Tag: Rural development
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Solar Mega-Project Proposed for Pulaski County
by James A. Bacon Developers of solar energy projects in Virginia often encounter resistance from rural communities where residents worry about the impact of vast solar farms on viewsheds, the tax base and the rural way of life. In Pulaski County, Hecate Energy LLC is dangling a new incentive to make its project palatable —…
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The New Secret Weapon in Economic Development: Mine Water
by James A. Bacon I don’t know if the latest scheme cooked up by Southwest Virginia’s economic developers is crackpot or genius, but it certainly is intriguing. As the coal industry of the state’s coal counties continues to bleed out, regional leaders are looking for ways to diversify the economy. And they think they might…
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Coal Severance Tax Credits Obsolete, JLARC Says
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s coal tax credits are obsolete, cannot forestall the decline of coal mining in the state, and should be eliminated, finds the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in a new report, “Infrastructure and Regional Incentives.” The state provides two tax credits to encourage coal production: The Coalfield Employment Enhancement Tax…
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Is There a Government Role for Rural Development?
by James A. Bacon John Accordino, a planning professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, has been giving extensive thought to a perennial problem, the nation’s urban-rural divide. As author of a newly published article and State and Local Government Review, he provides a broad overview of his thinking in a Richmond Times-Dispatch column. Accordino sees the…
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Good Schools as Rural Development Magnets
by James A. Bacon An enduring question in Virginia’s economic development community is how to revitalize the state’s rural counties. Traditional rural industries such as farming, mining, timbering, and light manufacturing are shrinking. Young people are leaving to seek better career opportunities elsewhere, and few people are moving in to replace them. A contracting workforce…
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Strategies for Growing the Rural Population
In a recent article, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond highlighted strategies for bolstering the population of rural counties in the Fifth Federal Reserve District. Some ideas will prove familiar to readers of Bacon’s Rebellion, such as identifying amenities that will attract retirees and second-home buyers. But the article makes some suggestions we haven’t heard…
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Dominion, Apco Leverage Grid Investments to Promote Rural Broadband
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s investor-owned utilities, Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power Co., could become key players in the Northam administration’s push to extend broadband access to rural communities. A State Corporation Commission ruling is expected today on an Apco proposal to extend “middle mile” broadband in partnership with Bluefield-based GigaBeam Networks, which will provide…
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Does Solar Power in Virginia Still Need the M&T Tax Break?
by James A. Bacon Solar energy is the cheapest source of electricity now available, solar advocates tell us, and that’s a big reason we should build more of it in Virginia. At the same time, says the solar lobby, the industry needs local-government tax breaks, in particular a state-mandated 80% exemption from local machine-and-tool taxes.…
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Rural Broadband Projects Vary Widely in ROI
by James A. Bacon Last week Governor Ralph Northam announced $18.3 million in Virginia Telecommunication Initiative grants to support 12 projects across the state. Leveraging $35 million in local and private matching funds, the projects will connect about 36,000 households, including thousands of businesses and “community anchor” institutions — an average state subsidy of roughly…
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Raise My Tax, Please
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The voters in one of the most conservative and rural parts of the state recently acted contrary to stereotype and voted to raise their taxes. Furthermore, that action was made possible by legislation sponsored by their Republican delegate in the General Assembly Halifax County has been wrestling for several years with the…
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Virginia Likely to Impose Excessive Minimum Wage
by Hans Bader It doesn’t make sense to ban jobs that pay a living wage, just because an employer can’t afford to pay a still higher wage. But that is what a $15 minimum wage does in regions where living costs and wages are low. There are cheap regions to live in where $11 an…
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Appalachia’s Job Growth Challenge
by James A. Bacon Employment growth in Virginia’s Appalachian region since 2002 has been the weakest of all five states in the Central Appalachian region, according to data contained in a recent Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) report, “Industrial Make-up of the Appalachian Region: Employment and Earnings, 2002-2017.”. Making matters worse, job growth in Central Appalachia…
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Virginia’s Rural Development Strategy — and Suggestions for Improvement
by James A. Bacon You most likely missed it because it has gotten next to zero publicity, but the Commonwealth does have an economic development strategy for rural Virginia. In 2017, a group of rural development stakeholders come together to form a “Rural Think Tank” to identify policies the state should pursue to position smaller…
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“Anchor Institutions” as Foundations of Rural Economic Health
by James A. Bacon A couple of days ago I lamented that the purveyors of the “conventional wisdom” at a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond conference on rural development had little new or insightful to offer. I must offer a partial retraction. A friend has forwarded to me a speech by bank President Tom…
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Why Are So Many Rural Virginians Stuck in Place?
by James A. Bacon A recurring question on this blog and elsewhere is why don’t more Americans (and rural Virginians) move to areas of greater economic opportunity? Why do they remain stuck in communities with high unemployment and low wages? Americans have always moved to economic opportunity in the past. What’s different now? Those questions…