Charleston’s Regional Growing Pains

The regional growth of Greater Charleston is transforming it, but there is concern that no one entity, private or public is watching over this growth for the benefit of the whole region. Will the infrastructure be in place to support this growth? Will growing the infrastructure impact our precious historic past? The article has some excellent suggestions on how these entities can work together to solve this as a problem with any conflicting pieces. While this article speaks specifically to the Greater Charleston region, these regional decision conflicts in fact are found throughout the nation.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

Charleston is obviously on a roll! Michael Buettner writes for The Post and Courier that “signs of economic growth in our tri-county area are easy to find” and points to a federal government report that shows our recent growth ranking among the top twenty percent of metro areas in the nation.

Breaking his report in sections covering Tourism, Manufacturing, Information Technology and Finance, Mr. Buettner’ s fine article and another by Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson paint a picture of a region bursting at the seams, full of energy and constant change. Regrettably the second duo also paint a picture of what is now a united region, ill equipped by our current overlapping government structures to efficiently chart a smooth course to the future.

Under the headline “A collision of deciders,” here is how they put it. “Here’s the problem: Each of these issues, opportunities and threats is being deliberated separately by some arm of government or private industry. The region’s in serious danger of ending up with a hodgepodge of decisions that don’t add up, or worse, directly collide.”

As I scroll through the private sector decisions, it is clear deals are being made. Global Aeronautica is in operation producing the better part of Dreamliner’s fuselage here in the Lowcountry and, in the process, making us the carbon fiber capital of a new aviation sector. Google is coming. Automated Trading Desk has been bought by Citibank and will continue to grow into an essential tool of the online market for the securities trading industry. We have an infant bioscience sector, and our “middleware” for not for profits and the medical services industry is not exceeded anywhere. The process is transforming the region, business by business; a new Charleston is rising as a technically savvy international competitor in the world market of the 21st Century.

Each solution, however, adds to the importance of reaching decisions that are inherently regional in a way that serves all of us. The successful business outcomes enriching our region add to the infrastructure challenges we face, Protect the past we must, but we must also make way for the essential corridors of commerce that fuel the present and future. The future of the “Greater Charleston” is developing so fast we have yet to adapt. Regrettably, though we have a professionally staffed regional council of governments, decisions that effect all of us are being made in the absence of a proactive process that forces the decision to a regional level. Even if we get it to that level, it can be overruled in a minute by the State or any one of the constituent local governments. The foresight that has created a regional process now must give it a bite to go along with its bark

No one is to blame, and I am not criticizing anyone, but if we don’t act on this now, we will all suffer. The regional perspective must drive what is now a regional need except on issues of historic and essential local character. The Greater Charleston must drive solutions for what are essentially Greater Charleston problems.

As I wrote back in January about the need to amend the state constitution now rather than ten years from now, I believe now is also the time to move towards politically empowering the Greater Charleston. If we wait ten years, maybe even five, the population that makes the political decision will not reflect our traditional Lowcountry perspective but be comprised of a significant portion drawn here largely from other parts of the country. The magnet of our dynamic new industries is drawing new workforces here to fill the technically challenging positions our own educational system is not preparing in adequate numbers to fill the demand. It is almost a cliché that our primary and secondary education system is failing us, and with new initiative in Columbia and new leadership here, I remain hopeful we will get it right this time. Our public colleges in the Greater Charleston are adjusting well to a reality where state support as a percentage of educational cost is down substantially, The Medical University has been world class for some time and seems a bit ahead of the curve in attracting the support for excellence it will need to stay that way.

All the schools understand the financial challenge. The Citadel is about to wind up its first 100 million dollar drive, and the College has forward looking leadership planning its largest fundraising effort expected to be much larger than that. It is also benefiting from recent national popularity with school guidance counselors that is bringing a competitive group of students from all over the United States here for its high quality liberal education

The ingredients for a golden age for Greater Charleston are here. It would be a shame to risk not being able to sustain it because we don’t have the governmental tools to see the needs of the region are not sacrificed to parochial interest of one of its constituent parts .With small exception for those few amongst us that would like to erect barriers at the border against any further migration to South Carolina, we mutually share the goal of the historic city revered and preserved. I suspect as well most of us see the region’s commercial center closer to 526 and at our fringes in Berkley, Summerville and Hollywood. There is also universal excitement at the possibility of grand avenues connecting the historic city to what is becoming the business center of the Greater Charleston through charming and livable corridors for all tastes and budgets.

As we face this exciting prospect, the implications for our region’s expanded needs for advanced world class education, transportation corridors and green space preservation are those of greatest regional concern, and here we are in a tangle of conflicting interests, local, regional, private and public. We no longer can afford being just good neighbors, we must become a regional family working together to craft a future in which we all have a stake. Though national issues remain my area of primary concern, I would appreciate hearing my readers’ thoughts and may share in a future column some additional view I have on preparing to meet our greater need for graduate level education and other issues.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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