State of West Virginia

Economic Development Strategy; Regional Implementation Plan; and Competitive Assessment (2000, 2002, 2008)

West Virginia is a state of contradictions.  Its beautiful, diverse landscape makes it ideal for those who enjoy outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, and river rafting.  However, the state has not kept up with the economy of the United States as a whole and as a result, poverty is visible in many areas.  Resistant to change, the state is still largely based on manufacturing and mining – two sectors whose shares of the nation’s economy are shrinking in favor of more service and technology-oriented jobs.  In addition, the state is losing population, and the population that remains is generally older and lacks the education and skills to fill the jobs of the currently growing sectors.  In spring of 2000, the West Virginia Council for Community and Economic Development (the Council) decided to take action to stop the continued decline of the state’s economy, and contracted with Market Street Services.

This was a two-phase project for Market Street.  The result of the first phase was an economic development strategy entitled West Virginia: A Vision Shared!  The Council sought input from stakeholders around the state during this phase, and Market Street conducted interviews and focus groups to gather this input.  Market Street also provided community and economic development best practices from around the nation, a review of how West Virginia currently delivers community and economic development services, and an assessment of how West Virginia’s business climate measures up to its major competitors.  In summer of 2001, Market Street returned to West Virginia to design a regional system for delivery of economic development services and delivered the Regional Implementation Plan in January 2002, which allowed the state to implement its economic development strategy.

In the years that followed, tremendous strides have been made towards the implementation of the key tenets of A Vision Shared.  The State has consistently worked on achieving the goals outlined in the strategy, spinning off a not-for-profit organization called Vision Shared Inc. to implement its tenets and monitoring progress.  Momentum continues to this day to bring the plan’s goals and objectives to fruition. 

Because of the positive changes that have occurred in the State, lingering challenges, and – importantly – the constantly evolving competitive dynamics of the national and global economies, many stakeholders felt that 2008 served as an important milestone to reassess West Virginia’s progress and continuing priorities.  Vision Shared Inc. engaged Market Street to assess the State’s strategic opportunities and challenges related to community and economic development. The goal of this process was to provide specific steps required for West Virginia to reach the next level of success.

This assessment update includes three components:

·                     Competitive Assessment: This research deliverable examined West Virginia’s competitive position and progress since the year 2000 along three broad areas: people, prosperity, and place.  Throughout the report, West Virginia was benchmarked against three states of similar size (New Mexico, Nebraska, and Maine) and three states with similar economic structures (Louisiana, Oklahoma, and North Dakota). The mixture of these two contrasting measures on indicators related to demographics, socioeconomics, workforce, economy, and quality of life produced an objective factual result in comparing the State’s competitive position and its rate of progress.

·                     Rankings and Ratings Report:  This report presented a catalogue of the numerous rankings and ratings that have been done by various foundations, magazines, corporations, and economic development groups.  Because such rankings, regardless of their methodologies, affect public perception it was important to have a clear understanding of how West Virginia stacked up against other states.  This report was careful to qualify any report that is “one-sided,” too narrowly focused, or weighted too heavily on one measure.  It also emphasized year-to-year improvements - or setbacks - that have been made.

·                     Work Plan for West Virginia: Based on the findings from the first two reports, this document presented a prioritized “work list” for the State’s next strategic steps.  The Work Plan included recommendations related to reforming the State’s court system, implanting comprehensive health care reform to address public health issues and the high rate of unemployed residents, investing in research and development, enhancing the Community and Technical College System, restructuring the Department of Commerce to better support small business and entrepreneurship, and enhancing West Virginia’s image – particularly among young professionals.