Category: Economic development
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Coping Gracefully with Depopulation
A Roanoke Times editorial asks a provocative question: “Should we just let Appalachia go?” Instead of trying to rebuild a new economy in far Southwest Virginia, should the commonwealth just allow the region to depopulate? As the editorial points out, the Appalachian mountains and hollers were sparsely populated through the 18th and 19th centuries. Then, in…
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Thinking on a Higher Plane about Higher Education
Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), brought a wealth of experience in corporate recruitment and workforce training when he moved to Virginia from Louisiana. But there’s another aspect of Virginia’s economic development chief that has gained little notice here in the Old Dominion. Last year he earned a doctorate in higher…
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Exploring the Dark Side of the Creative Class
Richard Florida, who gained renown 15 years ago with his book, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” is a progenitor of big ideas exploring the nexus of urbanism, innovation and prosperity, and he’s back with another book and another big idea. Having documented in previous works that a handful of “superstar cities” are sucking up…
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Fairfax Snags AWS Corporate Center, 1,500 Jobs
Governor Terry McAuliffe announced a major economic-development coup yesterday: Amazon Web Services (AWS) will locate its new East Coast corporate campus in Fairfax County, creating up to 1,500 jobs. AWS, which already operates several data centers in Northern Virginia and distribution centers downstate, will provide cloud computing services from the new campus. “When one of…
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Building on Virginia’s Data-Center Boom
Data centers are the hottest trend in Virginia economic development these days. But the state is only beginning to think through the implications. Loudoun County, home to 75 facilities, has developed the largest cluster of data centers in the country (and perhaps the world), and next-door-neighbor Prince William County is rising fast. Rural Mecklenburg County…
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Four Goals to Revitalize Southwest Virginia
by Steve Haner Dear Southwest Virginia: I read with interest Wade Gilley’s recent Roanoke Times column on steps Southwest Virginia should take to brighten its economic future. Sure, appoint another commission, but here are some more concrete thoughts: Stop expecting Richmond or Washington or anybody else to provide the capital or the leadership. I spent…
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Liberty U Acquires Research Park, Advances Research Ambitions
Expanding its role as the economic dynamo of the Lynchburg metropolitan region, Liberty University has finalized a $4.3 million purchase of the Center for Advanced Engineering and Research (CAER) in Bedford County. Reports “Work It, Lynchburg“: For Liberty, the purchase of the CAER facility is an opportunity to build a new research campus on the…
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New Energy in Downtown Norfolk
Hampton Roads may be stuck in the economic doldrums, lagging the state and national economic growth rate over the past decade, but considerable change — positive change — has been taking place under the surface. Spurred by booming residential development, the city of Norfolk’s downtown is looking more vibrant than any time I remember seeing it.…
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What Virginia Can Learn from GE’s Relocation to Boston
My apologies if I sound like a broken record, but clearly there are people who still don’t get the message. So, here I go again… Today’s Wall Street Journal interviews GE’s chief financial officer, Jeffrey Bornstein, on how the move of the conglomerate’s headquarters from suburban Connecticut to Boston is working out. I reproduce select quotes…
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Bacon’s Mushroom Theory of Economic Development
We’ve all heard the mushroom theory of management — shovel s*** and keep ’em in the dark. Well, brace yourself for Bacon’s mushroom theory of economic development. Almost half of America’s mushrooms are produced in Chester County, Pa. After peaking in 2014, however, production has declined slightly in recent years. A big problem: a labor…
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Fifteen Nucleii for the Rebirth of Southwest Virginia
Southwest Virginia is on track to lose 1,000 residents each year for the next decade, Stephen Moret, chief of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, told attendees of the Southwest Virginia Economic Forum in Wise, yesterday. The region needs to add 250 new jobs per year over and above the new jobs already coming just to…
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Should Historic Neighborhoods Be Allowed to Evolve?
Union Hill is a run-down neighborhood adjacent to its more famous neighbor, Church Hill, in the City of Richmond. Some of its working-class houses predate the Civil War, but the years have been unkind. For decades, the population was predominantly poor and African-American. Many of the lots are vacant, and many of the houses that…
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The Marketplace is Speaking. Are the Counties Listening?
After CoStar Group, a provider of real estate market intelligence, announced last fall its intention to move its research division headquarters to downtown Richmond, the company offered employees from Washington, D.C., Atlanta, San Diego, and Columbia, Md., an opportunity to move to Virginia. A big concern of Senior Vice President Lisa Ruggles was how many…
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Nobody Cares about You, Southwest Virginia, and Maybe That’s a Good Thing
The Roanoke Times tells a hard truth to the readers of Southwest Virginia: “Nobody cares about you.” Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, says the Sunday editorial, has done nothing to help the counties of the far Southwest whose finances were devastated by the collapse of the coal industry. The Democratic Party in Virginia has “evolved into…
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Business and Computer Science Majors are the Biggest Bargains in Higher Ed
It is widely known that certain college majors offer better career prospects than others. Engineering and business majors earn more money on average than, say, art and English majors. Less well known is the fact that certain majors are more expensive to teach. As seen in the chart above, engineering graduates cost twice as much to…