Abstract
This paper explores use of images and ideas of place to promote particular social and economic agendas within the regional context of Appalachia. Despite prevailing imageries of backwardness and isolation that adhere to the region, as well as recent history of often-bleak economic conditions, communities such as Huntington, West Virginia, are ideal places to observe inventive forms of community-building, place-making, and place-marketing that borrow from emerging cultural and economic models and stand in sharp contrast to a once-dominant paradigm that encouraged capital investment by relying simply on tax breaks and the provision of cheap land and labor to attract large, typically industrial employers. This research examines efforts of local activists and others who simultaneously embrace and reject elements of long-standing characterizations of place and people of Appalachia in their attempts to creatively redefine the meaning and purpose of development in West Virginia. Employing a critical regionalism, this article contributes to interdisciplinary literatures of Appalachian studies as well as postindustrial economic restructuring through deepening our understanding of how components of variously competing and sympathetic discourses concerning Appalachia have practical consequences for building community and fostering economic development in the region in what many now call the "new economy."
