A pair of loud alarm bells sounded last week for the Washington area’s economy, and political leaders from Richmond to Annapolis should take them seriously.
The warning of immediate concern came Thursday at an annual conference of 750 business and civic leaders in McLean. Economics mavens led by George Mason University professor Steve Fuller presented eye-opening data showing that our region has trailed almost every other major U.S. metropolitan area in job growth for the past three years.
Evidence of sluggishness is all around us, although the public has been slow to take note. Vacant commercial offices in Northern Virginia are at their highest level since 1991. Average wages in the region have dropped for three straight years, an unprecedented decline.
We tend to overlook the slippage partly because we’re one of the nation’s wealthiest regions. It shouldn’t make us complacent.
“You’ve got all these shiny new restaurants . . . and therefore everybody thinks everything’s great,” said David Oberting, executive director of Economic Growth DC, a non-profit organization. “They just don’t see the underlying weaknesses.”
Cutbacks in federal spending are largely to blame, of course, and they can’t be helped. But it’s worrisome that no other business sectors have emerged to replace Uncle Sam as the region’s engine of growth.
Sequestration and shutting down the war machine can’t be helping this situation either. Defense projects are closing down and people are losing their jobs. Perhaps the goose that laid the golden egg has seen better days.
Dr. Stephen Fuller was right on target about our housing market. What is the outlook for our region? Northern Virginia? Prince William County?
Predictions, please:
Contraction.
Perhaps NOVA can attract another industry besides government.
We almost got Beretta and Remington…..but having a pro-gun control Governor sent them elsewhere.
Unless we discover petroleum deposits and start fracking it will take 20 years to transform our economy. Face it, we are addicted to government spending, and when the Federal Government sneezes, NoVA catches pneumonia.
Loudoun is booming, and much of this has to do with leveraging the “Data Economy”, and the fact that something like 70% of the world’s internet traffic transits NoVA. Ashburn is Data Center City.
We could start drilling off-shore, and fracking down-state, but this won’t help NoVA.
“drilling off-shore”
That presents problems.
Don’t get me wrong..I have no problems with drilling.
But the Navy has stated that they cannot co-exist with a plenitude of offshore pipelines.
They seem to have figured it out elsewhere, like in the Gulf.
@Steve Thomas
That begs the question why Loudoun is the data capital and Prince William is not?
I believe Elena is the resident expert on how to make Prince William county attractive to data centers and their customers. Perhaps she can offer some tips.
Surely Loudoun Co. people don’t want power lines running through their property either.
Change of subject–I saw the part on Downton Abby that I would like. Absolutely.
Last week wasn’t too shabby either. Why is it that people feel they can interfere in other people’s personal lives?
Moon, back during the Telco/dot.com boom, there were these little companies like MCI/WorldCom, PSI.Net, Global Crossings, Teleglobe and bunches of smaller players who set up shop in that area. Land was cheap, and fiber-optic lines plentiful. Why, because of the proximity to the Main Metropolitan Area Internet Exchange, in Tysons. Lot’s of this construction in the hinterlands of Ashburn were Data Centers, to host all these dot.coms and hitech companies infrastructure. Then the bust happened, and folks like WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers went to jail. Lot’s of assets to be had for pennies on the dollar. A bunch of VC and PE companies snapped them up, and held onto them. Once the real internet explosion happened, companies looking for existing facilities bought these Data Centers. Since everyone else was coming here, so did everyone else. AOL has a facility out by the battlefield, and then there was the big Cyber fortress just off 66 by the Manassas vistors center.
Moon, what Steve said 🙂
Plus Loudoun also recognized there would be only certain corridors where major developmet was to most likely happen…Route 7, Route 9 and Route 28. Pro-active thinking when the fiber-optic was laid along those routes, to also align the power. Then it was simply see where developments would be best located.
There are a lot of big land owners in Loudoun also not afraid of the lines nor even having someone put up a cell tower on their land. $$$$ can be a big incentive to live with the structures. Plus, if you have 500 acres of land and running cows, who cares if the big tower is there? More rural, less urban bedroom be Loudoun.
@Moon-howler
On the data centers: I’m pretty sure the data centers in Loudoun don’t run on solar or pixie dust, so I guess the people of Loudoun county were able to live with the power lines needed to provide the infrastructure needed to attract businesses. Local communities are always in competition with each other for businesses. If PWC is seen as too difficult to do business in, that business will go somewhere else, and we can all continue to wonder why good jobs are so hard to find in PWC as we commute to Fairfax & Loudoun.
On Downton: I assume you saw Mary & Anna’s conversation about Anna’s trip to the chemist. I thought you’d like it. There’s a scene with Ms. Bunting coming up that you’ll enjoy as well. As for the right to privacy, it just didn’t exist, at least as you see it, back then. There was a much greater sense of community back then, especially in England. People would have seen it not as invading Anna’s privacy, but as an obligation to help Anna avoid making a mistake that would hurt her, by damaging her reputation and/or her soul. I certainly don’t expect you to agree with the mindset, but understand that the people in that time would have seen the situation completely differently.
Refresh my memory, the Russian refugees have come to Downton already right? I seem to remember that was in the first week or two.
I am not going to speak for the power line opposition folks but I will say that they wouldn’t be involved if Amazon just went to Innovation. that does have the power lines as does the Balls Ford area.
I just don’t have a dog in that fight other than I don’t want a 100 foot power line in Elena’s yard. I see them over in Westgate and they are butt ugly. My power lines and other utilities are buried, thank goodness, and it makes a huge difference in community appearance and service.
Downton Abby: Yes the Russians are there and Violet’s Achilles Heel is shown.
People always think they are “helping” you when they butt into your business. The butler was gossiping and overstepping his boundaries. I would have fired him. He basically tattled. I wanted to punch him in the face.
I once had a big dust up with my mother over a situation in my grandmother’s retirement place. Apparently some old man and some old woman who were both in their 90s were sleeping together in the retirement place and all the residents were trying to get him evicted. My mother was agreeing. I was horrified and told her it wasn’t any of her business or anyone else’s. She said well THAT was going on in front of HER mother. OH PUH_LEEZ! I told her when you were 90 years old you should be able to sleep with who you want to sleep with. I think the old buzzard was kicked out the protect the old hens’ collective virginity or something but I was horribly disgusted. This might have happened 25 or 30 years ago, just to give a time frame.
Most people just really shouldn’t give a rat’s ass.
I think it was Mary’s privacy. I find it odd that Mary and Anna have such discussions. I guess it goes back to Mary and the dead guy.
@Ray Beverage
Ray, nice additions to my comments.
@Steve Thomas
We don’t have a major naval base like Norfolk in the Gulf. We don’t really operate subs in the Gulf either.
A lot of businesses were scared off by PWC’s illegal immigration debate. People like Greg Letiecq said that there were armed Latin gangs roaming around the county shooting people and that scared off a lot of prospective businesses and homeowners.
Just curious, where do you live? Not asking for specifics but generally where do you live?
I was fortunate enough to move to a better area recently but I lived off of rt. 1 near Featherstone Plaza for the past 8+ years.
Another question… How far can you drive, or in my case walk before I moved, before seeing tags (or what you may know as graffiti) for MS13 or 18th Street or Latin Kings?
Do you even know what those are? Could you even spot one if you were to see one? I highly doubt it. Hell, you may even have some in your area but unless you “google” it I doubt you even know what I’m taking about.
I never heard Greg say those things exactly but he sure seemed to want to leave that impression. I don’t think it does your community any good to hear that minorities are horrible and destroying the place.
By the same token, it certainly doesn’t do a community or county any good to read that someone in county government is always scheming or attempting to do something illegal. That’s easy to find now if you read the right blog. right SoN?
@Moon-howler
Agreed Moon on your first statement. However, who in the county government exactly is “always scheming or attempting to do something illegal”?
Time and tide madam…:) Steve’s right but don’t foget AOL! Also, around 2000 there was a huge startup scene all along the Dulles toll road. Tons of energy in the area and you throw in a gleaming new Reston Town Center – the die was cast. Of course, that confluence of events only took 30 years of planning and patient effort… and luck. What’s FFX doing about the changing winds? Been to Tysons lately? They’re building a city.
I agree with the premise that the problem is regional and state in nature but I don’t look for a uniform response across the region. Or the state. That being the case, places that work on proactively diversifying their economies will perform better. Those that sit around and wonder what is going on will suffer. Same as it ever was.
Does anyone have actual employment figures for data centers? My understanding is that the data centers themselves usually don’t provide many jobs, although other jobs are associated with them, such as research & development, marketing, sales, service, and support. These associated jobs don’t have to be, and frequently aren’t, in the same area as the data centers.
Washington, D.C. area employment has been government driven since at least the mid- 1800’s. My guess is that’s not going to change anytime soon, offshore oil drilling or not.
Maybe if they found shale oil under the Capitol building they could start fracking there? There’s a bunch of frackers in there already just waiting to go! Both motherfrackers and fatherfrackers could take part!!
snicker!!!