SC Capital Becomes Face Of Recession

Greenville, S.C. has its bustling new city center and Charleston its historic charm, but Columbia’s Main Street has become the sad face of the American recession, at least according to a piece that ran in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times.

It used to be that Columbia was – in the words of one of its longtime residents – “ten years behind Charlotte,” which of course was “ten years behind Atlanta.”

Not anymore, though. North Carolina’s Queen City has practically caught up with the historic Georgia capital, but Columbia has largely fallen by the wayside.

We’ve always sung a funny song to describe Columbia, a little ditty about “the bums-a-boozin’, the Gamecocks-a-losin’,” and of course, “the mayor-a-snoozin’,” but the truth is this sleepy college town with an itching inferiority complex represents America (socio-economically, anyway) perfectly.

From the Times story:

This city in the center of South Carolina is an ideal listening post. According to a range of indicators assembled by Moody’s Economy.com — from job growth to change in household worth — this metropolitan area came closer than any other to being a microcosm of the nation over the last decade.

This is now an unfortunate distinction. Some 533,000 jobs disappeared from the economy in November, the worst month since 1974. In South Carolina, a government panel is predicting that the state’s unemployment rate could reach 14 percent by the middle of next year.

No speculative real estate bubble can explain what is happening in this metropolitan area of roughly 700,000 people. Neither the brick Georgian homes in the city’s core nor the ranch-style houses on the suburban fringes rose or fell much in value. The financial wizards of Wall Street seem far from the palmetto-dotted campus of the University of South Carolina and the domed state capitol downtown.

Yet as the toll continues to mount from an era of financial recklessness — as banks cut credit from households and businesses, reinforcing austerity — the damage has spread here, choking economic activity at places ranging from shopping malls to factories.

Sad, but true. Of course, this problem has been exacerbated by what is perhaps the most inept city government in the nation, which has in turn been exacerbated by what is unquestionably the most inept state government in the nation.

And let’s not forget the federal role in the disaster, either.

Reckless, unsustainable, unaccountable spending and shoddy management of taxpayer funds at all levels of government have starved Columbia’s local economy – crippling economic development, job growth and income growth.

Of course, the solution to all this government-inspired ineptitude appears to be (surprise) more government, specifically millions of dollars from President-elect Barack Obama’s latest federal bailout proposal:

Columbia’s mayor, Bob Coble, is consumed with capturing some of those dollars for his city. He has assembled a list of ready-to-go projects totaling $140 million that he said could generate construction jobs and propel further economic development.

Mr. Coble, a Democrat who has been mayor for 18 years, has in mind the redevelopment of North Main Street, a bedraggled corridor of hard-luck retailers that lacks sidewalks in many spots, with exposed power lines dipping down to cracked pavement. That project is already under way, putting down sidewalks and burying power lines in a $19 million first phase. An additional $54 million could complete it.

Oh, and let’s not forget the state government component to Columbia’s “transformation,” which is built around an attempt by the state’s three research universities to take over economic development in South Carolina:

The mayor has also been focused on expanding the so-called Innovista project, a campus developed by the university centered on research in areas like hydrogen-powered fuel cells and biotechnology. The aim is to cluster research labs, private companies and condominiums.

“This will be a once in a generation opportunity to transform a city with projects that have been on the books,” the mayor said over breakfast at a newly opened downtown Sheraton hotel set in an old bank whose original vault has become a cozy martini bar. “These are not bridges to nowhere.”

No, Mayor Bob. Those would be the Blossom and Gervais Street bridges heading into your increasingly socialist town.