NY, Houston and Atlanta Lead in Annual Job Growth

[Davis Street]

Houston is truly a powerhouse.

It will rise up the rankings, and may one day challenge the DC, Bay Area and Chicago economies (the current #3 through #5 largest economies).

Could Houston, 15-20 years from now, be the third largest economy in the U.S.? It's possible.

[S.D. Calif]

Originally Posted by Davis Street

Houston is truly a powerhouse.

It will rise up the rankings, and may one day challenge the DC, Bay Area and Chicago economies (the current #3 through #5 largest economies).

Could Houston, 15-20 years from now, be the third largest economy in the U.S.? It's possible.

No doubt. It's growth will place it on the table with the big three in probably 5-10 years. 15-20 years from now it should be a Chicago rival.

Or maybe not.. Who knows.

[Galounger]

Since the 90's the State of Georgia has closed the doors on and knocked down the Ford Taurus plant in Hapeville (one of the most efficient plants in the nation) and the Doraville GM plant and replaced them with a smaller Kia plant in La grange. It is on the Alabama border and most of it's suppliers are out of state in Alabama unlike the two assembly plants we lost.

During this same time period Tennessee gained a new Nissan assembly plant and saw a huge expansion at an existing Nissan plant and the creation of the huge Saturn plant which shut down in 09 but is reopening for production this year and the recent addition of a state of the art Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.

Alabama gained a Mecedes Benz assembly plant, Hyundai assembly plant, And a Honda assembly plant.

Mississippi gained a Nissan assembly plant and is currently building a new Toyota assembly plants.

South Carolina gained a huge BMW plant (the only one in North America).

How in the world is it that Georgia who's strong point was production of transportation equipment allowed all this to slip by it to neighboring states that IMHO had less infrastructure, a less skilled workforce, less impressive higher education facilities not as good a ports, etc?

Yes, I know they dangled huge incentives in front of these companies and Georgia was reluctant to spend money doing this, (Until it was too late. They enticed Daimler to build a huge assembly plant near Savannah using the same kind of incentives but then the economy fell apart and Daimler bailed out because of resulting low minivan sales.), but are those incentives worth it?

Consider this. The BMW plant in Greer South Carolina alone employs over 4600 people with auto suppliers attracted to the state because of this employing another 12,000. These are mostly good paying jobs including thousands of engineering, technical and management jobs. Imagine how great something like that would be to the Atlanta area economy at a time like now.

Too many Americans have just written off manufacturing because of images of the rust belt in their head and increased foreign competition but way too much is at stake for us to not fight for success in this sector.

A former Japanese head of Toyota once went so far as to say that mono-zukuri (can be translated as a love of creation, of making products, including a sense of craftsmanship) is what makes human beings different than other animals and no civilization or society can survive without it. America (and I'm afraid Atlanta more than most cities) has been trying to survive without mono-zukuri more and more since the 80's and I think the disastrous state of our economy is a big result.