Restructuring the southside for innovation: technology, education, and holistic job growth in Danville, Virginia
Creators: name: Killeen, John Patrick
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2010

description: Like many mid-sized Piedmont manufacturing towns, Danville Virginia was hit hard by the wave of out-sourcing which swept the United States from the 1980s through the early years of the current century. With an economy disabled by the decline of textile and tobacco production, Danville faced serious losses in jobs and an increasing threat of economic devastation to the city (Breaux, 2000). Regionally isolated in the south of Virginia, Danville is closer to Charlotte than to Richmond, two hours from Blacksburg, and about an hour and a half from the Research Triangle. It is a town known well for its "Millionaires Row," where dazzling 19th century mansions tell the flamboyant story of the city's once booming economy. While the mansions have been lovingly cared for in many cases, homes in many of the neighborhoods relate the story of the town's decline in recent years. Educational achievement in particular expresses the local disinvestment in workforce capacity due to decades of reliance on a pair of industries that needed little preparation from their workers. In 2000, adults over 25 years of age in the Danville region were significantly underperforming by statewide standards: 67.9% had graduated from high school, as compared with 81.5% statewide; 11.6% had bachelor's degrees, almost a third of the 29.5% statewide estimate; median household income was also low at $31,430, next to the state median of $50,028 (Franklin 2008). The previous year an estimated 20% of individuals lived below the poverty line while 9.6% statewide did. In the past decade, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research has aimed at correcting some of these ills. The main interest of this qualitative study is to determine whether the Institute is by itself an answer to the employment/economic development problems faced by the town. How does the organization address barriers to inclusion for incumbent workers? Will its programs really replace the old manufacturing sector? Danville is not a unique case in its post-manufacturing malaise, of course. It is joined by numerous Piedmont towns and cities in Virginia and North Carolina (which is less than five miles' drive away) that have seen these industries drawn away to cheaper labor markets around the world while the local economies have declined. In Virginia, University-based programs like those at James Madison University have been supporting growth of bio sciences in the northern part of the state. The Virginia Biotechnology Association, based in Richmond, serves to connect the various statewide biotech programs and advocate on their behalf to the state legislature. But in the Southside, there is a dearth of universities to begin with. Those that do exist are in Roanoke, Blacksburg, and Danville. In Virginia, there are currently 82 biotechnology firms, 64% of which are located in Richmond or points north (VABIO, 2010).The Western area of the state, which here includes the Danville region, represents about 14% of the total. The Southside, overall, is the least represented in this. Danville is currently home to one private biotech company, Luna Nanotechnology, whose headquarters are in Blacksburg