Perry County’s Digital Factory
This actually looks promising because Perry County, which has a 27.4 percent unemployment rate, is thinking outside of the box.
Instead of trying to catch up in a race in which they have already been lapped and, frankly, will likely always be out-resourced by more affluent neighbors, Perry County officials are looking to transfer their efforts to a different race entirely. It’s still about infrastructure and factory base, but in this race, bricks and mortar have nothing to do with it. Vision Perry, an economic development program in Linden funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is instead working to build infrastructure along the digital highway. To that end, and with the help of Nashville-based nonprofit cTechnology, Vision Perry is launching a new kind of factory — a digital one.
Unlike a bricks-and-mortar approach, a digital factory functions as a virtual job site, working remotely for national companies via the Internet or telecommunications. “This is one of the most viable options for a rural community,” says Michael Dumont, Vision Perry’s executive director.
The story is fascinating because it looks at people trying to reinvent themselves. For communities, such as Perry County, that are miles away from an Interstate, this could be the way to go.
Here’s what they are doing.
“Many traditional economic developers don’t understand the global, service-based economy. They think in terms of site-ready incentives,” says Paul Van Hoesen, founding director of cTechnology.
Selected for its technical resources already at hand, Vision Perry houses the pilot training program, which has received funding from the Rural Technology Assistance Grant program and the South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance.
