Austin or Aspen? Choose wisely, Charlottesville…
According to the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council, a local non-profit business collective, the city of Charlottesville is at a crossroads.
Their “Technology Town Hall” event, which was held at the Omni Hotel on January 23, set up a comparison between the two cities and urged citizens and area businesses to keep it in mind when guiding our fair city’s growth. Though it focused specifically on technology-heavy industries, the comparison did bring up a some interesting general points about local development, including the pronounced income disparities between different economic strata and the lack of viable job prospects for recent UVA graduates. Austin, Texas appears to have been upheld as the more desirable model due to its support for the local workforce, whereas Aspen was portrayed as a town economically designed exclusively for the upper class.
A follow-up meeting is planned for February 22.
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You can hear the event in its entirety at the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.
http://www.cvillepodcast.com/2007/01/24/austin-aspen/
There will be a slideshow on the VPTC website at some point.
Aw, I thought this was gonna be a story about those big phat GW coins I read about in the WashPost this morning. But it’s a good point you’re making nonetheless.