Across a largely rural area spreading 200,000 square miles across 13 states, the technology sector is small and grew only about two-thirds as fast as the region's overall economy between 1989 and 1998, according to a report from the University of North Carolina Office of Economic Development.
Shortages of entrepreneurs, scientists, university education and public and private sector research continue to hamper the region's ability to develop a technology-centered economy, the authors say.
The report was prepared for the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federally funded agency created in 1965 to help the region's development. The ARC boundaries spread beyond Appalachia's hilly core to encompass 406 counties in 13 states ranging from New York to Mississippi.
Appalachian urban areas have a significantly lower number of scientists, engineers and technicians than the United States as a whole, the report found.
The number of federal research grants, which often go to university or government laboratories, is concentrated in just a few areas such as Huntsville, Ala., Blacksburg, Va., Pittsburgh and State College, Pa., and Ithaca, N.Y.
Also, the region's four-year colleges and universities grant proportionately fewer degrees in industrial engineering than do universities nationwide, and its two-year schools grant substantially fewer computer science degrees than does the rest of the nation.
While many state-funded programs are trying to develop the area's high-tech economy, the report says, few are focused on the two areas projected to grow fastest in the next decade: information technology and biotechnology.
The report identifies for the region 100 technology "clusters," or areas with concentrations of high-tech employment and research. Yet more than half of those clusters are in cities such as Atlanta, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., which lie on the region's periphery.
"That means the ARC region's high-tech prospects are heavily dependent on spillover effects from neighboring cities," the report concludes. "Unfortunately, those spillovers are neither certain nor necessarily positive."
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