Economic Development Features

If there’s one thing nearly everyone agrees on in Columbus, it’s that downtown has come a long way since the 1970s. What was it like then? “Barren, deteriorating and tired,” architect Ed Burdeshaw remembers. Amenities? “There were none. Restaurants were…

We wanted to know how municipalities around the state are faring, as the effects of a long, painful recession seem to be taking their own sweet time to dissipate. So we selected eight cities in eight different parts of the…

Georgia Trend’s Neely Young and Susan Percy traveled to Macon last fall for a roundtable discussion with five of the state’s top economic developers, all active with the Georgia Economic Developers Association (GEDA). They talked about bringing jobs to Georgia,…

Just about every town has them. Old commercial or industrial areas that were once bustling now have buildings sitting empty. Most of them are not beyond hope – they’ve just seen better days and are in need of a boost…

Aerotropolis: The name sounds like something Mad Men’s 1960s marketing whiz Don Draper might have invented for Walt Disney’s newest attraction. You can almost envision Don and Uncle Walt poring over the “futuristic” sketches for this airport-city, a sort of…

With money especially tight, counties are being called upon to do more with less. The six winners of this year’s County Excellence Awards – Chatham, Cobb, Decatur, Heard, Liberty and Mitchell counties – have demonstrated an ability to provide their…

Each spring, when buses from the Heart and Soul of Georgia Tour roll into a select group of cities, the visitors are met by high school marching bands, exuberant elected officials and citizens excited about the opportunity to showcase their…

Georgians are holding their breath, awaiting the results of the upcoming legislative session, hoping that a new funding source for transportation will be created and some solutions offered for the state’s transportation problems. With gas prices creeping back up, voter…

For years Donald Bates had struggled with keeping new hires in place at Tara Foods, an Albany plant that produces products such as sauces and peanut butter for its parent company Kroger, the supermarket chain, as well as custom orders…