Tag: Rural development
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The Geographic Impact of Automation
by James A. Bacon A handful of megacities have captured a majority of U.S. job growth since the Great Recession and could win 60% of job growth through 2030, according to a July McKinsey Global Institute report. A middle tier of “stable” metropolitan areas and thriving niche cities will continue to see job growth, though…
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Rural Development: the Conventional Wisdom Won’t Cut It
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s rural communities face a hard slog maintaining their local economies in a globalizing world in which their traditional advantages, cheap land and labor, are no longer competitive. That slog looks even harder when leading thinkers are so bereft of fresh ideas. The utter failure to think beyond the conventional wisdom…
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Updates on the Rural Health Care Crisis
by James A. Bacon It turns out there’s not just a hospital shortage and a physician shortage in rural Virginia — there’s a nursing shortage. A couple of articles over the weekend highlighted growing problems with health care access in rural and small-town western Virginia communities. Community leaders in Patrick County have given up on…
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More Restrictions Proposed for Culpeper Solar Farms
by James A. Bacon Culpeper County prohibits construction of solar farms on Civil War battlefields. Now a proposal under consideration by the Board of Supervisors would discourage large solar projects adjacent to battlefield land held in historic easement, reports the Culpeper Star-Exponent. And that restriction is just one of many changes to the county’s Utility…
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Why Is Expanding Broadband Still Such a Problem?
by Peter Galuszka U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-7th) has drawn lots of attention for her Rural Broadband Summit at Louisa County High School in Mineral on Aug. 17, which got plenty of comment from primarily rural residents unhappy that they can’t get access to quick, reliable Internet service. Good for Spanberger, who beat Republican Dave…
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Hey, Why Not Satellites for Rural Broadband Access?
Everyone can agree, I think, that broadband Internet service is an essential utility for Virginia’s rural areas. There appears to be a wide base of support for the commonwealth to expend modest sums of money to help extend broadband to rural Virginians where the population density is insufficient to attract fiber-optic and wireless investment by…
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Danville’s Revival: Historic Architecture + Walkable Urbanism
In Part II of his extended essay on the revitalization of downtown Danville, Va., The Atlantic magazine writer James Fallows dates the beginning of the city’s revival to the decision to demolish The Downtowner, a classic example of atrocious 60s-era architecture. In retrospect, it now obvious that the “modernist” architecture of the 50s and 6os…
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Certifications and Upward Mobility
I have been critical of the Virginia higher-ed establishment’s goal of making Virginia the best-educated state in the country. The goal is arbitrary and unconnected to the demand for higher-ed degrees. Pursuing the goal could result in over-investment in higher-education at great cost to students who wind up indebted and under-employed, and at the expense…
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Bacon Bits: Rural Development Edition
Seeding entrepreneurship. The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority has approved $180,000 in seed-capital grants up to $10,000 for businesses that have been operating less than a year and have fewer than 10 full-time employees. The new businesses are projected to create $770,000 in total private investment and create 135 full-time and part-time jobs. Assuming the…
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Yes, Virginia, There Still Is Hope for Manufacturing
I remain skeptical that Virginia’s mill towns should peg their hopes for economic revival on manufacturing (see “Virginia Manufacturing Jobs Still in Decline“). But Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, makes a powerful case that Virginia can improve its track record in luring manufacturing investment. In a lengthy comment to my post,…
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Conservation Vs. Solar in Powhatan County
Conservation easements don’t just block projects like pipelines, highways and electric transmission lines. As demonstrated in Powhatan County Monday, they can block solar farms as well. Faced with skepticism from the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors, Cartersville Solar LLC has withdrawn a proposal to build a solar farm on a 3,000-acre tract of property, reports…
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Virginia Needs to Up its Game When Talking about “Rural” Development
Despite the creation of 4,500 jobs in the “rural” portions of Virginia since he took office in January, Governor Ralph Northam told the Virginia Rural Summit yesterday that Virginia needs to do more to stimulate employment in rural areas. Sounding familiar themes, Northam stressed STEM education, broadband access, and transportation. Twenty-first century jobs such as cyber-security…
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The Logic Behind Northam’s Plan for Spending the Tax-Reform Windfall
The starting point for understanding the Northam administration’s logic behind divvying up the tax windfall from federal income tax reform is the conviction that Virginia cannot count on the personal and corporate tax cuts lasting more than a few years. Democrats may regain power in Washington, D.C., and reverse the tax cuts, or at the…
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Stay Put, Young Man, Stay Put
The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis has published a useful reminder of how job and wage growth has bifurcated in Virginia — jobs and wages have increased smartly in Virginia’s major metro areas since the recession but have lagged markedly in non-metro Virginia. The trends, which reflect the larger urban-rural divide nationally cannot be reversed,…
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Virginia’s Competitive Advantage in Green Power
Solar power is looking better and better by comparison to wind power, and that’s a good thing for Virginia. In Germany, a global pioneer of wind power, hundreds of wind turbines are experiencing metal fatigue and other issues as they pass their 20- to 25-year design lives — and they are literally falling apart. Turbines…