Hometown Strong Offers A Special Forces Approach To Rural Economic Development

Traveling across the state, one sometimes gets the impression that there are two North Carolinas; the prosperous, metropolitan I-85 "crescent" that connects Raleigh, the Triad and Charlotte, and the rural, less affluent parts of the state. There are, of course, exceptions to this generalization. Asheville and Wilmington are booming small cities well outside the lines and there are communities along the I-85 corridor that are struggling, but as a rule, the rural areas of the state have not done nearly as well economically over the past quarter-century.

This trend has not escaped the notice of our elected officials in Raleigh, although what, exactly, to do about it has been a more difficult thing to pin down. Several factors play into the increasing economic disparity between rural and urban areas, many of them largely beyond the control of state government. The globalization of the economy and NAFTA and GATT in particular significantly impacted the textile and furniture industries that were once mainstays of many small town economies. The theory behind those treaties was that low-skill, low-wage manufacturing would be relegated offshore while jobs in higher-paying, more technical fields would increase, a net win for the American economy. To some extent this happened, but the manufacturing jobs which small towns lost were replaced by "information economy" jobs which are disproportionately found in urban areas. 

There are also larger demographic trends at work. As the trailing edge of the Baby Boomers nears retirement, there has been a shift in business and community leadership toward a younger generation that has never really known an economy based on manufacturing and agriculture, and who may have some ill-conceived notions about those sectors and their impact on rural prosperity. 

The latest effort by state government to address these issues was announced earlier this month by the Cooper administration. The governor's program, which he calls "Hometown Strong," takes a "special forces" approach to rural development by creating a small team of highly experienced experts and empowering them to cut through the bureaucracy that frequently hampers rural counties in their attempts to build capacity and infrastructure. Anson County's Pryor Gibson was one of the first two appointees to the team, along with attorney Mary Penny Kelly.

The Hometown Strong team will take an anti-bureaucracy approach to assisting rural communities locate the funding and other assistance needed to help them compete. The idea is not to create a new program, but rather to engage the existing programs more efficiently and with less duplication of effort. 

While a bold initiative, the ultimate success of Hometown Strong depends on the quality of the team members. In this regard, Gibson seems like an ideal choice. A fiery former legislator with broad business experience, he seems like exactly the sort of leader who might actually be able to cut red tape without inadvertently stringing up more of it.

Ultimately, though, there needs to be an understanding of what a prosperous rural economy looks like, and that's part of the difficulty. Every rural community is different and one size will never fit all. Here in Anson County, we are fortunate to have one of the few strong Textile and Apparel clusters remaining in the state. Behind the leadership of visionaries like Hornwood's Chuck Horne and Premiere Fiber's John Amirtharaj, these companies are reinventing textiles for a new generation of American-made products, but reviving textiles... or furniture... or promoting tourism or call centers is not a strategy that will work across the board, and that is why I like the "special forces" approach of Hometown Strong.