It just goes from bad to worse… In 2011 Virginia ranked as the top state for business in the annual CNBC ranking. In the 2015 ranking, the Old Dominion had tumbled to 12th place, the fourth decline in a row.
Metrics deteriorated in many categories: cost of doing business, cost of living, infrastructure, economy, quality of life, and technology & innovation. Virginia improved slightly in workforce, education, business friendliness and access to capital.
Virginia’s economic development strategy is obsolete, if not outbroken. Governor Terry McAuliffe is a great salesman, and he’s doing yeoman’s work traveling the globe in search of corporate investment. While the old-fashioned corporate recruitment game will always be a pillar of Virginia’s economic development strategy, it is only one pillar among many. We need to be firing on all cylinders. We’re not.
— JAB
