Technology Transforms Dixie

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The digital revolution is transforming many Southern towns, casting aside an image built up over decades of being lazy, backward places. As technology makes it possible to do business from almost anywhere, these communities' historic isolation becomes less of a problem. Austin, Texas, of course is one of the centers of high-tech business in America. But even, small towns such as Thomasville, GA find themselves revolutionized from the inside. 'Once known only for its history - Jacqueline Kennedy retreated here after her husband's assassination - it is now making a name for itself in business,' according to Suzi Parker in the online magazine The Southerner.

The city of Thomasville provides residents with less expensive, more reliable Internet access, which could be part of the reason Flower Industries, a food-processing company chose the city as it's data-processing headquarters.

Parker lists online businesses based out of small towns, citing the Burnsville, N.C. couple who sell Buddhist meditation cushions and the Shirley Community Development Corp., located in Arkansas' Ozark Mountains, which sells log-grown shiitake mushrooms.

'No longer the province of coon dogs and cotton fields, [the rural south] is seen by some entrepreneurs as a land of opportunity.' --Sara BuckwitzGo there>>

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