Have you driven around the area lately? While vacant industrial buildings and storefronts aren’t exactly a new sight in the area — Rust Belt adjacent as we are — we have been struck by the amount of opportunity that is just sitting around the region, waiting for someone to take advantage of it.

This is particularly timely given the adoption of President Trump’s tariffs, the stated goal of which is to return manufacturing to American shores and return the “Made in America” stamp to one of prestige.

The impacts of the tariffs is not the point of this Our View, however — but rather the opportunities presented by them.

Consider: it takes years for an individual new manufacturing plant to begin production. The location needs to be scouted, approved, graded, built and so forth. That’s ignoring the impact of supply chain issues and the raw materials needed for the construction and operation.

Our region has something of value to provide in this world, in the form of vacant but still functional industrial structures.

We believe that city and county officials throughout our coverage area should be working on plans to offer companies incentives to come to the area, occupying those properties and short-cutting their own startup times in the process.

Due to our relatively low cost of living, our labor is comparatively cheap for an American region, and we are still well-connected to regional transit, especially by way of old rail lines.

Companies seek to make money. They won’t just come to town on a whim. They need to be enticed, commonly through tax advantages on their properties.

We feel this is a worthwhile trade-off in exchange for filling our vacant industrial complexes and giving our population consistent, paying jobs with usually at least decent benefits.

As everyone collectively stares down the barrel of economic uncertainty, one of the best things we can do to insulate ourselves from turmoil is to reinforce our citizens’ wallets.

Goods and costs are going to go up. Probably, way up.

If our local businesses are going to survive, they will need the support of community patronage — and the only way that will happen is if our population has a steady supply of good jobs.

Providing incentives and tax benefits to companies can be a steep cost that local governments are unwilling to consider. However, we feel that risking the loss of businesses region-wide poses a far starker challenge to our tax rolls than a removing a handful of rotting properties.

If we do not manage, as a region, to empower the people to stay afloat through their tribulations, we will all suffer the consequences.

Many local businesses — which are taxed — may close, thus lowering our taxable income and necessitating ever-higher tax increases for the residents and businesses who remain. This, in turn, runs the risk of a death spiral with failures and suffering feedback-looping into ever-more failures and suffering.

It is exceedingly rare in today’s world to get to both have your cake and eat it, too, and we would like to encourage our officials to possess the long-sightedness and strength of character to accept that, sometimes, compromise is necessary to avoid a worse fate.

The best deal is one where all parties benefit, and giving concessions is a sign of good faith, not weakness.

Lock Haven, Bellefonte and their surrounding municipalities and townships have a lot to offer at the moment. It just needs to be utilized.

As a related aside, as well — whether you agree or disagree with the various mass firings and force reductions that the government and its agencies have been undergoing, it remains true regardless that there are a lot of highly educated and skilled workers who are re-entering the job hunt.

While their required quality of life — and wages — are probably too high for our area to attract, it may still be worth considering and workshopping.

Our region remains attractive for remote workers, and many ex-government workers are used to remote work, having spent the last few years semi-removed from their offices.

Many of them will likely be looking for remote-friendly startups in adjacent fields as the work that government agencies completed is privatized, again for better or worse.

While State College may be the best able to lure this demographic, as it continues to grow and urbanize, there will be a ripple effect outward as Bellefonte and, eventually, Lock Haven are drawn increasingly into its metropolitan orbit.

The trick is to capitalize on that without losing our identity.

It is a challenge that we believe our elected officials are up to.

So put your heads together; accept that in order to get, you have to give; and make it happen.

With fiscal storm clouds on the horizon, our local economy and way of life may depend on it.