Search results for: “amazon”
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Virginia-Based Capital One Hacked
Who let the dogs data out? McLean-based Capital One has been hacked in one of the largest data breaches ever. A single hacker with apparent mental health issues managed to copy 100 million credit card applications and accounts. The seeming ease with which the hacker compromised what should have been ironclad security is shocking. The…
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Blackface, Wayne Newton, and the Top State for Business
Congratulations, Virginia, you’ve clawed your way back to the top of the heap, proclaimed by CNBC to be the Top State for Business in 2019. The honor is well earned. As Wayne Newton said in a nine-minute CNBC piece: “Hi, I’m Wayne Newton, born and raised in Virginia. Now here’s why Virginia has been named…
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Volvo: A Big Win for Western Virginia
The Volvo Group has announced that it will invest nearly $400 million to expand its Volvo Trucks North American New River Valley assembly operation in Pulaski County. The project is expected to create 777 new jobs within six years. Plans call for a new 350,000-square-foot building that will house truck cab welding operations; expansion of…
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The Deep State as Competitive Economic Advantage
Stephen Moret’s sales pitch to the Amazon in the HQ2 deal offered an analysis that was both acute and chilling — acute if you’re an economic developer seeking to promote Northern Virginia as a place for tech companies to do business, chilling if you are an American worried about the growing overlordship of the technocratic…
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A Nonprofit Insider’s View on Child Nutrition
Last week I asked the question how, given our nation’s’ extensive social safety net, it is possible that children in Virginia go hungry and suffer from malnutrition. Are government support payments deficient? Are food deserts to blame? Do people squander their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) stipends? Is something else going on? The explanations we…
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As Arlington Housing Prices Soar, Supply Is Unresponsive
The worst fears of Amazon critics are coming true. Housing prices are becoming increasingly unaffordable — even before Amazon sets up shop at its HQ2 facility in Arlington and floods the region with 25,000 employees. The average home price in Arlington County jumped 7% in the past year to $713,000, as investors poured into the…
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The Virtues of Incremental Development
One more angle to think about when appraising Amazon’s HQ2 project in Arlington… A single developer, JBG Smith, will have a disproportionate impact on the evolution of the urban fabric in the National Landing district of Arlington and Alexandria. In theory, a single big developer can mobilize more resources, carry out better planning and execute…
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The Crux of Arlington’s Affordable Housing Crisis: $350,000 Per Unit
Amazon will donate $3 million to support affordable housing in Arlington County, the company has announced. While government officials and charities welcomed the donation, reports the Washington Post, critics contend that the sum is sufficient to build only a handful of units. According to the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, new housing in the Virginia…
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Staying Within the Debt Capacity
I am following up on an earlier post discussing the capital budget recommendations of the Governor and the Commonwealth’s debt capacity. Jim Bacon’s recent post discussing Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne’s worries about increasing debt also dealt with this general issue. Guided by Secretary Layne, the Governor’s introduced budget was relatively conservative in its capital…
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Want More Affordable Housing? Try Free Markets.
Exclusionary regulation at the local level is the root cause of unaffordable housing, and a rollback of exclusionary regulation is the best long-term solution, argue Salim Furth and Emily Hamilton, research fellows at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “Contemporary American land use law embodies the bad idea that private land ought to be publicly planned.…
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Just How Smart Is the Smart-Scale Scoring System?
Over the past month Del. Dave LaRock, R-Hamilton, has criticized the state’s Smart Scale scoring system for allocating transportation dollars. By law, he says, the system is supposed to prioritize congestion mitigation. But the latest round of allocations was biased heavily in favor of land use and economic development. As a result, a Metro station…
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VEDP Snags Recognition as Best Economic Development Organization in Nation
Site Selection magazine has awarded the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) its Prosperity Cup as “the most competitive state-level economic development group” in the country. That’s quite a turnaround for an economic development organization that only two-and-a-half years previously the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) had found to be inefficient, ineffective, and suffering…
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Despite Success, a Failure Warning from SCHEV?
Hiding the silver lining deep in a grey cloud, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia reported today that Virginia is meeting its educational attainment goals to date and is on track to meet its aggressive 2030 higher education target.
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Movable Walkways for Potomac Yard Metro?
We have all encountered moving walkways in airports. I’m wondering why we haven’t seen them in other places. Perhaps the darn things are just so expensive to build and maintain. But that may change. A moving walkway is one of the options being considered in the planned $370 million Potomac Yard Metro station to be…
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Changing How Virginia Thinks about Economic Development
Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), is doing more than closing billion-dollar deals and resurrecting Virginia’s reputation as a top state to do business. He’s trying to change how Virginians think about economic development — or at least change what outsiders think about how Virginians think about economic development. The VEDP…