Abstract
Rural versus urban. Red versus blue. New economy versus old economy. The conventional narrative—and too often corresponding reality—of the experience in the United States focuses on the divisions and differing opportunities and outcomes among different regions of the country. The Commonwealth of Virginia is a microcosm and reflection of such national differences. Northern Virginia is a robust economic engine with strong economic ties to the federal government, major universities, and a strong tech economy—including Amazon's HQ2. Meanwhile, southwest Virginia has more in common with West Virginia and their other Appalachian neighbors: historic reliance on coal and agriculture, economic distress, and health disparities such as the opioid crisis—just to name a few of the myriad of challenges. While Blacksburg and Arlington are just 4 hours apart by car, the distance seems much greater in terms of culture, politics, and economic opportunity.
In the face of these divisions, Dr. John Provo, director of Virginia Tech's Center for Economic and Community Engagement (CECE), conceived the idea for the Vibrant Virginia initiative. Vibrant Virginia focuses on “equal and engaged partnerships among university faculty and communities for the purpose of imagining possibilities and co-creating solutions to economic and social challenges” (p. 4). This edited book, Vibrant Virginia, with contributed chapters by a host of Virginia Tech scholars and their community partners, was one outcome of the larger initiative to bridge the chasms that exist across the rural and urban continuum in Virginia.
The book begins with an introduction to the Vibrant Virginia initiative and a preview of the four parts of the book and each corresponding chapter. Part I seeks to “unpack” urban and rural divisions in the state and explore the role of state policy in bridging the existing economic divisions. Part II focuses on strategies for “cultivating a vibrant and connected economy” across the urban–rural continuum, including a recasting of industry clusters to bridge the gap, entrepreneurial ecosystems development, higher education and workforce development, and broadband connectivity. Part III's four chapters focus on the role of creative place making through arts, main streets, and scenic tourism. Part IV concludes the book with chapters on the role of health in ensuring vibrant communities through refugee and migrant support, public health and addiction, and rural air service.
The diversity of authors in an edited volume such as this one lends each chapter a different style and geographic orientation. Some chapters offer more statewide, data-driven perspectives, while other chapters are more localized in focus and provide case study examples. The strength of such an approach allows the chapters to serve as stand-alone contributions for their respective focus areas. The corresponding weakness is that the reader must often deliberately consider how the case studies written by practitioners correspond to the broader urban–rural continuum and whether such examples are truly generalizable to other parts of Virginia and the rest of the country. For example, the earlier chapters in the book are filled with statewide maps, charts, and graphs depicting the urban–rural demographic and economic differences and similarities. The later chapters on the arts and scenic tourism are filled with color photos of scenic countrysides and main street designs. Despite these differences, the editors do an admirable job drawing together these diverse voices and perspectives and focusing them on the overarching theme of creating more vibrant communities across the commonwealth.
Readers of Economic Development Quarterly will find several chapters in the book of particular interest. In Chapter 4, Christiana K. McFarland and Erica Grabowski find that employment growth is greater in Virginia communities when the jobs are part of regional clusters. They further explore the connectivity of industries comprising these clusters across metropolitan, micropolitan, rural-adjacent, and rural-remote communities. They conclude by offering some policy suggestions for strengthening this connectivity in rural locations. The chapter provides a demonstrable contribution to how scholars and practitioners can depict the linkage between urban and rural economies to create shared prosperity.
In Chapter 8, Max O. Stephenson Jr., Lara Nagle, and Neda Moayerian provide one of the stronger case studies in the book, which offers important lessons to scholars and practitioners working in rural places. They explore community cultural development (CCD) strategies in Patrick County, Virginia. The case study reveals how arts and culture can be used to engage communities. Yet, the chapter also points to the significant divide that exists in rural places, the inability of local leaders and communities to respond to global economic forces, and the polarized citizenry in rural places.
The final chapter focuses on a case study of collaboration between the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport and James Madison University to create a task force to enhance local air service. Despite the importance of airports to connect rural regions to urban markets—especially with the rise of advanced air mobility (e.g., drones)—there was little discussion of rural airports in the book. Even this final chapter seemed misplaced, with its inclusion in the part of the book focused on public health and addiction. Yet, the chapter offered an interesting case study on competitiveness, especially for rural anchor institutions like eds and meds, in leading initiatives to enhance air service and connectivity in rural places.
While these chapters, and a few others, are probably of most interest to the readers of this journal, scholars and practitioners focused on the arts, health, and other areas related to vibrancy should find great value in the other chapters of the book. Many are equally interesting, even if they are not explored in detail in this review.
Several markets exist for the book, which readers may wish to consider. First, the book should be required reading for any student in a Master of Public Administration program in Virginia. It provides a comprehensive coverage of Virginia's demographic and political shifts, underlying economic challenges and opportunities, and policy options to improve the lives of Virginians and their communities. Students reading the book and discussing its implications as part of a graduate class would be better prepared to enter Virginia's public workforce.
Second, the book as a whole—and certainly select chapters—offer in-depth apolitical observations about Virginia that current local and state government employees, elected officials, and concerned citizens should find valuable. Given the book's structure as an edited volume, even select chapters as stand-alone readings offer great value. For example, Chapter 13's focus on addiction and recovery provides a real-world example of cross-sector partnerships that other communities facing substance use disorder challenges will find beneficial. Most of the book is written in an accessible manner for readers outside of academia.
Finally, the book expands and validates the important role that universities, especially public universities, play as conveners, collaborators, catalysts, and thought leaders as part of their public service mission. Such activities and outcomes are often cataloged and promoted by organizations like the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the University Economic Development Association (UEDA). Occasionally, these activities are covered in academic journal articles (Jolley & Michaud, 2019; Talebzadehhosseini et al., 2019). However, it is rare that a university press would provide such a detailed repository of these activities in peer-reviewed form. Vibrant Virginia offers a model for how other universities might structure their own community engagement partnerships and document them as best practices. Further, Virginia Tech Publishing remained true to the spirit of the Vibrant Virginia initiative by making the book available in both a soft cover version that can be purchased and a free online version in PDF and e-reader formats that facilitates greater use and application of the materials across the commonwealth. Vibrant Virginia (the book) and Vibrant Virginia (the initiative) are testaments to the power of public service and university engagement in service to the citizens of the commonwealth.
