Virginia Economic Review

Since Drake Extrusion opened a plant in Southern Virginia to make polypropylene fibers and yarns 31 years ago, the company weathered the collapse of the region’s traditional industry and global downturns and never laid off a worker.

Food and beverage and pharmaceutical companies rely on Virginia’s cold chain infrastructure to succeed.

New or expanding companies want to know that they will be able to hire workers with the skills they need. While outside training providers offer established but generic faculty, facilities, and programs, in-house solutions allow for customization but require significant investment.

If you imagine timelines as train tracks and key events as moments when tracks converge, this is a pivotal time for rail in Virginia.

Connections are an essential foundation of business success — and businesses trust Virginia’s infrastructure to provide a multimodal transportation system that reliably connects them to suppliers, customers, and partners.

Connections are an essential foundation of business success — and businesses trust Virginia’s infrastructure to provide a multimodal transportation system that reliably connects them to suppliers, customers, and partners.

Virginia’s arts scene showcases the creative talent that comes out of the Commonwealth, from well-regarded arts programs at universities like Virginia Commonwealth University and Shenandoah University to self-taught artists.

Virginia’s cities, counties, and towns represent a wide range of living situations, with a location to support any lifestyle.

Virginia’s cities, counties, and towns represent a wide range of living situations, with a location to support any lifestyle.

States, nations, and any municipality can build and tout their critical infrastructure that, on the surface, may appear second to none. Think: thriving, automated food and agriculture ecosystems. Sprawling office buildings outfitted with remote smart sensors. Unflappable financial markets.

When Jeremy Moyer was 6 years old, he started following his dad around their 1,000-acre dairy farm in Amelia County. By the time he was 12, he was getting paid to do chores around the farm. Now, at 42, he runs the farm with his father and brother.

Speed and efficiency are essential competitive edges for any manufacturing operation. Yet the growing adoption of advanced manufacturing techniques isn’t just boosting efficiency with how goods are produced — it’s changing the types of goods that can be made and where they are produced.

Backed by monumental funding deals, a peaking business profile, and a strong entrepreneurial undercurrent, Virginia is building an accessible, collaborative, and truly thriving innovation ecosystem far and wide across the Commonwealth.

Early in the morning of March 27, a container ship about as tall as the Eiffel Tower left the Port of Baltimore going approximately 9 mph. The ship, named the Dali, was fully loaded with cargo and weighed nearly 100,000 tons.

Philip D’Anieri is a lecturer in urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, where he teaches courses on the built environment.

As the COVID-19 pandemic raged on over the last two years, contractors became more popular as people reevaluated the spaces where they lived (and suddenly worked).

Tad Deriso is president and CEO of Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation (MBC), a South Boston-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that has built an advanced open-access fiber optic network in Southern Virginia.

Beth Macy is a three-time New York Times-bestselling author. She is the author of “Factory Man,” “Truevine,” and “Dopesick,” books that tell separate stories, but all stories through which the challenges, issues, prospects, and hopes of rural America are studied in different ways.