David Noer, a professor emeritus in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, had his monthly column published June 7, 2009, by the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C.
The column, “Market Antithesis,” compares the culture of High Point, N.C., and Las Vegas, two cities that compete in the international home furnishings industry. The twice-a-year furniture market in High Point has lost steam recently in the face of competing markets in Vegas, and Noer, who made a trip to Nevada this spring, shared observations about High Point’s relative strengths.
“It is not that High Point is immune to prostitution, porn, drugs and other activities that operate in the periphery of all large conventions,” Noer writes. “It is just that these activities are not central to the culture as they seem to be in Vegas.”
From another part of the column: “In Vegas you are trapped in a world of fantasy – the fantasy that you can actually win at the casinos, the fantasy that it is OK to pay $25 for a burger and a beer, and the fantasy that all that artificiality someone constitutes a reality that will make you feel better.
“High Point is a small- to medium-sized town in the South. It has no other pretensions. It swells in size during the market, but the purpose is clear: to display and market furniture. It is hard to concentrate on serious business when you are engulfed in an environment of artificiality.”
The full column is not currently available online.