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Without the MICC - you know all those military bases and support companies that keeps the state and country moving forward - good paying jobs that would be gone. Our state will be like it was during the civil war.
Without the MICC - you know all those military bases and support companies that keeps the state and country moving forward - good paying jobs that would be gone. Our state will be like it was during the civil war.
I apologize for misspelling in the title. Yes, I was asking about state rankings - economy, healthcare, crime, etc. and how GA would look without Atlanta, Athens and probably also Savannah (I wasn’t sure whether to include Savannah initially).
I appreciate the responses and for keeping this from getting ugly. Again, the conversation was about whether this country could split rural versus urban, my argument being they both need each other, and that that wouldn’t benefit anyone in the long run. I was hoping to find some stats to back that up, basically proving that economically, urban areas benefit rural areas, but from other metrics, the reverse may also be true (rural areas sometimes have less crime, better home pricing, etc.).
I apologize for misspelling in the title. Yes, I was asking about state rankings - economy, healthcare, crime, etc. and how GA would look without Atlanta, Athens and probably also Savannah (I wasn’t sure whether to include Savannah initially).
I appreciate the responses and for keeping this from getting ugly. Again, the conversation was about whether this country could split rural versus urban, my argument being they both need each other, and that that wouldn’t benefit anyone in the long run. I was hoping to find some stats to back that up, basically proving that economically, urban areas benefit rural areas, but from other metrics, the reverse may also be true (rural areas sometimes have less crime, better home pricing, etc.).
In one of the first posts on this thread, markjames68 posted some links to some statistics that illustrate just how much activity the roughly 29-county Atlanta metropolitan statistical area generates for the Georgia state economy.
As of 2018, it looked like the 29-county Atlanta metropolitan statistical area (which had a value/gross domestic product of about $397.26 billion in 2018) made up about just under 66% of the Georgia state economy (which had a value/gross domestic product of about $602 billion in 2018).
With metro Atlanta generating about 66% (or just under two-thirds) of all economic activity in the state of Georgia, not to mention all of the economic activity that other metro areas (like Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, Rome, Dalton, Gainesville, Athens, Albany, Valdosta, etc.) generate for the state's economy, it is pretty obvious that urban areas benefit rural areas.
On the other hand, rural areas also greatly benefit urban areas, especially when it comes to agriculture.
Much (if not most) of the produce and meat that is sold in grocery stores and to restaurants in metro Atlanta and Georgia's urban areas comes from farms in Georgia's rural areas.
The very significant importance of a rural-based industry like agriculture to metro Atlanta and Georgia's urban areas was demonstrated during Georgia state government's crackdown on illegal immigration in 2011 when many grocery stores in the state's urban areas (including in metro Atlanta) both ran short on produce and were forced to raise their prices on produce because of an acute shortage of migrant agricultural workers (many of whom are undocumented) who were scared away from working on produce farms in rural South Georgia.
Much of the produce and meat that the state's urbanites purchase in grocery stores and much of the food that the state's urbanites eat in restaurants is made from produce and meat that comes from farms in the state's rural areas.
That fact that the state's rural areas supplies a significant amount of the food supply to the state's urban areas appears to make the existence of the state's rural areas be of very significant importance to the state's urban areas.
Other posters also mentioned the very significant importance of forestry to Georgia's economy.
Along with the state of Georgia being a top producer and exporter of wood-based products as other posters mentioned, the state's urban areas benefit greatly just from the mere presence of so much forest land being located so close nearby in rural areas.
Along with the presence of so much forest land in the Piedmont and Coastal Plains regions of the state, a large major metropolitan area/region like Atlanta has benefitted immeasurably from being in very close proximity to the forested nature preserves and parklands of the foothills and mountain ranges of the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachians north of the city.
The recreation and natural beauty of the foothills and mountain ranges of the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachians has been one of the biggest contributors of growth to the Atlanta metropolitan area and region (particularly on the north side of metro Atlanta) because of the very strong appeal of the natural beauty and recreation options that are available in that area.
The importance of rural-based industries like agriculture and forestry to Georgia's urban areas and the importance the amount of economic activity (and revenue and government funding) that urban areas generate for Georgia's economy as a whole demonstrate that both the state's urban areas and rural areas are very strongly dependent upon each other to survive and pretty much probably cannot exist without each other.
A Georgia without metro Atlanta would probably be similar to an Alabama, South Carolina or Mississippi
Quote:
Originally Posted by AnsleyPark
It would be far below those three states.
A Georgia without Metro Atlanta would still be FAR superior in every ranking to Mississippi, and no worse than what is currently Alabama and South Carolina. The flaw in this hypothesis, of course, is that Georgia DOES have Metro Atlanta, while Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina have nothing even close in comparison. And there's no way to even consider the economic vacuum that removing Metro Atlanta would have not just on Georgia, but the rest of the Southeast. For example, if there were no Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where would all those flights be going in 2020? Another airport in Georgia? Airports in surrounding states? There's simply no way to even speculate on such a thing. Which is why arguing what Georgai would be without Atlanta is such a pointless exercise.
Instead of trying to disparage Georgia by imagining it without the metropolis of Atlanta at its center, why not ponder what Alabama might be like today if history had taken a different course and Birmingham or even Mobile were much larger and more powerful economic centers? Or what South Carolina would be like today without the huge influence of Charlotte and its southern suburbs that spill over into the Palmetto State? Or what, if anything, might have changed the course of history for Mississippi? Ironically, the most affluent and popular suburbs of Memphis are in DeSoto County, Miss., just south of the border. DeSoto County also happens to be the fastest-growing and most affluent county in Mississippi. Just like Charlotte is to Upstate South Carolina, Memphis is to Northern Mississippi. Yet people seldom ask how much worse these states would be without Memphis or Charlotte. It's always "How horrible would Georgia be without Metro Atlanta."
No kidding. Some folks see trees and think rural undeveloped country folk. In 2017, the timber industry generated over $35 billion in Georgia, which is consistently ranked as the country's #1 timber producing state. Not too shabby for a bunch of trees, huh?
Georgia has more area covered in forests today than it did during the Civil War. Back then, pretty much any piece of land in the Piedmont or Coastal Plain that was flat enough to be farmed was leveled of trees to grow crops -- primarily cotton. Today, you can drive down a South Georgia highway for miles and miles as perfectly straight rows of pine trees zip past at 60 mph ... growing to the right height and width for harvesting.
How anybody who lives in Georgia doesn't know it's the No. 1 timber producing state in the country is just .... well ... sad.
In case it wasn't completely obvious, I was being intentionally hyperbolic with my comment that we somehow don't need rural Georgia. But here is why I said it. In practice it's often treated the other way around, that Atlanta is at best a golden goose from which to keep harvesting eggs. Truth is, rural Georgia relies on public services such as roads, parks, and schools that are funded in part by taxpayer dollars. Guess where the lion's share of Georgia taxpayer revenues come from?
But that's not the way it works, in Georgia or anywhere else. Tax dollars collected by the state from rural and urban communities alike are not then redistributed back to those communities on a dollar-per-dollar basis. It all goes into the general fund of the state budget and then allocated for various agencies -- like education. It's been an ongoing practice for decades now that rural school districts get more per-pupil spending from the state than urban districts, because rural areas have much poorer economies and property values, and thus much smaller tax bases from which to supplement local school operations. And everybody understands that it has to be this way, because there is no other alternative really. On the flip side, while GDOT has done a pretty good job in recent years of making sure Georgia's 2nd tier cities get the freeway improvements they need, and even the most rural areas are served by wide modern highways, that is nothing to compare to the BILLIONS AND BILLIONS in state dollars being allocated at the ongoing freeway projects in Metro Atlanta (like the top-end Perimeter / Ga 400 toll lanes).
In an ideal world, it should all even out in the end. And yet, vast areas of rural Georgia still have no access to adequate health care or high-speed internet -- things people in Metro Atlanta take for granted. Before people in Metro Atlanta look down on their brothers and sisters in rural Georgia, they should check the reasons for why so many of their fellow citizens are living no better than folks in Mississippi.
Instead of trying to disparage Georgia by imagining it without the metropolis of Atlanta at its center, why not ponder what Alabama might be like today if history had taken a different course and Birmingham or even Mobile were much larger and more powerful economic centers? Or what South Carolina would be like today without the huge influence of Charlotte and its southern suburbs that spill over into the Palmetto State? Or what, if anything, might have changed the course of history for Mississippi? Ironically, the most affluent and popular suburbs of Memphis are in DeSoto County, Miss., just south of the border. DeSoto County also happens to be the fastest-growing and most affluent county in Mississippi. Just like Charlotte is to Upstate South Carolina, Memphis is to Northern Mississippi. Yet people seldom ask how much worse these states would be without Memphis or Charlotte. It's always "How horrible would Georgia be without Metro Atlanta."
Well firstly, this wouldn't be the right subforum to ask those questions since this is the Georgia subforum. And secondly, Charlotte and Memphis aren't ten times larger than the largest city in their own or neighboring states and each has another metro area in its own state that is similar in size and growth rate (the Triangle) or even larger and faster-growing (Nashville). Also consider that both Memphis and Charlotte share essential characteristics with other metros in MS and SC respectively; that is, both Memphis and the MS cities are essentially stagnant and attract little in the way of new residents and businesses whereas Charlotte and the larger SC cities are all experiencing healthy/rapid population and economic growth. All of this seems to demonstrate that neither Memphis or Charlotte act as hindrances to growth in southern neighboring states; they don't suck up all of the oxygen in the room.
A Georgia without Metro Atlanta would still be FAR superior in every ranking to Mississippi, and no worse than what is currently Alabama and South Carolina. The flaw in this hypothesis, of course, is that Georgia DOES have Metro Atlanta, while Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina have nothing even close in comparison. And there's no way to even consider the economic vacuum that removing Metro Atlanta would have not just on Georgia, but the rest of the Southeast. For example, if there were no Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where would all those flights be going in 2020? Another airport in Georgia? Airports in surrounding states? There's simply no way to even speculate on such a thing. Which is why arguing what Georgai would be without Atlanta is such a pointless exercise.
Instead of trying to disparage Georgia by imagining it without the metropolis of Atlanta at its center, why not ponder what Alabama might be like today if history had taken a different course and Birmingham or even Mobile were much larger and more powerful economic centers? Or what South Carolina would be like today without the huge influence of Charlotte and its southern suburbs that spill over into the Palmetto State? Or what, if anything, might have changed the course of history for Mississippi? Ironically, the most affluent and popular suburbs of Memphis are in DeSoto County, Miss., just south of the border. DeSoto County also happens to be the fastest-growing and most affluent county in Mississippi. Just like Charlotte is to Upstate South Carolina, Memphis is to Northern Mississippi. Yet people seldom ask how much worse these states would be without Memphis or Charlotte. It's always "How horrible would Georgia be without Metro Atlanta."
There are a few things I disagree with amicably in this post. First off, Charlotte doesn't come close to fueling South Carolina's economy more than the "big 3” of South Carolina does, and it doesn't fuel the upstate of South Carolina as you think. Greenville is the center of that economy. Charlotte doesn't carry South Carolina. Greenville, Columbia, Charleston do. They all have pretty stout economys. Each bigger than what is gained from Charlotte.
The South Carolina metros are also larger and growing faster than Georgia's 2nd tier cities. And South Carolina is definitely not Alabama or Mississippi. It's heavily transplanted and growing faster. They feel different. Look at South Carolinas growth rate and economy compared to those 2 states. Not like South Carolina which has a more evenly spread out and bigger economy.
How would Georgia look without Atlanta? Who really knows? I would think it would spread around the state. Why did Atlanta get so much bigger in the first place? What did they do differently? Probably the mindset of it's leaders was different from the rest of the state.
Athens is Conyers with a University. Its not an Economic driver for anything in this State.
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