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July
22: “Nowhere
to Run… Nowhere to Hide”
“Nowhere
to Run...Nowhere to Hide" was great!
The
Economic Development strategy pursued for the last
50-plus years (and still being widely pursued) by most
of rural
Virginia
was based on attracting, and encouraging the expansion
of, manufacturing businesses. This strategy worked
reasonably well for most areas until the mid '80s as
folks moved from the farms to those "high-paying
manufacturing jobs."
The
strategy is no longer working and is not likely to work
in the future. I think it's accurate to say that the
Augusta County/Staunton/Waynesboro area has not had a
manufacturer move into the area and stay since about
1985. There may be an exception to this, but I've asked
a lot of knowledgeable people and don't know any.
Manufacturing
has become more global, and the pace will not slow in
the foreseeable future. In fact, it may quicken,
supplemented by (1) growth of Internet B2B (2) the
global use of English as the language of business (3) a
reduced technology gap and (4) the continued migration
of our manufacturing-oriented customers to
Asia
.
It
is my sense that much of
Virginia
's
economic development spending is still "fighting
the last war" - going to trade shows, building
industrial parks, etc.
I
do not have a solution, but the problem is pretty clear,
I believe. With best regards from a dying breed, a
Virginia
based manufacturer,
Martin
Lightsey, CEO
Specialty
Blades, Inc.
www.specialtyblades.com
540
245 1007
Your op/ed piece, “Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to
Hide,” is absolutely the God's honest truth. I have
seen a report from the Department of Commerce outlining
the decline of the furniture industry in the
U.S.
over the next five-to-ten years as
China
is integrated into the WTO. The
Washington
insiders have decided who are going to be the winners
and losers in the trade arena, and the Southern
worker is the loser in the traditional textile and now
the furniture industry. A whole way of life is
evaporating from the South.
That is the fact on the ground. The question for
Gov. Warner and the General Assembly is, what is the rural
strategy? What is the plan? Where do we go? What
resources are being allocated? The Virginia Economic
Development Partnership as the marketing arm for
Virginia
doesn't have a clue. How sad for all Virginians.
David
Hudgins
Old
Dominion Electric Power Cooperative
Glen
Allen
DHudgins@odec.com
July
22: "Easy
to Love… But Easy to Miss."
I really enjoyed your collaborative
article [by Fred Williamson and Joanna Hanks]. … It
fits in well with the “Creative Class” book review
also in the same issue. I’ve been pondering what the
future holds for my old hometown down in
Smyth
County
where so many of the industries that my Dad helped
recruit in the 1960’s and 1970s have gone off-shore or
altogether closed. Hopefully, on Virginia’s near-term
horizon is a better understanding in economic
development circles that chasing smokestacks and call
centers is at best an incomplete solution, and that
there are potentially more productive economic
development strategies for communities willing to learn
how to make a strong suit out of their own unique mix of
amenities that attract creative people.
I am fascinated by seemingly oddball
careers behind many successful people. For example,
there’s a guy living in my neighborhood with two new
SUV’s sitting in front of his $350k home, who’s
quick to point out that he’s never finished a day of
school beyond high school. This guy makes a living
brokering doctors’ offices. When I was in
Smyth
County
last week, I learned that a college-years buddy had
purchased a dairy farm that he’s converting to a
vineyard. He currently “commutes” from his primary
income source in
California
to manage his fledgling vineyard but plans to be a
full-time Virginian within three years. I used to think
that these super-creative career folks were a rare breed
– not so according to author
Florida
,
as they and the professionals who support them now
comprise about 30 percent of the
US
workforce.
The Hanks-Williamson article is right
out there on the cutting edge of both
economic and tourism development as to where greater
Richmond
should be placing its emphasis in marketing campaigns
and community-improvement projects.
Richmond
… has geographic, historic, infrastructure and natural
advantages over many other areas of the country. The
jury is out on the question of whether we’ll learn to
develop, package and promote our assets before we lose
this advantage to others who get off the ground while
we’re still puzzling over the best route to the
airport.
N. Charles
Peterson, COO
Institute for
Workforce Development
J.
Sargeant
Reynolds
Community College
cpeterson@jsr.vccs.edu
July
29: "Where’s
the Beef?"
I
used to work in agriculture and loved it. Your basic
questions are really good ones, which most of the
populace probably shares with you. …
At
the beginning of the 20th century, feeding the nation's
population required around 40 percent of the population
to be engaged in agriculture. Today, feeding ourselves
requires the efforts of less than two percent of our
population, freeing everyone else to engage in other
economic enterprises, to the ultimate benefit of us all.
…
How
come we had such a huge
increase in efficiency? Well, you've alluded to part of
it. First came the development of sophisticated farm
machinery driven by combustion engines, reducing labor
demands significantly. Then with the development of the
chemical industry came custom fertilizers that were more
"crop appropriate" (i.e., formulated for
specific plant's needs) than manure, the original
fertilizer for everything. Then the chemical industry
increased the use of synthetic chemical pesticides,
which reduced crop losses to insects & diseases
significantly. Finally, research – extension research,
mostly -- into plant and animal breeding led to higher
yields and fewer problems. Publicly-funded research, as
well as research paid for by the private sector, fueled
these breakthroughs.
Perhaps
in the end we might be glad that our nation invested in
improving agriculture so that only two percent of the
population has to farm. We also might be glad that there
are there are still some people who are, in my opinion,
crazy (and sane) enough to want to farm these days - God
knows why they do it with droughts and crummy markets to
contend with, but God bless 'em. I'd rather grow flowers
than corn.
Sarah
Pugh
Richmond
,
VA
spugh@futurelaw.net
Ms. Pugh worked in the
policy office at the Virginia Department of Agriculture
for 12 years, dealing primarily with environmental
issues.
--
August 5, 2002
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