Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

Re:Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map by Animats on Saturday April 22, 2017 @02:06PM (#14173771)

A huge amount of Government money has gone into infrastructure for Pikeville, KY. There was the Pikeville Cut-Through, finished in 1987, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved the river to a more convenient location.[1] That also got the town a superhighway connection with two interchanges. There's the East Kentucky Expo Center [2], which has only two events, wrestling and a beer fest, scheduled for the rest of the year. There's the University of Pikeville, with 2,300 students. There's the Pikeville Medical Center, an 11-story hospital with a 10-story parking garage and 3,200 employees. There's a large, modern high school with a swimming pool. It has 2,300 students, so it must be drawing from a larger area than the town. There's a downtown multistory car park connected by a sky bridge to part of the University of Pikeville.

All this in a town of only 7,000 people.

Population is increasing slowly; it's not a dying town. The town itself never had heavy industry; the mines were elsewhere. It's a service center for central Appalachia. Population within 20 miles is 110,000. The town's problem is that the area it services is losing population.

If you wanted to locate there, the local mall has about 30,000 square feet available. No coffee shop in the mall, but the mall has a supermarket-sized Texas Roadhouse. Eat more beef. AT&T offers 45mbps Internet in most of the downtown area.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikeville_Cut-Through [2] http://eastkyexpo.com/AllEvents.html

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Re:Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map by jbawgs on Saturday April 22, 2017 @02:35PM (#14173968)

Its the only actual town for miles in any direction. All those other dots on the map nearby are incorporated hilltops. If they have a gas station with a Hunt Bros pizza franchise, its a town.

That said, our leaders spend any aid money we get on 'tourism' which never pays off, but they don't learn.

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Re:Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map by Animats on Saturday April 22, 2017 @05:06PM (#14174795)

Check out the tourism site, "Pikeville, Kentucky's Outdoor Family Playground".[1] There's zip lining, kayaking, and a riding stable. There's also a web site for downtown Pikesville.[2]. Boosterism is alive and well in Pikesville. It's a pretty little town. But it's just not going to draw tourists from far away.

There are bigger places in much worse shape. Youngstown, OH, population down to about 60,000. It was once a bigger industrial city. When the steel industry shut down, it lost its purpose. Plenty of industrial space is available if you have some use for it. Ohio and Pennsylvania have too many cities like that: Akron, OH; Erie, PA, Bethlehem, PA. Pittsburgh came back from losing its steel industry. Cleveland didn't.

[1] http://www.visitpikeville.com/ [2] http://www.pikevillemainstreet.com/

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Re:Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map by bsder on Saturday April 22, 2017 @07:22PM (#14175459)

> Pittsburgh came back from losing its steel industry.

Not really. It's still down population almost 10% from 2000.

Losing Westinghouse was a gigantic loss--and it didn't need to happen. Westinghouse should have been a source for tech talent during the Dot Com boom to combine with CMU and Pitt students. Instead Pittsburgh was a technology desert in that same time (I remember trying to find WiFi hotspots there in 2000-2002 and people staring at me like I was from Mars).

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