Assessing 10 years of progress in the Charleston region
By Bill Settlemyer
A casual conversation with a business colleague a few weeks ago led me to reflect on developments in our region during the past 10 years.
As I did so, I realized that we’ve made substantial progress along the way as a region. It also became clear that the period following the closure of the Navy base and shipyard back in 1994 laid the groundwork for much of the progress we’ve seen since that time.
Here are a few of the milestones from that period:
In 1994, the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority was created to oversee the transition of the base from military to civilian use. That agency and its staff and volunteer leaders have put in a challenging but productive 10 years and may soon wrap up the agency’s efforts.
In 1995, business and government leaders formed the Charleston Regional Development Alliance as a public-private partnership. The development alliance replaced an earlier organization that was less oriented toward the entire tri-county region. As I recall, it was a difficult and somewhat stormy process, but the outcome was a good one, and the development alliance continues to serve effectively as the region’s marketing arm for economic development.
In 1995, the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce (then the Trident Chamber of Commerce) and its leaders established The Education Foundation, which continues to serve the region as a resource for improving public education.
In 1995, Keith Summey was elected to his first full term as mayor of North Charleston. He has succeeded admirably in working with city council members and the citizens of that city to spur healthy development and a greater sense of pride and community spirit.
On a more modest note, the Charleston Regional Business Journal published its first issue in 1995. While the launch of our publication hardly matches the scale and importance of the other contemporary events back then, I think it’s fair to say that we have become a part of the business infrastructure that supports the region’s growth.
When we were preparing to launch the paper, more than one business leader expressed the view that although the region needed an independent business newspaper, we would not find the community support necessary for success.
Happily, history has proved otherwise, and all of us at the Business Journal deeply appreciate the vote of confidence we’ve received over the years from our readers and advertisers.
The ‘C’ words
During the past 10 months, the Business Journal has presented a series of business forums on important topics such as the port, public and higher education, workforce development and regional growth issues, to name a few.
As I listened to the panelists at the forums, I was pleased to hear the words “cooperation” and “collaboration” more often than I would have heard five or 10 years ago. That’s a good thing because with our patchwork quilt of governments and organizations in the tri-county area, we need as much of each as we can get.
It’s painfully obvious, for example, that we don’t have our act together regionally where residential real estate development is concerned. While some conflict is inevitable in this arena, the “dueling annexations” pitting cities, towns and counties against each other in a fight over control of the same tracts of land is not helpful.
On the plus side, officials responsible for zoning and planning in our cities, towns and counties seem a bit more receptive now to proposed developments that recognize the need for a mix of housing types as well as commercial and recreational facilities within individual subdivisions.
Where public education is concerned, the tug of war between property tax reform and school funding is a serious matter, and I’m concerned that precipitous action by the General Assembly could do lasting harm to the tax base for education funding.
Of equal concern is the lack of appreciation for the successes of our public schools along with the often-voiced concerns about their shortcomings. During the past couple of years, I’ve spoken with more than a few parents who moved their children from local private schools to one of the region’s better public schools and reported they were quite pleased with their child’s experience there. I’ve heard the same feedback from parents who’ve moved here.
It is unfortunate that those successes go unrecognized. It’s also unfortunate that many voters and some political leaders still don’t seem to understand the importance of having good public schools.
Every economic development study ever done for the region has stressed that companies considering a move to our area are going to look for quality public education, both as a source of supply for their workforce and to ensure that their employees can have quality education for their children without having to pay private school tuition.
The idea of pushing “market-based” solutions is a hot-button political issue for some politicians, but there’s little evidence of wide-spread success in such initiatives.
It would be better for state and local political leaders to focus on ways to directly improve public school performance by working in collaboration with parents and local school systems. Fortunately, there has been some positive movement in this direction, but much more is needed.
There are many other political, business and educational milestones during the past 10 years worthy of mention. But our focus, as always, must be on the future of our region.
As the tri-county population nears the 600,000 mark over the next several years, I suspect that we’ll find plenty of challenges and opportunities to keep us busy.
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