Hampton Roads has been in the headlines in all the good ways this summer.
“LS GreenLink Makes Historic $680 Million Investment in Hampton Roads, Virginia.”
“Plenty of Reasons to Cheer Cable Manufacturers Move to Chesapeake.”
“A New Economic Development Agency Lets Hampton Roads Localities Invest in Each Other.”
“Hampton Roads Partners with College in Western Australia to Train Global Shipbuilders.”
“Virginia Named America’s Top State for Business in 2024 by CNBC.”
And that’s just a sampling.
Year to date for 2024, Hampton Roads has led the state in project announcements and job creation. Seven project announcements so far this year came with more than $750 million in capital investment and the creation of nearly 600 new jobs for our region.
These announcements didn’t just happen. They are the result of regional forces coming together to position this incredible metropolis for the changing economic order.
Bruce Katz, the cofounder of New Localism Advisors and author of “The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism,” has been working with the Alliance to help with that positioning.
And we’re just getting started.
“Because of some big global forces – rising tensions with China, climate crisis – the U.S. economy, catalyzed by unprecedented federal investments, is simultaneously remilitarizing, reshoring and decarbonizing,” Katz said at a Hampton Roads Alliance event earlier this summer. “That values cities and metropolitan areas which have a strong position in defense spending, certain critical technologies and certain parts of the green supply chain.”
Hampton Roads, he said, “looks like it’s in a favorable position to grow substantially over time.”
The community is starting to see our strengths just through the lens of the company announcements that have happened in the last six months – all of which is anticipated to continue.
“Your strengths start with an outsized position in shipbuilding and submarine construction and ship repair,” Katz said. “This is very large, and at a time when the U.S. is experiencing a surge in submarine production. You’re at the epicenter of that.”
That is not unrelated to the Hampton Roads position around nuclear power, Katz said, or cybersecurity as a result of our “outsized position around defense” that gives us “competitive advantages with real industry players, research institutions, in other advanced areas of the economy.”
Katz tells us that “places that have this kind of position need to articulate and communicate that they have this.”
That’s exactly what we’re doing at the Hampton Roads Alliance and will continue to build on – starting here with the monthly Wave Report.
Keep reading this month below for other news on regional, state and national economic forces at work.
Then keep paying attention.
There’s more coming.
Even Katz thinks so.
“I think you’re going to grow again. You’re going to become part of the new industrial geography in the United States. The U.S. spent decades offshoring, outsourcing, and globalizing, and it weakened the nation in many respects. We’re now getting back to a more balanced economic growth, which is going to favor places like Hampton Roads.”
