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WHAT’S UP IN NEWDEVELOPMENT
The shaded area straddling the Clarke-Oconee county line in the above map is the Orhin property, where
Caterpillar will locate a new manufacturing plant.
With the news that Caterpillar will build a
factory here, bringing l,4dO direct jobs and an
estimated 2,800 more throughout the region
for a network of two dozen or so suppliers,
the conversation about growth in Athens has
changed significantly. The arguments so long
made about why things Uke this can't hap
pen here have been turned on their heads.
Some local leaders have continually made
claims that Athens-Clarke County is "business-
unfriendly"—that development regulation
here is too tough. Mayor Nancy Denson even
campaigned on. the issue by talking about
onerous zoning requirements, like those for
bike racks, as a hindrance to economic devel
opment. Those regulations seem not to have
deterred Caterpillar, though. Our underedu
cated workforce has also been frequently cited
as preventing us from attracting high-quality
jobs; the lack of an interstate highway has
been noted equally often. A recent study
of Athens' economic development efforts,
conducted by the Janus consulting firm and
funded by Georgia Power, summarized many of
these claims.
And yet, here is Caterpillar. According to
company VP Mary Bell, quoted in the Athens
Banner-Herald, Athens was selected for, among
other reasons, "a positive and pro-active
business climate and a good pool of poten
tial employees with manufacturing experi
ence." Hasn't she read the Janus report?
Likewise, "quality of life" has taken on a
pejorative connotation, with some question
ing the role it has to play in serious economic
development. Quality of life has been set up
in a false dichotomy with economic growth,
and there have been suggestions that there
must be balance between the two. The battle
over Selig's Walmart proposal bears this out,
with the implication that those protesting the
development for its potential negative impacts
on Athens' livability are out of touch and anti
business.
Apparently, though, Athens' unique char
acter was a big factor in Caterpillar's choice.
In an email to constituents, ACC Commissioner
Andy Herod noted this, writing "I can tell
you that in our discussions with the company
the thing that they kept coming back to was
the great quality of life they can expect here
in our community for their senior executives.
and managers who will be working at the
plant." Commissioner Mike Hamby seconded
the notion, saying "The quality of life we have
here was a big part in making this happen." A
county press release announcing the project
also echoed the sentiment.
The way Oconee County, ACC and the state
came together to make the deal happen st>
quickly also seems to run counter to previ
ous characterizations of this community's
relationships with its neighbors. Hamby noted
that the collaboration with Oconee 'went off
very smoothly." How does this line up with
previous attempts at regional collaboration on
economic development?
Caterpillar is a gamechanger for Athens and
the region economically, no doubt But what
does it say about our efforts to date, given
how far off the local discourse about economic
development seems to have been from the
actualities of bringing a major employer to the
community?
Perhaps now is the time to start talking
about economic development with a clean
slate. Our preconceptions about our own
strengths and weaknesses don't seem to hold,
and members of a newly formed economic
development task force might do well to steer
clear of the conventicr^l wisdom. If we aban
don our previous baggage and start framing
the Issue with our newly acquired assets,
not only locally but in surrounding counties,
things start to look quite a bit different:
Athens, GA is America's quintessential col
lege town, home to one of the South's premier
universities. That university includes a medical
school which, along with two hospitals, forms
the heart of a .burgeoning health sciences
industry. Throughout the region are a number
of manufacturing operations, most notably
including a major Caterpillar plant which
serve as proving grounds for graduates of the
University of Georgia's new undergraduate and
graduate engineering programs, and students
from a highly regarded local technical college.
Athens has a terrific local airport is well-served
by rail, and is at the crossroads of a network of
federal and state highways that provide quick
access to the world's largest passenger airport
in Atlanta and the nation's fburth-largest port
in Savannah. The local school system has
undergone a rapid transformation, renovating
all of its facilities and developing innova
tive new partnerships, such as those with the
university's education college and the local
nonprofit Whatever it Takes, while significantly
increasing graduation rates. Athens has accom
plished all of this while diligently protecting its
natural resources, cultivating an international
reputation for musk and the arts and reUrining
an excellent balance between classic and quirky
small-town and big-city, country and rock and
rolL
This is our story, and we need to begin
the next chapter of our community's evolution
on this sort of positive note. Of course, there
is still work to be done. The economic down
turn has turned many discourses in a pessimis
tic direction, and that has divided the town,
particularly in regard to the Selig development
in downtown Athens. Arty job is a good job,
some have claimed, and that justifies risking
the things that others now daim were such a
major asset in attracting Caterpillar to Athens.
I'd argue that, while compromising our
standards and our identity may be unfriendly
to one type of business, holding on to bur
priorities is apparently attractive to another
kind of business. That kind of business is
apparently a more desirable one anyway,
though, paying salaries not just barely above
minimum wage, but above the community's
median income, and providing an order of
magnitude more of them. We've got to move
away from an adversarial relationship between
business and community interests and toward
a mutually reinforcing one. Hopefully, the
economic development task force's members
will move beyond the board room in which
they meet, and make a serious attempt to
understand what it is about Athens that is so
infectious to so many, and how we can craft a
strategy that not only acknowledges that, but
grows organically from it.
Athens has been needing a win for a long
time now, and it looks like we've hit the
jackpot However, we mustn't consider our
work done. We still have alarming intergen-
erational poverty in this community, and we
are in many ways deeply divided. Let's take
this moment as a chance to really understand
why those adversarial relationships exist, and
attempt to overcome them. Athens is a place
like nowhere else, and if we can start craft
ing a newer, more inclusive narrative for
our community and sharing it with the world,
perhaps Caterpillar will represent the first of
many bright moments in our future. •
Kevan Williams athensrising@flagpole.com
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285 W. Washington St. * Athens, G A 3060 I
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FEBRUARY 22,2012 • FLAGPOLE.COM 7
GE0EYE, U S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. USDA FARM SERVICE AGENCY