The jobs bonanza in new oil patch

If you build it they will come.If you build it they will come.

There are two newspaper stories out this morning that show the kind of job creation and economic updraft that comes when Americans get back to the basics of developing resources as a means of creating wealth. One is from South Texas, the other North Dakota. Both are tied to the oil and gas business.  

The first story has to do with the home- and hotel-building boom in Floresville, Texas, near the Eagle Ford shale gas fields. The region’s typical house price runs around $100,000 but with all the oil company executives and engineers moving in, builders are busy building plenty of $200,000+ homes.

The second story is pure all-American gumption. A teenager, seeing these oil caked drill rig operators coming off shift in the Bakken oil shale development in North Dakota built a mobile shower unit so the crews could clean up before they get in their trucks to go home. He’s making good money charging for the showers.

Neither of these have anything to do with the value of the gas or oil itself, rather they show how the right kind of economic development creates a ripple effect, providing jobs, rising standards of living and an improved tax base for local economies.