A two-track approach to helping Georgia grow

I spent a few days last month visiting struggling rural hospitals to learn how a new state tax credit might help them. While traveling, I also took in the condition of South Georgia more generally. In a word, it’s depressing.

No sooner had I returned home than a friend who grew up down there sent me a ranking of America’s poorest metro areas. It includes five from Georgia. That’s more on the top 25 than from any other state; Texas has four, and there are three apiece from Arkansas, Florida and North Carolina.

As my friend observed, four of Georgia’s five are well south of I-285: Albany, Hinesville, Macon and Valdosta. (The fifth is Athens.) While booming metro Atlanta craves solutions to the problems that come with growth, much of South Georgia would love to have problems coming from too much growth for a change.

Here’s how my friend, a sharp businessman who has worked all around the state in his career, described it:

“South Georgia has been slowly fading for 20-plus years. It needs a new economic driver on the order of Atlanta’s airport or Savannah’s seaport. Those South Georgia cities were built on agriculture, which has become so corporate and tech centered that it just doesn’t employ people, at the farm level, the way it used to, and all of South Georgia was built on that foundation. The leaders down there have failed to reinvent themselves economically . ... Valdosta would be worse if it didn’t rest on government dollars from the Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Transportation and the Department of Health and Human Services. Outside of these areas there isn’t much employment, period, in Valdosta, and what is there doesn’t pay very well . ... I am not sure what the answer could be for those places and I rack my brain for the answer all of the time.”

His point about government dollars applies elsewhere. Hinesville depends heavily on Fort Stewart, as does Macon on Robins Air Force Base. Even Athens, in the faster-growing north of the state, for years has had the University of Georgia and too little else (although the Caterpillar and, a little farther away, Baxter plants should provide a boost).

When I was in Albany last month, the buzz was about a single craft brewery that plans to open. At least it will make something: That counts for a lot when economic development there, as I was told by one observer, too often is more likely to come in the form of a new chain restaurant.

The 2018 state elections will be upon us before we know it. The candidates we need for governor and other offices will understand this state needs to pull two levers at once. One to help metro Atlanta deal with growth, and another to help other areas find some.

The latter won’t be easy. Typical government “solutions” include building conference centers or tourist attractions. Places like Albany have both. They haven’t worked.

We need better approaches. Health care and public education are often poor in these areas. Broadband internet access is also insufficient. Fixing these deficiencies is crucial to attracting business investment. But the private sector must also be part of the solution to these problems, as government-only answers have fallen short time and again.

I’m all ears to those, whether candidates for office or not, who have ideas for closing that gap.