Tiverton Town Council President Jay Lambert no doubt captured the sense of all involved when he said, "It would be hard to imagine that anybody is opposed to some sort of economic development in this town." Nobody's opposed to economic development, just like nobody wants higher taxes, just like nobody wants to give town and school employees blank checks, while everybody wants to pay them as much as possible. These are all meaningless statements without the details of what, where, and how much.

Speaking to the council on November 22 on the perennial topic of securing a town grocery store, Economic Development Commission President Leonard Schmidt noted that Tiverton's shape and location present unique challenges when it comes to attracting businesses. To the west, we've got water and a single bridge. To the south, we've got the sister town of Little Compton, which is even more sparsely populated. And on the other borders, we've got a different state and rapid access to major retailers.

New Councilor Brett Pelletier raised the pertinent question when he wondered what would "bridge that gap" between "something that has been so far economically unfeasible" (i.e., bringing a grocery store to town) and the local government's role in changing businesses' financial calculations. The crucial beginning of an answer requires a step into territory that Mr. Schmidt left unmentioned: The Sakonnet River Bridge lies along a highway that connects all points north and east to the regional tourist destination of Newport, and Tiverton's land along that highway is almost entirely undeveloped.

At least in the recent past, it has seemed that Tiverton's policy for economic development has been that it should occur only in places in which businesses struggle to succeed - mostly Stafford and Crandall Road along the eastern border and Main Road in North Tiverton. It's only a mild exaggeration to suggest that Town Council members of the past have been loath to fell a single tree for the benefit of the private sector. Meanwhile, residents in such neighborhoods as Four Corners have arisen in opposition to any attempts to nudge planning and zoning codes a little bit closer to the sweet spot between quaint and flourishing.

The elusive grocer is an ideal example. The only enduring advantage to resident consumers comes if the proximity of the store balances against its price differential from the major chains just over the border. If residents of South Tiverton and Little Compton have to drive all the way to North Tiverton, anyway, their desire to support a small local business must compete with thousands of dollars of annual savings enabled by the large chains' economies of scale.

Moreover, an equally important reason to encourage economic development is to bring money from non-residents in. It's difficult to see why anybody from Portsmouth, Fall River, Westport, and points beyond would wind their way along Main Road to pay a premium for small-business wares that are more easily and cheaply available elsewhere. Indeed, how are such consumers supposed to know that the businesses exist at all along the lanes of Tiverton, short of garish signage on the highway? Fall River avoided that difficulty by placing its stores in plain view of travelers.

In this respect, the grocery store symbolizes the error in our very concept of economic development. Councilor Ed Roderick came closest to correcting the error when he noted that the town must "offer something that [businesses] can't get somewhere else." Truth be told, there are really only two things unique to Tiverton: Tivertonians and the town itself. The geography is what it is, and the inclination to protect its rural, coastal New England character is well placed, which leaves only the character of the people.

Statewide discussions of economic development have lately been peppered with notions of a "knowledge economy." When government officers and bureaucrats are the hosts, they typically mean industries that are heavily subsidized and union dominated - green, educational and medical. More generally, though, "knowledge workers" are those who operate primarily in the realm of information technology, and the relevant quality of IT to out-of-the-way places like Tiverton and Little Compton is that it is portable and often allows employees to work from home.

For such professionals, locations away from hectic highways and box-like office parks can be the perfect environments. And if the population of Tiverton were characterized by the number of residents who have no reason to leave the town on a daily basis, then businesses would have to move here to serve them. The framework for discussing economic development, then, could fruitfully begin with the attraction of telecommuters.

The Town Council didn't get around to discussing it, but this may have been on Vice President Cecil Leonard's mind when he placed "Investigating Availability of High Speed Internet Connection for All of Tiverton" on the Nov. 22 agenda. The condition of our roads ought to spur reluctance to turn the Internet into another locally sponsored public utility, but ensuring that telecommunications companies are able to provide access to every household would certainly set the stage for knowledge work. Then again, giving every house access to a public sewer system would do so, as well. As would continuing trash pickup. As would stunning, useful public spaces. As would a high-quality public school system. As would - and I write this with emphasis - efficient, unobtrusive government and low taxes.

In short, the objective of luring attractive residents to a town comes down to making it a great place to live, which brings us right back to all of those issues in contentious disagreement. Clearly, for one, our schools must be top-notch. A district's threat that a large tax increase is necessary to avoid shuttering a brand new elementary school indicates that the town is already having difficulty funding schools as they are, and Tiverton is currently producing high school classes that are only 31% proficient in math and 21% proficient in science, as measured on statewide NECAP tests. Knowledge-working parents are unlikely to be impressed by such results.

Not opposing economic development, in other words, is quite a different matter from actively supporting it. Those who are willing to go as far as the latter should consider compromising the rural character of the Rt. 24 corridor, allowing quaint corners to become bustlingly quaint corners, and reorienting budget priorities to place residents above the services that the government profits by providing them.