The Three Georgias: Emerging Realignments at the Dawn of the New Millennium

Abstract

This research examines spatial realignments within Georgia, pointing to the rise of a tripartite regional model consisting of declining urban cores, dynamic suburban sprouts, and stagnant rural poverty regions. Rapid growth and restructuring during the 1990s resulted in significant new patterns of development. A process of creative destruction impacted old manufacturing centers and led to a rapid rise in new high-tech sectors, without accompanying changes in historic poverty areas. Roughly dividing the state's population into corresponding thirds, these transformations portend shifts with both political and economic consequences at the dawn of the 21st century. Active intervention at the state, regional, and local levels will be needed to create a more balanced development pattern in the state in the future.

Small‐area population forecasting: borrowing strength across space and time

“…The spatial diffusion theory of population geography argues that population growth forces will spread (spill over) to surrounding areas (Boyce, 1966; Morrill, 1968; Thrall et al , 2001), implying that population growth should demonstrate patterns of spatial autocorrelation. Regional economic theories such as growth pole theory apply spread and backwash notions to explain the mutual geographic interdependence of economic growth and development, which, in turn, influences population change (Hartshorn and Walcott, 2000; Richardson, 1976).…”

High‐Growth Firms in the Southern U.S.: Where is the Growth?

“…Within the region itself, where are HGFs located? Is there a tendency for HGFs to be located in areas with higher human capital levels, following within the urban-rural, uneven geographies of the South (e.g., Hartshorn and Walcott 2000;Johnson 1997) and indicative of human capital-rich urban areas (Malizia and Motoyama 2016)? At a minimum, exploring the South's HGF-location dynamics answers the call from Mason et al (2015) concerning the need for more location-based analyses of HGFs.…”

Metropolitan Secession and the Space of Color-Blind Racism in Atlanta

“…120–121) . Although longtime stalwarts like Galambos and Felton continued as the area's political leaders, most of the new residents were part of the nation's largest interregional migration (Hartshorn & Walcott, ), moving to Atlanta's suburbs because their corporate offices did. Members of this class of “executive gypsies” (Jaret et al., , p. 121) were less likely to remember Atlanta's previous desegregation battles, but were deeply invested in the material privileges associated with their communities.…”

“…Republican Fulton County Commission chair Karen Handel (herself a migrant to the region) described “the American Dream” to the New York Times in 2005 as “’the biggest house you can afford, on the biggest lot you can afford, with a great school for your kids’” (Kilborn, ). These prerogatives, discussed in terms of individuals’ choices in the marketplace rather than of structural inequities in that marketplace, shaped the ideology of ascendant north Fulton Republicans like Handel, who exemplified the dramatic maturation of a suburb‐driven partisan shift toward the Republican Party that had been developing for decades in Georgia (Bullock, ; Hartshorn & Walcott, ).…”