Economy
Government services are the largest employer in the area. Of second and declining importance is manufacturing. The region's manufacturing economy has suffered for decades, but factories are found in the region's larger communities. Fortune 500 materials maker Corning Inc. is headquartered in Steuben County. Broome County has a large high-tech industry, and is the birthplace of IBM and flight simulation. In addition, other factories in the region make military aircraft, televisions, furniture, metal forgings and machine tools.
The area includes the northern extent of the Marcellus Formation and natural gas. Crude oil and oil sands continue to be extracted from Southern Tier wells as they have for over a century. There is significant debate about allowing hydraulic fracturing of the Marcellus Shale in the Southern Tier, which is currently banned in New York.
Agriculture is also a major part of the economy. Leading products are dairy, vegetables orchard fruit and wine grapes. In addition, the Southern Tier Brewing Company in Lakewood, New York is a prominent microbrewery, located in Chautauqua County.
The western and northern edges of the Southern Tier are known as ski country, and the hilly terrain (that forms a continental divide known as the Chautauqua Ridge) is notorious for frequent and heavy lake effect snow. As a result, Ellicottville has become a "ski town" with both the Holimont and Holiday Valley resorts in the vicinity; the two resorts draw numerous tourists, particularly from Canada, for which U.S. Route 219 provides easy access.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)