Scene In Passing: Break Stengel’s rule and find city’s upside

Jumping on the bandwagon to blare about what’s coming in the new year is an occupational hazard of news people in general, columnists in particular.

Reporters must do it by sticking to quotes or facts; in other words, by using stuff based on others’ projections and predictions.

Columnists get to prime the pump from fertile imaginations, though it’s best to stick with some logical extension of the factual past and possible future that is rooted in the observable present.

“Never make predictions, especially about the future,” warned Casey Stengel, the wily New York Yankees’ manager famed for his mind-twisting remarks called Stengelese.

But there is a special dispensation from the managerial bombast-meister of baseball, or should be, so what follows is a best guesstimate of your scrivener’s take on tomorrow and beyond. It’s worth exactly what you’re being charged for it: somewhere between nothing and 50 cents.

First, know that Carson City will surprise many folks with how well it fares this year economically. It won’t be a barn burner, and thank heavens. Booms and busts don’t work; never did. The city just went through a bust fueled mostly by outside events, which proves the point. But a state capital in a resort region and growing state will rebound, inevitably. The city is splendidly positioned. Why?

Secondly, it’s just to the right — both on the map and politically-speaking — of California. Watch people come over the hill called the Sierra Nevada when the housing recovery gains speed and homes in the left-leaning, left coast state can be unloaded. Just watch businesses or offshoots of divisions flee California taxes and regulations, escaping to here or elsewhere. Nevada will get its share, manufacturing included.

Thirdly, watch the young who are outdoor-oriented and the boomers who are the same, yet want access to good health care, come to Carson City or nearby in Northern Nevada. Someone moving to southern Washoe County, northern Douglas County or western Lyon County will find Carson City a hub for at least some of their activities.

As a young adult, your scrivener moved to the eastern slope of the Rockies in Colorado and then to Laramie, Wyo., for awhile. It didn’t take. But the lifestyle and opportunity-rich prospects never were abandoned; about 45 years later, the Midwest was jettisoned again for this more attractive mini-version.

So, finally, keep a longer term crystal ball-gazing view in mind: this place will become the latter day version of Greeley or Pueblo, Colo., come 2025 and beyond. Likely even better.