY - A REGENERATION MASTERCLASS !

Only a few months ago it seemed as though Marshtown was about to begin the decline that Sierrans had been predicting for centuries - the city’s GDP slipped by 2% at an annual rate that quarter and was only predicted to make a meagre improvement in the next. Indeed, it still hasn’t recovered to its pre-dip peak, and Marie Cuthbert’s insistence that “it was just a blip” is starting to seem increasingly tenuous. But things have changed - not because of where the city is today (it continues to lag behind while even Parsus has sped ahead), but because of where the city will be tomorrow. After the devastating landslide that tore through the impoverished East Marshtown districts and stopped airships docking in the town for a week, Cuthbert took the decisive action to sort out Marshtown’s problems once and for all.

Now, a silicon city is booming - the East Marshtown Technology Hub, Mariner’s Wharf, known popularly as Tech Bay, has emerged out of the rubble as tax cuts for technology companies and favourable subsidies begin to attract firms like honey attracts bees.

Ms. Cuthbert says that the revitalisation of one of Marshtown’s most decrepit areas is not even the pinnacle of Tech Bay’s achievement - “the real breakthrough here is that we’re not importing offshore money into poor Marshtown, but Marshtown’s own citizens are starting their own firms in an effort to break free from the poverty trap. Around 70% of the new firms established in the bay were created by ordinary people who lived in East Marshtown. Many had former jobs in the docklands, but now that those industries are in decline, they’re transferring their skills to high-productivity, high-wage work. It could be the start of a cluster.”

This is welcome news for Ms. Cuthbert, who has had to fend off attacks from all sides. On the one hand, Carrick has been stirring all sorts of trouble up lately, and even went so far as to say that Marshtown should be stripped of its League Certification. “It’s not even a proper city” he sneered, though Marshtown is the third largest settlement in Solastella, with almost a million inhabitants. More goods by volume pass through Marshtown Docks in a day than pass through the Menes Canal in a week. That was not all - Sir William Dowes has also gone on the record as (rather more diplomatically) stating he disagreed with the budgetary considerations of Marshtown.

“Marshtown cannot continue on this path - there is a difference between a sham and a dream. When I first came to Sierraville, there was no financial services sector - I have been in the city for thirty years and spent ten of those as Governor, and the cluster is only just starting to be pre-eminent. At the same time, Miranda is doing what Ms. Cuthbert is trying to emulate in Marshtown but on a much larger scale. They have the top engineering and science university in Solastella on that island and they have many huge tech firms there to boot. Not one of them has opened offices in this “Tech Bay". The way out of Marshtown’s slump is not in the hands of teenagers in sheds."

Nonetheless, some success stories are already shining through the rough - LaBerre, a mobile phone manufacturer recently won a contract to supply the next generation of Romulus Laboratory-issue Smartphones. Their flagship model in the last-quarter, the LB3 was a surprise hit, and rumours are already afoot that the LB4 will be released soon, featuring on-the-fly translation between English and Solastellan.

Sierran economists are predicting a sharp rise for Marshtown’s economy in the next quarter as manufacturing orders postponed due to the landslide come through, assisted by rapid growth in the technology sector.

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