More Words, Deeper Hole

Tragically misunderstanding import replacement. If I have Jacobs right, the idea of replacing imports is so you can export what you make, and use the money to import cool new stuff, which you replace in turn, and so proceed ad infinitum: it never stops.

They're in a somewhat sucky location as far as the technologies people in the high population regions use to get around. That should affect their import/export strategies for material goods [1]. I think that material goods can pretty consistantly get to them either faster or cheaper than they can ship goods elsewhere. I am not sure if that matters.

1: Non-physical goods are a different story. The publisher in New York really doesn't care if their new author comes from lower Manhattan or Kuiper Belt Research Station 14.