No... it's not the university. It's industry. 

Seed companies in the Kunia area were growing into a 400 million dollar industry when environmentalists attack them for the use of pesticides. 

This was unprecedented because they use pesticides in a much safer way then the plantations have done in the past. In fact a lot of present pesticides in the soil is due to past bad plantation agricultural practices. They would have provided employment for many in the West Oahu area. 

And the research that they developed would have made for a much more sustainable world. We forget that the Green Revolution has prevented mass starvation. Crop yield increases have increased at a greater rate than population growth.

We also missed the boat with a major applied physics lab which Inouye would have brought to West Oahu. Because of the close presence of the military at Pearl Harbor, Hickam, Wahiawa and Camp Smith - not to mention the large security installation in the Waianae Range - much development.