Top 10 Greatest Accomplishments in the South the Last 10 Years

By Mike Randle

Many people don't realize how fast the South has grown in just 50 years. Right after World War II, the South, Northeast and Midwest all had about the same population. In fact, the 1950 Census showed that the Midwest had a population of 44.6 million, the Northeast 42.3 million and the South had a population of 43.3 million. In 1950 the West was the only region that was not comparable. It had a population of just 19.4 million.

Today, the Midwest and Northeast each have a population of around 55.5 million. In just 52 years, the West has shot past those two regions with 63 million persons. The South's population growth in 50 years, however, is extraordinary. In 2001, the South had a population of 107 million persons, or about the same population of the Midwest and Northeast combined.

While attracting people is not necessarily an accomplishment, it certainly is a strong indication that the Southern region of the U.S. is one of the most attractive places to live and work on the planet.

The following regional economic and social accomplishments over the last 10 years are those that I found to be the most impressive. We did not take a poll on which Southern accomplishments since 1992 -- when this magazine was launched -- were the most important or impressive. These accomplishments are my choices and they are ranked in order of importance from my perspective exclusively.

No. 1 Accomplishment in the South 1993-2002: South Takes Top Spot in Every Gross Regional Product Category

In 1996, the American South topped the Northeast, Midwest and West in every Gross Regional Product category identified by the federal government but one. The South led all regions in the value of production in manufacturing, construction, farms/forestry, transportation, wholesale trade, retail trade and government categories. The only category where the South did not outperform all other U.S. regions was the FIRE sector (finances, insurance, real estate).

But that changed in 2000, when the South produced a FIRE GRP of $250.6 billion, while the Northeast's total was $248 billion that year. What that meant is the South now leads all U.S. regions in every Gross Regional Product category, something I'm sure Franklin Roosevelt couldn't imagine happening when he launched the New Deal and the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s in an effort to "prime the pump of the most impoverished region of this great nation."

2001 Gross Regional Product
(in trillions)

Region      Total

South        $3.27
West         $2.17
Northeast  $2.04
Midwest    $1.82

Source: U.S. Statistical Abstract

No. 2: Job Creation

If you are looking for a job, nowhere else in the country is a better place to look than in the South. The last 10 years have seen the United States create 22,015,000 net new jobs. That's an astounding figure, a 10-year total that can't be challenged in the history of the nation's economy. The South's contribution to the total number of jobs created in this country over the last 10 years is even more astounding. Over the last 10 years, the South has created 10,146,000 net new jobs, or roughly half the total generated in this country since this magazine was founded.

The South was led by Texas, which created a net new job total of 2,349,000 between 1992 and 2001. Florida is the South's second largest generator of jobs over the last 10 years with 1,689,000. Georgia created an even 1,000,000 and North Carolina came in with 829,000 net new jobs since 1992.

Job Creation in Southern States Last 10 Years
(net jobs)

Texas                  2,349,000
Florida                1,689,000
Georgia               1,000,000
North Carolina     829,000
Virginia                611,000
Tennessee            543,000
Missouri               413,000
Kentucky             354,000
Louisiana              341,000
South Carolina      332,000
Alabama               302,000
Oklahoma             289,000
Maryland              278,000
Kansas                 252,000
Arkansas              238,000
Mississippi            220,000
West Virginia        106,000

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

No. 3: Educational Attainment

Educational attainment in the South is not only an accomplishment it's also a challenge for the next 10 years. Yes, over the last 10 years, the South has made significant gains on national averages in educational attainment. In 1992, the U.S. average for high school graduates was at 75.2 percent. That year, the South's average high school graduate rate was nearly five points behind the U.S. average, at 70.6 percent.

Today, the gains the South has made in education attainment are readily apparent. In 2001, the national high school graduation rate was 84.1 percent. Less than two points behind is the South's high school graduation rate: 82.2 percent. The figure represents nearly a three-point gain on the national high school graduation average in 10 years.

Mirroring high school educational attainment in the South vs. the U.S. as a whole is the average of college degrees of four years or more. The current U.S. average is 25.6 percent. The current average in the South of residents with four-year degrees or more is 23.8 percent, or a mere 1.6 percent difference in the U.S. average. Ten years ago, the South was nearly three percentage points behind the national average of residents with four-year degrees with 17.7 percent compared to 20.5.

Education accomplishments? Absolutely. Any gains in education in the South are major accomplishments. And, if I'm owning and publishing this magazine 10 years from now, we'll do this again. I'll bet virtually every educational attainment average found in the South will meet or exceed the U.S. average.

No 4: Reduction in African-American Poverty

My "Southbound" column's subject in this past winter edition centered on poverty rates among the South's black population. I was motivated to find out how African-Americans have performed economically in the South since Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. What motivated me was I heard the speech in its entirety for the first time on CNN the night of Martin Luther King Day.

When I began my research, the first thing I did was to try and find poverty rates for blacks in 1963. To my surprise, no data existed. The federal government didn't begin tracking black poverty until 1966, even though white poverty had been tracked with some accuracy since the 1930s. In 1966, 42 percent of African-Americans in the U.S. were at or below the poverty level. While I could find no "state" data, which would give me a Southern percentage of black poverty, one could easily estimate that black poverty in the South was at least 20 percentage points higher than the national average.

In 1992, when President Clinton was elected and this magazine was launched, poverty levels of blacks in the South remained alarmingly high at about one-in-three. But since 1992, the percentage of African-Americans in poverty in the American South has dropped dramatically. Today, 21 percent of African-American Southerners are at or below the poverty level. That figure is, for the first time in history, lower than the U.S. average and beats other regions of the U.S. Today, African-American poverty in the Northeast (22.5 percent) and Midwest (24.4 percent) is higher than that found in the South. Now that's a major Southern accomplishment over the last 10 years!

Regional African-American Poverty Rates

Midwest     24.4%
Northeast   22.5%
South         21.4%
West          19.6%

Source: U.S. Census

No. 5: Diversity Ends Southern Stereotyping

For most of you reading this, you're in a location outside the South. That being the case, you'll have a tough time understanding my fifth-most important Southern accomplishment over the last 10 years. Actually, it's not an accomplishment, just an effect from the maturation of a market. But if you are a Southerner who has endured the butt of unkind words time and time again from the national media for most of his or her life, you know that the No. 5 accomplishment is one of the most important that has occurred over the last 10 years.

In just the last 10 years, many born-and-raised Southerners, especially those in rural areas, small markets and mid-markets, have grown accustomed to seeing folks from different countries at the most popular restaurant in town speaking a different language other than English. Ten years ago, this was an initial shock to many of those Southerners. Today, it's routine.

In larger markets -- but not the South's largest -- such as Birmingham, Greenville, Jacksonville, Memphis, San Antonio, Louisville and Richmond for example, the languages and accents heard and spoken over the last 10 years have changed from a Southern drawl almost exclusively, to a myriad of dialects from New Yorkers, to Bostonians to those strange sounds that emit from the mouths of folks from USA's Great White North (Minnesewta and WisCahnsin). Throw in Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Spanish influences and the South's most important markets for the next 10 years have now earned their diversity degrees in just the last 10 years. Those second-tier Southern markets were not diverse in terms of more than two colors or languages just 10 years ago.

As for the South's mega-markets -- there are seven over 2 million or more in population: Baltimore/Washington/Northern Virginia, Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, St. Louis, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and South Florida -- they have continued to diversify their population base as they have for the last 20 to 30 years. In the case of Baltimore and St. Louis, their diversity began more than 100 years ago.

Unfortunately, the last 10 years have seen the born-and-raised Southerner leaving the South's mega-markets more than not, making way for wide-eyed, new frontier, non-Southern-born families, who have either been forced by corporate decree to relocate their families to the South from the Northeast or Midwest, or have chosen those markets to live and work when they moved here from another country.

The sudden diversity of the South's population over the last 10 years has created new challenges. But one byproduct of those challenges centers on the fact that the national media doesn't hammer us as they did for ... uh, 137 years. Since the Civil War ended, the national media, once exclusively based in non-Southern locales, pounded the South every chance it could. I know. I've been the South's most astute monitor and flag bearer for 10 years now. It's been my job to battle Southern stereotyping and to defend this region when writers and electronic media folks, many of whom have never stepped foot in the region, hammer us in public. I recall a few years ago a popular sports radio personality who said on her show, "You folks are idiots down there. That's why no one lives down there" (the South). Duh, lady read more.

Let me give you some hard evidence at what I'm writing about. Take a look at the adjoining line art. This came from the New York Times right after Mercedes announced it had chosen Alabama for its first North American assembly plant. Is this a fair depiction of the emerging American South? Puuuuuuuuleeeeeeeeze! Fortunately, no cartoons were drawn when Honda, Nissan and Hyundai announced they were investing billions in Mississippi and Alabama after Mercedes took the plunge.

No. 6: The Formation of the Southern Automotive Corridor

No industry has "primed the pump," as Franklin D. Roosevelt explained in the No. 1 greatest Southern accomplishment, than the automotive industry's incredible job and investment record in the South over the last 10 years. It accounts for hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs in the South. To give you an example of how many jobs have been created by the expanding Southern automotive industry, all you have to do is go back to the late 1970s. In the '70s, Tennessee was home to around 20 automotive suppliers. Today, over 900 automotive suppliers are operating in the Volunteer State.

You know South Carolina's story. BMW chose the Palmetto State for its first North American assembly plant exactly 10 years ago. That facility has expanded several times. Mississippi garnered Nissan two years ago and has announced an expansion of the plant prior to its opening. Kentucky has also been very proficient in attracting automotive facilities, as have virtually every other state in the South.

And then there's Alabama. No state in the American South has seen its auto industry grow and expand like Alabama's has over the last 10 years. Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina currently have more suppliers. But with Mercedes and Honda in the middle of massive expansions and Hyundai just beginning to construct its plant, automotive suppliers will be flocking to Alabama in the next few years

No. 7: Southern State Rural Efforts

When economic development was invented in the South shortly after WWII, its primary mission was to steer industrial deals and create jobs in areas of the region that were the poorest. Undeniably, that was the South's rural areas. As the South's metros began to grow at rapid rates between 1970 and 1990, the original mission of the founding of economic development was largely forgotten.

During the economic heyday of the 1990s, state officials realized there were large regions of the South that were not benefiting from the double-digit growth of the metros. While major metros were sporting unemployment rates of one and two percent, the South's rural regions struggled economically with 10 and 15 percent unemployment rates. Something was wrong and something had to be done.

In the early and mid-1990s, many Southern states restructured their incentives in ways that made it highly profitable for industry to locate in distressed counties and regions. Of course, every one of those areas targeted for much higher incentives were rural areas. The typical rural incentive centered on the company receiving as much as 15 times the standard value of tax credits. Most state tax credits have now been structured on a sliding scale: the most distressed the area, the more incentives the company will receive; the least distressed, such as a metro area, the least amount of incentives will be paid out.

No. 8: Foreign Investment

The South has led all other U.S. regions in foreign direct investment every year since Southern Business & Development was founded in late 1992. Each year over the last 10 years, the total foreign investment gap has widened between the South and the three other U.S. regions. Today, the South is home to 40 percent of the $925 trillion dollars invested by foreign companies in the U.S. (1999 figures are the latest available). In 1992, the foreign investment in the South represented 35 percent of the nation's total.

Why is being the No. 1 region in foreign investment in the No. 1 economy in the world such an accomplishment? Foreign companies can choose any location in the U.S. to invest in. While that's generally the case with domestic companies, many are tied to their locations for a variety of reasons. So, if the majority of foreign companies are opting for one region over another, it is a testament to that region's attractiveness.

One of the primary reasons foreign companies have chosen the South over other regions in the last 10 years is the South's low union participation rate and that fact that 14 states in the South have Right to Work laws on the books. Foreign automakers have especially been attracted to the South over the last 10 years. During that time, BMW, Mercedes, Nissan and Hyundai have chosen the South for their newest assembly plants.

Foreign Direct Investment 1999
(value in trillions of dollars)

Region        Total

South            $362
West             $226
Midwest        $195
Northeast      $160

Source: U.S. Statistical Abstract

No. 9: Growth Management

This accomplishment is strictly a 1990s thing. Growth in the South in the 1970s and 1980s went largely unchecked. Those Southern major markets that grew the fastest during that 20-year period are now paying for it with higher than average vehicular delays, basic infrastructure that's at or beyond capacity, air quality issues, water quality and capacity issues and stressed school systems.

Fortunately, the American South is the third region, not the first or second, to experience phenomenal growth in the nation's history. First was the Northeast, then the Midwest. Much of the West (sans California) is just now dealing with growth the way the South has for 32 years now. States such as Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Idaho are leading the nation in population growth.

Southern markets that did not spike 20 and 30 years ago are now growing in a "smart" fashion. And those that did are growing smarter as well. Virtually every Southern state and county that experienced rapid growth over the last 30 years now has growth management planning on the books. In the late 1990s, those plans included ways to slow sprawl by redeveloping central business districts, limiting the number of housing developments on a per-acre basis and not approving every major highway or interstate interchange request that came down the pike. Smart growth and growth management can also be traced to accomplishment No. 7. By creating jobs in rural counties, you cut down on out-migration commutes into large markets. That helps not only traffic congestion, but air quality, too.

No. 10: Y'all Came and Didn't Leave

The last 10 years have seen millions of people and thousands of companies relocate to the American South. That's part of what economic developers in this region try and accomplish every day. The welcome mat goes out and they hope a company or two will take a walk on it. Once that is accomplished, the people will follow the jobs that are created.

While the 1970s and 1980s are known as the decades that companies relocated to the South in droves, the last 10 years can be best described as when droves of Yankee families discovered all of the South, not just Atlanta, Miami, Tampa Bay, Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston. Yes, we're now hip-deep in Yankees region-wide and I would like for the first time to take this opportunity to thank all of those who made the trek to the South and set up shops and homesteads throughout the region. You have helped this region economically. You have helped this region diversify. You have demanded that education in the South equal or surpass the levels from which you came. You have forced our leaders to think on a much broader basis. And you have helped put many a dollar into even the poorest Southerner's pocket.

My hope is that we have been fine hosts, that we have been professional and that we have impressed you. We welcome you and new industry and I can assure you we will continue that welcome for the next 10 years. Thank you for coming! Thank you for trusting us! And thank you for propelling the American South to "The World's Third-Largest Economy." Now, tell your friends so we can overtake Japan for the No. 2 spot, will you?