Author lists Hinesville
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For the last 15 years, Jack Schultz has been traveling America, trying to find out what makes the difference between small towns that are growing and prospering and those that are dying on the vine. Schultz, the chief executive officer of Agracel, Inc., an industrial development firm that matches up manufacturing and high-tech production with small towns, delivered his seven and a half keys to small-town success to the Hinesville Rotary Club this week. Schultz, the author of "7 1/2 Keys to Big Success in Small Towns," is on a national book tour. |
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"I've been to see a lot of great communities so far," he said. "It seems to be a message that resonates with small-town America." Schultz has visited 200 cities and has another 40 lined up over the next three months. He anticipates stopping in on another couple of hundred in the next six months to a year. His research centered on what he terms agurban areas, towns that were predominantly agricultural and are far removed from a major city. He looked at population and per capita income growth and also surveyed communities for their demographics, such as housing affordability and poverty level. He cited Hinesville as one of the 20 growing agurbans in Georgia. Georgia has more of Schultz's top 397 agurbans than any other state and Hinesville is among that number. "After taking a tour, I see I made a good decision," he said. "Maybe I should have put them in the top 100." Schultz compared the top 100 agurban markets to the metropolitan areas ranked 10-26 in population, according to the 2000 Census. That group included Boston, Seattle and San Jose, areas known for their high technology industry. Those 17 large cities had a combined population of 15.6 million and the top 100 agurbs had a population of 16.3 million, according to Schultz. The top 100 agurbs grew nearly three times as fast in the number of high tech jobs in 1990s, Schultz said, and also have added 225,000 jobs since 2000. One out of every nine jobs has been added in those top 100 agurbans, according to Schultz. Their combined population is equivalent to that of Maryland's, and had Maryland experienced similar growth, Schultz believes it would have been a big story. "But because these communities are scattered across the country, they get lost," he said. Schultz researched 15,800 towns, all outside metropolitan statistical areas. He narrowed that group down to the top 1,200, then down to 800, down to 397 and to the final 100 he considered to be doing very well. He pointed to air travel, the internet, deregulation and the quality of life and cost of living as reasons agurbs are booming. His statistics show nearly 30 million people telecommute. "Today, you'll live where you want to live and work will find you," he said. When Schultz started his research three years ago, he thought agurbs needed to be close to an interstate and have a four-year college. But only 16 of his top 100 had four-year colleges and 25 were within 25 miles of an interstate. "I found that didn't have an impact," he said. "It's all in the leadership." His seven and a half keys are: adopt a can-do attitude; shape your vision; leverage your resources; raise up strong leaders; encourage an entrepreneurial approach; maintain local control; build your brand; and embrace the teeter-totter factor. "It only takes one or two or a handful of leaders to make a difference," he said. "The question is, are you going to let visionary leaders take you in a direction and take some risk?" Schultz said keeping local control is the Achilles heel and growing communities need to be on guard against what he called CAVE people, citizens against virtually everything. Schultz used Peru, IN, as an example of how a smaller city can outgrown a larger neighbor and how Tupelo, MS, and Branson, MO, transformed themselves into prosperous cities. He also said property taxes are a major cost item and his research showed property tax rates in Hinesville are, in some cases, 40 to 50 percent lower than in other agurban markets. Schultz also pointed to the cost of living in major cities. The quality of life on $100,000 a year in New York City or the Silicon Valley is akin to the quality of life on $45,000 in an agurban market. He also discussed his own initiative in his hometown of Effingham, IL. He and some others wanted to bring a new rail line into Effingham. The railroad had not brought new industry into Effingham in 30 years and the head of the Illinois Central shot him down. But he built his own rail line anyway, the only new railroad built in Illinois in the 20th century, albeit 1.43 miles long, to service Enterprise Rail Park. "It's the shortest rail line in Illinois," Schultz said.
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