• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Virginia FREE

Virginia FREE

  • ABOUT
    • BOARD OF DIRECTORS
    • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
    • HISTORY
    • CONTACT
    • VIRGINIA FREE ENTERPRISE FOUNDATION
    • TESTIMONIALS
    • PHOTO GALLERY
  • RESOURCES
    • ENGAGE VIRGINIA
    • THE VIRGINIA WAY FORWARD
    • BLUEPRINT
    • VPAP
    • VIRGINIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
  • RANKINGS
    • 2021 General Assembly Rankings
    • 2019 General Assembly Rankings
    • 2018 General Assembly Rankings
    • 2017 General Assembly Rankings
    • 2016 General Assembly Rankings
    • 2015 Candidate Interview Evaluations
  • EVENTS
    • NEWS
    • Public Speaking Class
    • Right To Work
  • RADIO
  • MEMBERS
JOIN

Hope or No Hope For Rural America?

You are here: Home / Economy / Hope or No Hope For Rural America?

March 4, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

A sobering editorial out of the Roanoke Times:

“The New York Times ran a very disturbing story recently that ought to be required reading for every state and local official concerned about the economic fate of rural Virginia.

In “The Hard Truths of Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy,” economics writer Eduardo Porter musters the usual statistics laying out the growing divide between super-charged growth in a handful of high-tech “superstar cities” and rural America. He then poses a question that we wish he hadn’t: What if there’s nothing that can be done to save rural America?

That’s not a thesis we agree with, mind you, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

Why it matters: “There are 19 counties in Southwest and Southside where the percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree is even lower. In Buchanan County and Covington, it’s 8.3 percent. In Greensville County, it’s 7.2 percent. By contrast, in Arlington, where Amazon is going, it’s 71.7 percent. In Falls Church, it’s 74.4 percent. We often make a moral case for why technology companies should look at rural Virginia in general and the coal counties in particular: Tech companies pride themselves on demanding clean energy, which is a fine thing, except that it’s putting coal miners out of work. Don’t they have a moral obligation to those communities? We think so, but it’s hard to make the business case when the talent pool there is so thin.”

You can read the whole editorial here.

Category iconEconomy

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ready to promote free enterprise and strengthen Virginia’s prosperous business environment?

It's time to join Virginia FREE.

JOIN NOW

Footer

Virginia FREE

We provide the best objective, non-partisan political information available to the business community in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

540 294 0680

info@vafree.org

Text VAFREE to 22828 to sign up for our emails

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • mail

Upcoming Events

There are no upcoming events at this time.

Sign up for Virginia FREE updates

Copyright © 2023 SEO Themes. All rights reserved. Return to top