Why has the "Sunbelt boom" mostly passed Mississippi by? (Jackson: office, station)

[yellowsnow]

Marketing, jobs, and major airports.

I don't live in Mississippi. The title of this thread just caught my eye. I have lived in some of the other boom areas in the South.

Don't know that you really missed out on much. Most of the prosperity goes to people who are already wealthy. The regular people just have to cope with the traffic and congestion. You have to learn to wait in line at the grocery store forever.

The pendulum always swings and whenever you have a boom, you will have a bust. Look at North Dakota today. So many people are moving into an area without the infrastructure to support the population. The weather is gruesome and it's very isolated, as soon as the jobs go away, the people will too.

JMHO, you are better off with slower steady growth that's easy to deal with. And you attract people who want to live in MS. They aren't just sucking it up for a job.

[JacksonPanther]

Originally Posted by yellowsnow

Don't know that you really missed out on much. Most of the prosperity goes to people who are already wealthy. The regular people just have to cope with the traffic and congestion. You have to learn to wait in line at the grocery store forever.

This is short-sighted. Growth provides opportunity and stability for everyone, at all income levels. Everyone might not get rich, but with a growing economy and a growing area, you're not completely dependent on this one job, and if that one job goes away, you have no idea how you're going to feed your family. That is the position that most in the Jackson metro area find themselves. If you get laid off from Nissan, where are you going to go? If you get laid off from Eaton Aerospace, where are you going to go.

Originally Posted by yellowsnow

JMHO, you are better off with slower steady growth that's easy to deal with. And you attract people who want to live in MS. They aren't just sucking it up for a job.

If MS and the Jackson metro area had "slow, steady growth" I might agree with you. I'm not convinced that there's any growth in the Jackson metro area, and the suburbs growth is purely at the expense of Jackson proper, through cannibalizing what little is here.

You choose growth not only to attract outsiders, but also to retain what you have. If your kid is a science or engineering genius, he has to leave MS to attend a top school, and the opportunities for him to work in this state are very slim. So without growth, and without high-paying knowledge worker jobs, MS can't hold onto its own, let alone attract the new.

We saw what having just one Worldcom (RIP) could do to this area. Now imagine a dozen high tech firms spread throughout the are, some downtown, some in the burbs. All different fields so that if some experience a downturn, others are there to pick up the slack, so you don't have to leave the state just because one job went away. Growth provides stability to your population.

[Dd714]

Why is everyone mentioning Jackson? Jackson is a speck. A bump in the rural southern byway of North America. Guys you are comparing a town of a couple hundred thousand to metropolitan areas like Atlanta of FIVE MILLION.
These views of seeing Jackson as the next boom destination "only if..." is unrealistic. New Jersey alone may have 100 towns that exceed the population level of Jackson. Also you have to consider the very close metropolitan areas of neighboring states - Memphis, New Orleans (each of which have problems of their own), and only a few hours drive from the borders - Shreveport, Birmingham, Little Rock, Biloxi, Mobile, Baton Rougue, Nashville. Heck I live in MS and call Memphis, TN my home. The entire northern 3rd of MS feeds off of Memphis, not MS, not Jackson.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by Dd714

Why is everyone mentioning Jackson? Jackson is a speck. A bump in the rural southern byway of North America. Guys you are comparing a town of a couple hundred thousand to metropolitan areas like Atlanta of FIVE MILLION.
These views of seeing Jackson as the next boom destination "only if..." is unrealistic. New Jersey alone may have 100 towns that exceed the population level of Jackson. Also you have to consider the very close metropolitan areas of neighboring states - Memphis, New Orleans (each of which have problems of their own), and only a few hours drive from the borders - Shreveport, Birmingham, Little Rock, Biloxi, Mobile, Baton Rougue, Nashville. Heck I live in MS and call Memphis, TN my home. The entire northern 3rd of MS feeds off of Memphis, not MS, not Jackson.

Right. Jackson is just one place, and for reasons that are beyond anyone's control on this forum has no appeal to business. If it did, they would open up expansions and new ventures there.

Beats me why people act as if they are wearing cement shoes, and think that the jobs should come to them.
Not the way it works.

[p-squared]

I lived in Jacksonville FL for a long time and watched the city grow and change with the "boom", and you can have it. Do you want to live in a state where you can walk for miles on the roofs of subdivision cookie-cutter houses without ever touching the ground? No way! If you think you want to live where you can get Starbucks and Gucci, then move - don't bring it here!

[SonofDixie]

You guys should be thankful your state hasn't experienced rapid change. In fact, you should be very happy, unless you like yankees whining and telling you how backwards everything is down here.

[Chris Balducci]

Originally Posted by SonofDixie

You guys should be thankful your state hasn't experienced rapid change. In fact, you should be very happy, unless you like yankees whining and telling you how backwards everything is down here.

As if they don't already do that?

[JacksonPanther]

Originally Posted by Dd714

Why is everyone mentioning Jackson? Jackson is a speck. A bump in the rural southern byway of North America. Guys you are comparing a town of a couple hundred thousand to metropolitan areas like Atlanta of FIVE MILLION.

You do know that Atlanta didn't start out as a metro of 5M people? Atlanta was a moderately sized city, surrounded by sleepy, low population suburbs. The comparison to Atlanta is because Atlanta was able to remake its image and become a place popular for business. Same with Charlotte. Would you feel better if I compared Jackson to Huntsville, AL, which has also remade itself, but on a smaller scale than Atlanta?

No one looks at you crazily when you say you live in Huntsville. No one questions you as to why you would want to live in Huntsville. That's the way I want Jackson, and MS, to be. A positive destination for people to seriously consider living in, not just to retire to.

[eddie gein]

Interesting thread. IT would seem like most cities growth is driven by corporate relocation. Jackson is the only city in Mississippi that has the size to handle any corporate growth at all and it is way down the pecking order of southern cities.

Atlanta is obviously the hub along with Charlotte and Nashville and the Florida metros.

Then you have Memphis and Birmingham and New Orleans.

Jackson really doesn't have a chance against these places. It was too small to begin with.

Oklahoma City and Tulsa (where I live) saw an exodus of oil companies to the large Texas cities through the years because the CEOs and big executives (mostly second generation) wanted to locate to the place where all the other large companies were at. OKC and Tulsa weren't considered "big time" enough to hold on to the companies that they had spawned. OKC and Tulsa have basically had to try to re invent themselves to get back on track.

Jackson is in the same situation as OKC and Tulsa were in those years.

[SonofDixie]

Originally Posted by Chris Balducci

As if they don't already do that?

Valid point.

However, try being from the coastal Carolina. We have a serious infestation problem. It's to the point that I've had yankees comment on my accent in my hometown. I've traveled to Mississippi a lot - been to Jackson, Tupelo, Oxford, Natchez, and through plenty of other small towns. It's a wonderful place with wonderful people. You guys will want to keep your little slice of heaven for as long as you can. Hopefully your culture will never be threatened. Luckily for y'all, there's not nearly as much invadable coastline.

Disclaimer: I have no issues with slow, steady, controlled growth.