Ajo: Closed for Major Business

Ajo’s situation of poverty and lack of economic development is something that many developing nations experience: The Resource Curse.  The resource curse is the notion that if any developing region has lots of a single valuable resource, they will not prosper.   As Professor Guse noted, a nation in Africa is in big trouble if they have diamonds.  Just look at Angola: 99.3% of their exports come from oil and diamonds.   Ajo’s massive dependence on copper made the town expand rapidly when the price of copper was high.  But a strike by the miners, and a slight drop in copper prices caused the company to close shop.  While it does have the potential to open, the mine likely will stay closed until the price of copper massively increases as the rail road closed and trucking out the ore would be expensive.  Also it needs a new smelter. 

Current life in Ajo is far different from when the mine was operating.  The town is aging rapidly, with the median age at 52 years old.  Further, 22.3% of those living there are under the poverty line with the median income level at around 14.5 thousand dollars.  The climate at Ajo is not suitable for growing either as it is considered to be a Food Desert by the FDA.  Despite attempts by the Sonoran Dessert Alliance, I believe that food production there will never be efficient or feasible.  While the town is beautiful, there is very little chance for economic growth.  They only way to save it would be major outside investment.  To sustian this investment though the economy would need to diversify.