Alabama Economic Development

[kayman]

Trade magazine: Alabama tops among states its size in job-creating investment

It's a great accomplishment, but Alabama has more like 4.5 million people living here. They said it's #1 for states with less than 3 million residents.

[AlabamaGuy2007]

What the crap?? Haha, someone musta been drunk when they wrote that.

[DruidCity]

Per Capita Income of state metro areas

http://bea.gov/bea/newsrel/MPINewsRelease.htm

Metro , Total personal income in millions (2005) , % increase from 2004 to 2005 , per capita income

Anniston 3,120 5.8 27,820

Auburn 3,008 5.6 24,406

Birmingham 38,006 6.3 34,864

Decatur 4,300 4.1 28,984

Dothan 3,859 5.1 28,255

Florence 3,686 5.1 25,894

Gadsden 2,739 4.7 26,548

Huntsville 12,210 6.4 33,119

Mobile 10,127 6.2 25,227

Montgomery 11,104 5.5 31,083

Tuscaloosa 5,790 7.6 29,408

Probably the biggest surprise to me is that Mobile's per capita income is so much

lower than the other "Big Four." Some of that is because Baldwin County isn't included

in the figure, but even so, I would never have guessed they'd be lower than

Anniston, Gadsden, etc.

The other "surprise" is how well Birmingham fared. To hear some tell it, one would think

that Birmingham is dying on the vine, yet these numbers are strong.

Greater total metro income than Huntsville, Mobile, and Montgomery combined ? Wow !

[AlabamaGuy2007]

http://bea.gov/bea/newsrel/MPINewsRelease.htm

Metro , Total personal income in millions (2005) , % increase from 2004 to 2005 , per capita income

Anniston 3,120 5.8 27,820

Auburn 3,008 5.6 24,406

Birmingham 38,006 6.3 34,864

Decatur 4,300 4.1 28,984

Dothan 3,859 5.1 28,255

Florence 3,686 5.1 25,894

Gadsden 2,739 4.7 26,548

Huntsville 12,210 6.4 33,119

Mobile 10,127 6.2 25,227

Montgomery 11,104 5.5 31,083

Tuscaloosa 5,790 7.6 29,408

Probably the biggest surprise to me is that Mobile's per capita income is so much

lower than the other "Big Four." Some of that is because Baldwin County isn't included

in the figure, but even so, I would never have guessed they'd be lower than

Anniston, Gadsden, etc.

The other "surprise" is how well Birmingham fared. To hear some tell it, one would think

that Birmingham is dying on the vine, yet these numbers are strong.

Greater total metro income than Huntsville, Mobile, and Montgomery combined ? Wow !

Well, the only thing that is dying in Birmingham is the population. Business is booming if I'm not mistaken.

[elb401]

yeah aren't some of B-ham's richer sub-burbs in jeff county. All of Mobile's richer subburbs are on the eastern shore (but now they are starting to develope south of the city along the bay, dog river, and fowl river). Mobile has prichard, bayou la batre, Grand Bay, and Citronelle pulling it down. Its cool though as long as it has increased.

[AlabamaGuy2007]

yeah aren't some of B-ham's richer sub-burbs in jeff county. All of Mobile's richer subburbs are on the eastern shore (but now they are starting to develope south of the city along the bay, dog river, and fowl river). Mobile has prichard, bayou la batre, Grand Bay, and Citronelle pulling it down. Its cool though as long as it has increased.

It doesn't surprise me either that the ranks of these pretty much go along with the population size of each metrol

[elb401]

I didnt know we had so many metros. Did any of them decrease?

[AlabamaGuy2007]

I didnt know we had so many metros. Did any of them decrease?

Wow, I can't really tell. Haha, I'm not sure which is the increase or the actual, or what.

[AlabamaGuy2007]

I found this article in the Birmingham News today.

Apparently Alabama's pay is rising faster than the National Average. Birmingham Area's is rising faster. Looks like Alabama IS on it's way to a better life.

Alabama's pay rising faster than Nat. Average

[convulso]

riley's push for special session - industry recruiting, he sounds urgent...

gov. bob riley spoke in huntsville recently concerning his desire for a special legislative session to convene on feb. 26. he spoke pretty urgently about the time-sensitive nature of expediting the recruiting process to land two industries this year, with possibly eight more prospects to follow. one of the near-term prospects is reported to be in the muscle shoals area; the other in cullman.

of course riley has to talk up his agenda; his comments in this instance were addressed to the AL cattlemen's association luncheon at huntsville's VBCC. perhaps a strange venue, but of course he knew the press would be there:

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/ind....xml&coll=1

looking beyond the politics-speak (a necessity if he wants to push this and get public support; a statewide vote would have to follow the special session so that the constitution can be amended), does anyone have any informed speculation about what industries these might be?

[DruidCity]

Thanks so much for posting this article. Stuff like this is why I read the forum.

"We're dealing with 10 international companies and talking about 10,000-11,000 jobs coming to the state. We may not win them all, but we've got a chance to.

[kayman]

I vaguely know that one of these proposed industries is that German investor to build a facility in Northern Mobile County.

I'm all for bringing more industry, but a special session to propose an amendment? IMO, there are more imperative needs that needs to be tackled in a special session and to be put up for referendum. In addition, we should be attempting to bring more teritarian industries (education-based, technology-oriented) into this state than more peripherial industries that have very unstable economic futures.

[kayman]

Mobile and Montgomery wage grows faster than national rate

Congratulations to both Mobile and Montgomery counties for having respective growth rates of 7.7 and 7.9 percentage! Both counties are ranked in the nation's top 10 percent for wage growth of all the counties in the country! Much of Mobile's economic growth can be contributed to the completion of the expansions of Austal Ship Building and Mobile Aerospace Engineering. There could be much more with the possibility of the German steel company selecting Northern Mobile County as location of its American facility. Montgomery County has seen much of its expansion from Hyundai manufacturing facility in the southern portion of its county.

[convulso]

ThyssenKrupp has set up a web site to provide info about this potential Mobile County project:

www.thyssenkruppnewusplant.com

[Southron]

Interesting, Montgomery and Mobile are on the move. The recently announced Hyundai plant expansion and the Thyssen-

Krupp steel plant (if Mobile gets it) could help push this trend into the future.

[Southron]

The special session was a success. When do we know whether or not Mobile County gets the plant?

www.thyssenkruppnewusplant.com

[kayman]

Alabama losing ground in New Economy Index study

The recent study conducted by the New Economy Index has shown that we have fallen 3 places in the ovrall ranking of our state when it comes to innovation, knowledge-based careers, and entrepreneurship. It has also shown that we are spending way too much time investing in also irrelevent areas such as manufacturing plants via tax incentives.

This is something I have been saying for the longest. This article even said yeah it is good to attempt to bring in new jobs via these places like the steel plant being recruited to Mobile County, but we need to focus on fixing our education system. This will create an environment that will produce more entrepreneurs and help our current homegrown business grow.

Our saving graces are Birmingham and Huntsville with their biotechnology and high technology bases with the number of researchers and scientists that move here.

Look at DC as an example, 1/3 of its population is functionally illiterate and it cost the region's economy vast amounts of money in productivity training it workforce basic things that should have been taught in school. It seems the more we continue our trend of chasing after manufacturing plants instead of investing our education, we are going to wind up just like them.

[Southron]

As Leonard said, we've got to improve our education system so that our workers will qualify for better jobs.

We need to do a better job of fostering entrepreneurship and generating new jobs from home-grown businesses, rather than just chasing after big manufacturing plants.

New high-paying manufacturing jobs are nice to have, but may not be around over the long term. Our auto plants could easily move to Mexico or China down the road.

[The Dude]

As Leonard said, we've got to improve our education system so that our workers will qualify for better jobs.

We need to do a better job of fostering entrepreneurship and generating new jobs from home-grown businesses, rather than just chasing after big manufacturing plants.

New high-paying manufacturing jobs are nice to have, but may not be around over the long term. Our auto plants could easily move to Mexico or China down the road.

[krazeeboi]

There were also some bright spots in the report for Alabama when you look at the individual categories. Celebrate your successes as well.

[rnc]

I've had the very same concerns you've had with these auto plants coming to Alabama. We subsidize the infrastructure and many times the land costs as well. But how long can we count on having these jobs? What happens to our beloved cities after they leave? Are we looking at becoming a potential Michigan (auto exodus from Detroit) or Pennsylvania (steel and mining industry collapse)?

[convulso]

in most cases, you're talking about a phenomenally long life cycle for the major plants. barring a catastrophe that hits a particular manufacturing sector, longevity in the community is not as much a concern as is the need, in all cases, for a diversified economy at both the local and state levels.

[Blazer85]

8 Alabama Companies make Fortune 1000 list of 2007

BIRMINGHAM

- Regions (#312)

- Saks (#570) [in the process of relocating to New York]

- Vulcan Materials (#595)

- HealthSouth (#637)

- Compass Bancshares (#686)

- Protective Life (700)

DOTHAN

- Movie Gallery (#734)

MONTGOMERY

- Colonial Bancgroup (#966)

[someguyfrombham]

Definitely been some cherry-picking over the last several years to the point where relatively few actually remain from once was a strong point...particularly for Birmingham with now just 1 Fortune 500 company remaining. Saks will soon be gone too. Hopefully we won't lose any of the others and they'll continue to grow. Also would be nice to gain another few large corporations, though I'm not sure how likely that would be.

[Blazer85]

Scratch one off because Compass is merging into some large Spanish bank, even though there's not supposed to be any job losses here in the near future.