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Of course I'm excited about what it will do to the real estate in this region.
Nov. 3 2010 - 5:01 pm | 1,661 views | 0 recommendations |
By WILLIAM P. BARRETT
Image via Wikipedia
This post is part of an ongoing effort to crowd-source a repeating feature in Forbes magazine entitled Names You Need to Know. We are looking for the people, places, products and ideas that will have significant impact in the near future. Join the ongoing conversation here. Here’s my nomination: Blaine, Washington. It’s the most strategically important 4,000 population city you never heard about–but will.
Sitting at a northwest corner of Washington State, the city has two vital land border crossings with Canada as well as rail and a harbor (pictured) that leads to the Pacific Ocean. That puts the city–home to the busiest border traffic west of Detroit– front and center in the escalating fight against escalating terrorism from abroad. In clear anticipation of trouble–Seattle and its defense industries like
Boeing sit just 110 miles to the south–the U.S. government is spending tens of millions building a state-of-the-art port-of-entry facility in Blaine to try and keep out bad people and bad stuff.
Meanwhile, scores of financial services industry types–also not all on the up-and-up–have set up shop in Blaine due to its proximity to Vancouver, B.C., 30 miles to the north and still a thriving center of fraud. These aiding and abetting newcomers have found a hospitable environment in Blaine, whose economy and culture long was based on smuggling and the wrong side of the law.
If you’re into trivia, Blaine is also the home of one of the few monuments in the world commemorating the Treaty of Ghent. What, you slept through that lesson in history class? The pact between the U.S. and England, named after the Belgium city where it was signed, ended the War of 1812, a conflict that centered largely on U.S.-Canada border issues. In 1921 the 68-foot-high Peace Arch was built right on the line. The border-straddling arch and the surrounding Peach Arch Park are tourist attractions.
All proving, as someone once said, that wherever there’s a border, there’s money to be made.
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