Accelerating Improvements: Congestion along the Georgia 400 corridor, which links Atlanta to its northern suburbs, has long been a headache for commuters. But gridlock there has also been a hindrance to growth, especially that of the more than 4,000 businesses…
INNOVATION AND TRANSFERABILITY Thanks to constitutional mandates, revenue constraints and public demand, Georgia’s 159 county governments have been forced into an era of innovation and cooperation that is taking them far afield of their political boundaries in the delivery of…
Back in 2006, Bob Randall was talking with a few faculty members from Georgia Southern University’s (GSU) physics department when he got the idea they might be able to help fine-tune a manufacturing process at Viracon, a Statesboro glass fabrication…
ASTA To Burke: Georgia’s international corporate community continues to grow. As 2007 was winding down, there came the announcement that the Malaysian manufacturer ASTA Inc. would locate its first U.S. plant in Burke County near Waynesboro. ASTA produces a number…
For decades the only retirees found on or near Georgia’s college and university campuses were rumpled professors shuffling into the library or graying, but still diehard, alumni and sports fans. Today there’s a new – and in some ways energizing…
Bonita Williams has spent the last half of her 65 years painfully watching Dublin’s Southside neighborhood, where she grew up, slowly lose the businesses, shops and homes so prominent in her memories of childhood. “When I was growing up in…
Georgia’s Got Game: Since 2005, an emerging sector of the Georgia economy has tiptoed its way to importance, barely getting a glance from trend watchers. “It’s very, very low under the radar,” says Georgia Department of Economic Development Deputy Commissioner…
Georgia Commissioner of Labor Michael Thurmond, sitting in the conference room of his Atlanta office discussing the job market for 2008, zeroes in on a key development. “The first baby boomer [has] qualified for Social Security,” he says. Thurmond is…
The rest of Georgia may be struggling through an epic, headline-making drought, but visionary planning and engineering some 25 years ago has produced an enviable oasis in one northeast Georgia community. Elberton, a town of 4,700, is awash in water…
The coast with the most: After decades of spotty growth, the southern third of Georgia is alive with planned projects that forecast an Atlanta-like economic boom. Out-of-state developers, it seems, are finding proximities to Florida, especially those along an interstate,…
The joyous holiday season also is the harbinger of another, darker period – tax time. As Georgians were beginning to put their 2007 tax records into good order, Georgia Trend was talking to tax experts for tips on reducing the…
The citizens of Ware County certainly don’t need a poet to remind them April is the cruelest month. This past April, locals saw the eruption of wildfires that quickly spread through drought-dried timberland, threatening 1,800 buildings. The fires destroyed and…
Back In The Saddle: When Mike Vollmer retired from 30 years of public service to his state, he envisioned a future that would unfold at a leisurely pace. But he barely had time to get to a recliner and a…
Not long ago, the board of directors for a large Georgia corporation was hammering out what it thought was a fair solution to a touchy pollution problem the company was facing. One of its executives who had completed a yearlong…
For generations, Camden County was characterized by polar opposites – a gritty paper mill with hardworking employees in St. Marys and the Eden-like Cumberland Island, which a century ago served as a playground for the wealthy. Today Cumberland Island is…
Heroes seem to enter our lives at critical moments, often – but not always – in dramatic fashion. Here are the stories of five Georgia healthcare professionals who find rewards by serving their patients on a daily basis and, on…
Looking north from the window of the fourth-floor conference room at his office on Hutchinson Island in the Savannah harbor, Lynn Pitts can see South Carolina, where his counterparts are massed for an invasion into Georgia. “I am well aware…
Thinking Big: Residents of the Atlanta area are giving birth to new communities at gold-rush speed and local officials are scrambling to make sure the new arrivals come into the world healthy and ready for positive growth. For these leaders,…
Downtown developers going pro, unjamming commuter traffic, educating young Georgia drivers and greener grass.
The 2007 Excellence in Public Service Awards presented by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, in partnership with Georgia Trend, recognize five of the state’s unsung heroes.
Fort Gordon’s expansion may bring new business to town
This year’s farm bill, now being hammered out in Congress, will determine the profitability of Georgia agriculture. Tariffs, price supports, food assistance programs and funds for conservation and research are all being deliberated. And there’s $25 billion less in available funding than there was in 2002.
Local leaders and UGA experts team up to guide growth
On the night of May 18, 2004, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson beat the Atlanta Braves 2-0 by recording that rare professional baseball accomplishment – the perfect game. There was another bit of history made that night. It won’t make…
Riding the back roads of Effingham County on a pleasant spring afternoon, a motorist notes the burst of color from the wisteria, azaleas and dogwoods that dot the 237,000 forested acres (mostly pines and oaks) in this still largely rural…
Local Partnerships, Florida Transplants And Busy Highways
Scientists at the Jones Research Center, on the site of a hunting preserve once owned by Coca-Cola’s Robert Woodruff, are working to restore the region’s longleaf pines and protect their ecosystems. They’d like to show landowners how to generate income from the forests even as they protect them.
Meet the winners of the 2007 County Excellence Awards sponsored by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia and Georgia Trend. This year’s top county awards go to Johnson, Randolph, Crisp, Dawson, Troup, Chatham and Carroll; Wilkinson, Baldwin, Johnson, Laurens and Washington share an award for a joint project.
Johnson County: Debt Is A Four-Letter Word
Randolph County: More Than Just A Database
Crisp County: Streamlining Information
Dawson County: Partnership For Learning
Wilkinson, Johnson, Baldwin, Laurens and Washington Counties: Middle Georgia Assets
Business And Economic News From Around The State
For the eighth year, the Georgia Municipal Association and Georgia Trend team up to recognize the state’s outstanding cities. This year we highlight special achievement in public works and parks and recreation.
Roswell - Public Works Award - Large City
Valdosta - Public Works Award - Medium City
Richmond Hill - Public Works Award - Small City
Augusta - Parks and Recreation Award - Large City
Thomasville - Parks and Recreation Award - Medium City
Suwanee - Parks and Recreation Award - Small City
On and off the campus of GCSU - and it is sometimes difficult to know where the campus ends and the town begins - intellectual capital is a local currency that stimulates life at the school as well as the Milledgeville economy.
Ethanol in Southwest Georgia, Millionaires in Atlanta, Patience in Pembroke
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