I recently spent several days out in Amsterdam, NY helping out in the Ed Kosiur campaign. I was very surprised at what I saw in this small city along the Mohawk River. It was a depressed paradise.

Amsterdam is a city like many in New York State and the greater United States. It has seen the worst of urban decline in recent years, but also is surrounded by lush green farmland in what appears to be a land of plenty. These people seem to have everything � a beautiful river, amazing architecture, and land to feed plenty, yet they also live in an area of depression without jobs or hope.

Why did this happen? Amsterdam like so many other cities in Upstate New York and across America de-industrialized. Massively polluting industries left areas, leaving behind few opportunities to those wanting to stay. Mistakes in planning in the sixties left cities like Amsterdam bypassed and downtowns forgotten. Family businesses where replaced by ugly shopping malls that promised low prices and low wages to those who remained.

Amsterdam was raped like so many other cities. When the car became king, the city was left behind. Those not familiar with Amsterdam would have trouble finding the downtown, and when they got there all that would be left would be run down buildings. There seems to be little hope for a once great city, surrounded by picture perfect farmland.

Even those theoretically prosperous farms are struggling in competition to bigger farms. Bypassed by the interstates traveled by tractor trailers, the only product left for them to produce is ever increasing amounts of fluid milk. The milk is picked up by bulk tanker which haul to longer distance processors that are consolidating. All forms of wealth and hope are drained out of Amsterdam for even more distant corporations.

Every local resident and every politician of the area seeks an industry that will bring Amsterdam back to it's greatness. There probably is no such industry. Things will only change when people start remembering their community and investing back into it. That won't be easy, but that is the only way Amsterdam can be saved.