Montgomery County and Maryland continue to find mis-fortune in the world of business, as Virginia - and Northern Virginia in particular - have completely wiped the floor with both in Fortune magazine's 2024 Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 lists. The magazine published the latter list this past Friday. For 2024, seven Virginia-based companies rank in the Global 500; Maryland has only one: Lockheed Martin.
This past May's Fortune 500 list, which is limited to American companies, was equally bad for MoCo and the Old Line State. Virginia has 24 Fortune 500 firms, more than half headquartered in Northern Virginia. Maryland has just four. Montgomery County remains down to only two, after Discovery fled to Knoxville and New York City in 2019.
Perhaps the most humiliating aspect of Discovery's exit was that the Montgomery County Council was not engaged with the company's leaders at all, and was laser-focused on outlawing the use of animals in circuses during the very days that New York and Tennessee were sealing their deal with Discovery.
Montgomery County not only has failed to retain, much less grow, its stable of Fortune 500 companies in recent years, but hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in over a quarter-century. "We don't need the Lockheed headquarters," former County Councilmember Nancy Floreen infamously declared in 2010. The Council's wish could come true: Lockheed recently announced it is shrinking - not growing - its footprint in Montgomery County, selling off its Rockville campus.
Lockheed seems intimately aware that MoCo's elected officials are putting all their effort into helping their developer sugar daddies continue to transform the County into a bedroom community, rather than attracting and keeping high-wage jobs and corporate headquarters like theirs. The aerospace firm is marketing its Rockville campus as a site for townhomes, not corporate offices or research facilities. If that pitch isn't "peak 2024 Montgomery County," I don't know what is. Of course, even former County Executive Ike Leggett sounded the alarm that we were becoming a bedroom community before he left office, an incredible moment of political bravery and candor that surely did not sit well with the Montgomery County cartel.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin hasn't released a statement yet regarding the Fortune Global 500. But he did issue a press release to announce $126 million in State grants to fund preparation of business-ready sites across the Commonwealth. It's important to remember that the paradigm of Virginia crushing Montgomery County and Maryland in economic development predates Youngkin and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. The issue isn't necessarily partisan, either. While Montgomery County's Republican residents have been denied any representation on the County Council through clever gerrymandering of Council districts since 2002, Virginia's booming business growth and 21st-century corporate HQ haul have come under one GOP and two Democratic governors. And several of America's top states for business have Democratic governors.
In contrast, Montgomery County and Maryland continue to self-sabotage their own "fortunes" in economic development. We have to be honest that this sabotage has been fully intentional. A new Potomac River crossing could have long ago given us direct access to Dulles International Airport, the only airport in the region with the flight frequency and global destinations demanded by CEOs and top executives. We've never completed our master plan highway system, when so many large companies are rightly focused on logistics, and seek states that invest in infrastructure like Virginia has. "Business-ready sites? What's that?" Most of our County elected officials have been tasked by their developer sugar daddies to convert as many existing or planned office and retail properties to luxury housing as possible. And they are delivering, as a quick drive around the Montgomery Mall, Wheaton, Germantown, Tower Oaks, or King Farm areas in recent years will reveal.
As a result, our County economy has been moribund since shortly after the MoCo cartel seized a majority of seats on the Council in 2002. The destruction of our business sector that began in December of that year has only accelerated over time. They're laughing at us in Arlington, Fairfax, Herndon, Manassas, and Richmond. But as more and more of the region's highest regressive tax burden shifts onto the shoulders of Montgomery County residents, the only smiles here are on the faces of the MoCo cartel, and the elected officials they totally control.
11 comments:
Hate to say it, but there's no fixing our situation with our constituency. Be glad you're probably 'older.'
“ the MoCo cartel seized a majority of seats on the Council in 2002.”
What a bizarre notion.
Montgomery County has half a million jobs, a 2% unemployment rate, and an average HHI of $125k. NoVa has also become economically successful as it has turned from red to purple to blue. Good for us and good for them. High fives all around.
9:10: It was called the "End Gridlock" slate. Look it up.
12:29: Wrong. Unemployment rate does not reflect the health of a juridiction's economy. Most of the jobs MoCo residents are employed at, and which provide that household income, are located in Northern Virginia or D.C.
Northern Virginia's economic success predates the shift from red to blue by many decades.
And plenty of people commute from VA to MD for work and plenty commute to and from DC. I've held jobs in all three. Who cares? Wasting your life trying to pit them against each other is sad.
And for the record, NoVa and DC are significantly MORE progressive than NIMBY MoCo, if you're trying to analyze political leanings and why DC/NoVa are growing at a faster clip than MoCo.
2:00: What's sad is that our failure to attract more high-wage jobs and real economic growth is forcing Montgomery County residents to pay higher and higher taxes. Montgomery County is far more progressive ideologically than Northern Virginia or DC, which have only started trying to catch up to us in recent years. That appears to have zero impact when companies like Intelsat or Hilton decide where to locate their HQs.
So what you're saying is that Montgomery County has been too successful and is now in a cyclical holding pattern while formerly laid-back Virginia is finally getting a clue
7:56: Virginia has always had a clue. Montgomery County was successful up through the 90s, but has lost its way in this century. The timing lines up with the 2002 County Council election.
Robert Dyer @ 1:31 PM:
So why not just say “the slate won…” rather than “the ‘cartel’ ‘seized’?”
There is no “Cartel”, and the candidates won the election.
But there is a cartel.
As far as terminology, I've learned from the best and most-distinguished journalists, like David Maraniss:
"Speaker Newt Gingrich and his troops promised a revolution when they seized power in January 1995."
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