Tag: Quality of Place
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Registration Now OPEN for Create WV Conference
A special, “early bird” discount price is available for the 2008 Create West Virginia (Create WV) Conference. The special price of $229.00 will only be in effect through August 31. This year’s conference, aimed at helping communities expand and improve their economies through cultivation of the creative and high-tech industries, is set for October 20-22…
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Does WV Really Want to Attract and Retain Young People?
Here in Pittsburgh, PA, city leaders have been scratching their heads for years over their continued brain drain. With an elite high-tech university (Carnegie Mellon), a very large university (Pitt) and many smaller colleges surrounding the region, there is a strong academic infrastructure. The very founder of the “Creative Class” paradigm, Richard Florida, lived and…
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Giving New Economy the Old College Try
One of the most strategic actions West Virginia could take is to develop stronger regional partnerships between the 20+ colleges and universities in the state and their surrounding communities. A healthy four-year institution can be a hub of every pillar of new economy success: diversity, technology, quality of place (cultural and otherwise) and talent/education. Many…
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Kris Lett is the Creative Economy!
Kristopher D. Lett, 35 years old, Charleston, WV createwv.typepad.com New Economy Factor: Mr. Lett was born in South Charleston, and grew up in Putnam and Kanawha Counties. He graduated The Art Institute of Pittsburgh with honors in 1993 with an Associates degree in Photography and Multimedia, after which he moved to Colorado and began work…
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A Creative Summit in a Creative Space
When we describe the creative potential of a place, the RiffRaff Arts Collective is a wonderful case in point. The Collective is a 10,000 square foot center of creative gravity that is breathing life into the once-dying Mercer Street in downtown Princeton, WV. createwv.typepad.com createwv.typepad.com Robert Blankenship and Lori McKinney are the co-founders of RiffRaff.…
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The Answer, My Friend?
The issue of alternative energy sources churns much debate. If you watch the new “Planet Green” cable channel or subscribe to mainstream environmental media, you might think that anyone concerned about the environment is surely of one accord on the best way to go to save our planet; and yet there is more variation in…
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West Virginia Stereotype: Ingenious, Quirky Entrepreneurial Spirit
My family and I had our first Mystery Hole experience last weekend. We’ve driven by several times, but it was finally open at the right time and we couldn’t pass it up. If you aren’t familiar with Mystery Hole, you probably haven’t been in West Virginia that long. createwv.typepad.com You’ll find Mystery Hole in Ansted…
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West Virginia Stereotype: Making Lemonade out of Lemons
If you study the history of West Virginia, we’ve had our share of lemons tossed our way. The state has been described as a “colony” because of the dominance of out-of-state land owners (some regions of the state have over 80% of their land owned by out-of-state corporate interests) who saw nothing wrong with extracting…
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West Virginia Stereotype: Building Community-Based Culture
You have to love FestivALL. “A City Becomes a Work of Art.” What makes this a great example of West Virginia’s cultural scene is the mix of world-class artists (Savion Glover, Shemekia Copeland, Jakob Dylan) combined with neighborhoody events such as wiener dog races. In some ways, our cultural scene reflects one of our other…
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Today’s West Virginia Stereotype
In celebration of West Virginia Day (June 20), Create WV is pleased to participate in a statewide blogging “carnival” organized by Jason Keeling of abetterwestvirginia.com. The goal? To collaborate in building and communicating the “new” stereotype of West Virginia. We think this is a brilliant concept. We all know the negative stereotypes which originated from…