EDITORIAL: With Alaska’s population forecast to decline, can we avoid economic disaster?

If we keep wasting time, we’ll find ourselves in 2050, wondering where Alaska’s “good old days” went — and realizing they may be gone for good.

If you drive across the Rust Belt in the Lower 48, you’ll encounter them here and there: half-empty towns with schools and storefronts boarded up, waiting for an economic upswing that may never come. The feeling of a place with its best days in the rearview mirror is one of desperation: Without a plan to adapt to a changing world, the withering towns’ young people leave for places where jobs are more plentiful and opportunities are brighter.

The good news is that the future hasn’t happened yet, and it’s within our power to prevent this kind of decline. And there’s at least a little bright news to suggest a better path is possible. New data from the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. indicates. Tourism has also rebounded, providing some economic boost to take some of the sting out of declining activity in oil and gas.

The AEDC report also identified challenges that Alaska needs to address if we want to keep our economic recovery afloat: a labor shortage, too-high housing costs and the state’s perilous economic situation.

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