{"id":1908,"date":"2012-01-01T11:38:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T16:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=1908"},"modified":"2012-01-01T11:38:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-01T16:38:49","slug":"where-is-the-savannah-economy-headed-in-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/01\/01\/where-is-the-savannah-economy-headed-in-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is the Savannah economy headed in 2012?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Medium Rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8584504377\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>At a New Year&#8217;s Eve party last night, a native Savannahian who has spent much of her life living in New York asked me why we didn&#8217;t have an Apple store here.<\/p>\n<p>And then another guest, one who has had close Savannah ties for many years and who recently moved here, chimed in: &#8220;Or a Trader Joe&#8217;s?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t make a habit of referring people to my upcoming columns, but I got a laugh out of the fact that I had mentioned both of those stores in today&#8217;s City Talk column: <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/exchange\/2012-01-01\/bill-dawers-whats-store-local-economy-2012\" target=\"_blank\">What&#8217;s in the store for the local economy in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As I say in the column, I don&#8217;t know anything about those retailers coming to Savannah, and the persistent rumors of Whole Foods coming to the former Backus Cadillac on Victory have no basis in any facts that I know. But with an improving economy and growing population, we will eventually see chains like that move to Savannah.<\/p>\n<p>And we should see a lot of things happen this year and in the coming years if I&#8217;m correct that the local economy will perform better in 2012 than it did in 2011. In fact, I think this will be our best year since 2007. <\/p>\n<p>As of November 2011, we had lost 14,500 jobs in the metro area compared to November 2007, about 9% of the job base. That&#8217;s a terrible number, but I think that will improve next year, and other factors should work in our favor too. <\/p>\n<p>If I had to choose one line from the column that people will actually read, here it is: &#8220;I suspect local growth in 2012 will be more dependent on small, smart decisions than on big, splashy announcements.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Savannah economy has had a weak recovery from the recession, and the Georgia economy has had an abysmal one. Let&#8217;s hope we see smart moves this year that help us shake off the drag of the last few years.<\/p>\n<p>Btw, yesterday I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/12\/31\/live-in-2011-13-new-bands-on-my-lifes-soundtrack\/\" target=\"_blank\">posted about some great bands<\/a>, all new to me, that played in Savannah in 2011. I think 2012 will be another good one for live music, but there are still some key pieces of the music scene puzzle missing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"4\" style=\"float: none; margin:4px 0 4px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Another large rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"0042810896\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 336;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 280;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At a New Year&#8217;s Eve party last night, a native Savannahian who has spent much of her life living in New York asked me why we didn&#8217;t have an Apple store here. And then another guest, one who has had&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/01\/01\/where-is-the-savannah-economy-headed-in-2012\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-livingsavannah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-uM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}