During the peak tourist season from April to October, more than 1,000 people work in Wytheville's motels and restaurants. In Wythe County, the number tops 1,500 people in tourist-related enterprises including stores in the Factory Merchants Mall at Fort Chiswell. Expect to see more manufacturing jobs announced in the near future in the Wytheville area. Until recently, Wythe County didn't have much land ready for industry, so prospects looked elsewhere. Brown once said that two of every three inquiries to his organization focused on Wythe County and its two interstates.
Developers like to hold up shining examples of the kinds of development that interstates can bring.
Interstate 85 from Atlanta to Raleigh, N.C., for example, represents many developers' dreams. Thanks to the construction of a BMW plant near Greenville, S.C., in the early 1990s, dozens of auto-parts suppliers have sprung up along the route as well. National studies have found that increased highway spending leads to increased productivity in many industry sectors and that it can raise overall personal income. But interstates don't necessarily equal local growth. Alleghany County, Clifton Forge and Covington, which are served by Interstate 64, all lost population during the 1990s, according to a recent study by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.