The multi-cluster Hub Project is a consolidated effort by public, private and nonprofit participants to create sustainable community building options for Asheville and Buncombe County that will strengthen its role as the regional economic engine, or “Hub” of Western North Carolina.
The HUB Project has been divided into 17 Stratigic Goals, each fitting into one of seven Clusters. UNC Asheville, through NEMAC, and A-B Technical Community College are leading the efforts of the Technology Cluster of the HUB Project.
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In the past, most communities followed the traditional path in economic development. This approach focuses on marketing industrial land and buildings to outside investors. In recent years, more and more communities are moving toward a newer model of economic development based on supporting knowledge-intensive businesses. These are businesses that thrive on brainpower and creativity.
Building prosperity in a knowledge economy requires us to think of economic development in a different way. Commercial and industrial real estate continues to play an important part in the economic development equation. Yet, real estate development, standing alone, does not capture the full range of investments that a community or region must make to be competitive.
In a knowledge-based economy, collaboration around business clusters plays the central role in building prosperity. In healthy regions, competitiveness and innovation are concentrated in clusters, or interrelated industries, in which the region specializes. The nation’s ability to produce high-value products and services that support high wage jobs depends on the creation and strengthening of these regional hubs of competitiveness and innovation.
Buncombe County has come to realize that for our economy to fully develop, we must carefully strategize an economic future that can create an even higher standard of living by fostering innovation and rising productivity. To do this, we must successfully manage a transition in our thinking about economic development – how do we sustain and grow, to the extent possible, the base for our traditional economy of tourism, manufacturing and service enterprises, while designing and building knowledge-based clusters in technology, rejuvenation and creativity that support the addition of high wage jobs and business creation?
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