Factoid Thursday
February 26, 2009 | 1:13 pmToday’s interesting fact comes straight from an AJC article predicting nothing resembling sunshine for GA’s economy over the next two years.
“Georgia has about 3.9 million jobs, nearly 60 percent in metro Atlanta.”
Hopefully our state legislature can keep this “60%” number in mind when its doling out federal stimulus money. This ain’t time to overdo the favors to other, redder areas the state. You need to keep Atlanta healthy and vibrant, otherwise GA can just go back to being Alabama.
60% in metro Atlanta, which undoubtedly includes very red counties in the northern burbs.
The money should, indeed, be spent where it will serve its purpose to stimulate jobs and our state economy. Would hate to think this should be doled out or not doled out based on “red” or “blue”, but I get your drift that ATL(blue) is where the money is made to support most of the rest of our state. We don’t need any “pet project funding” in some far flung nowhere corner of the state(red) where it will generate NADA, zip zilch, zero.
..go back to being Alabama? I would hope so. Alabama’s economy is in great shape compared to Georgia. Any money spent here will be wasted. Just look at the BILLIONS spent on education in Georgia over the past 10 years and the state still can’t rise above 48th in the SAT rankings. Even progressive, enlightened Decatur managed to blow a ton of money on the whole renovate and then close Westchester fiasco. I love Decatur/Atlanta, and maybe in the 70’s and 80’s other states/cities were envious of Atlanta (not Georgia), but now it is just seen as another over crowded, congested, debt and crime ridden city.
It would be nice if Atlanta got an appropriate share of any stimulus money. But in a similar way to getting screwed on state and federal road dollars, it won’t happen.
In much the same way that mant Atlantans rue the surrounding areas of Georgia (Q: What’s wrong with Atlanta? A: It’s surrounded by Georgia), I sense that the surrounding areas view Atlanta with a Sarah-Palin-type contempt. E.g. We are the real Georgians, Atlantans are out-of-touch elitist.
Lump,
Uhhh….No I would not care to rephrase anything. Your article refers to the financial mess Jefferson County is involved in, not the state of Alabama. Similarly, I’m sure the rest of the state of Georgia would not want to be lumped in any discussion involving the City of Atlanta’s financial woes. My comment was simply based on the unemployment numbers for the states. When I hear some Georgia Blowhard saying “You need to keep Atlanta healthy and vibrant, otherwise GA can just go back to being Alabama.” It reminds me of the pot calling the kettle black.
AP – Alabama’s December unemployment rate of 6.7 percent ties the state with Pennsylvania for the 24th lowest unemployment rate in the nation.
Alabama’s rate is better than all neighboring states. Tennessee measures 7.9 percent, Mississippi 8 percent, and Florida and Georgia 8.1 percent.
Yeah, but watch out ! Georgia, always parochial, will make sure it gets “evenly” distributed. One example is the current formula for spending road $$. The law says it is to be equally distributed among the 13 Congressional districts, regardless of need. If you were in Bainbridge, you certainly wouldn’t want Atlanta to get a bigger piece than you.
Great! Perhaps they could help convince the state to throw a little extra money to the densest area of the state!
..go back to being Alabama? I would hope so. Alabama’s economy is in great shape compared to Georgia.
Uhhh…Care to rephrase that?
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/13/news/economy/Birmingham_brink_Whitford.fortune/index.htm
TBob: Point taken, and I agree that it is unfair to use Alabama as the de facto backwater (even though Alabamians seem to have no problem doing it to Mississippians), but I think we can both agree that things are rough no matter what state you live in right now.