The Good News Report

[cityboi]

Well at least NC has Honda Aircraft Company (HondaJet). Aircraft assembly in NC is still a reality

Edited December 21, 2013 by cityboi

[15895]

Sounds like Electrolux is bringing another 810 jobs in. Not too shabby at all!

It would be cool for them to have shuttle buses to Light Rail. It'd suck for Cabaruss to score most of those new employees as residents. I can imagine lots of leakage to Concord/Harrisburg.

[CLTProductions]

It would be cool for them to have shuttle buses to Light Rail. It'd suck for Cabaruss to score most of those new employees as residents. I can imagine lots of leakage to Concord/Harrisburg.

It would be even cooler if they sold all their current offices and signed up as a tenant for a new building uptown   

[MilZ]

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/outside_the_loop/2013/12/boeing-plant-could-go-to-a-ch-city-other-than.html

 

So do we now cheer for North Charleston to land Boeing?  I'd have to imagine we'd benefit a bit from a move into the region. Is 3 hours too far to land an important vendor or two?

[Urbanity]

^ I always thought it was between Seattle (Everette) keeping and Charleston Gaining the plant.  

 

While I don't think the effects are obvious, I do think there could be ancillary positives for Charlotte if it goes to Charlottetown. 

[Niner National]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/04/travel/boeing-union-dispute-vote/index.html?iid=HP_LN

 

Sounds like the Boeing jobs will be staying in Washington.

[HopHead]

Cardinal Innovations to create a service center and add 80 jobs to the metro area. The facility will be off Mallard Creek Road: http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2014/01/07/cardinal-innovations-to-add-charlotte-service.html

 

Charlotte listed #5 as a top city for job seekers in 2014: http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/morning-edition/2014/01/charlotte-named-a-top-city-for-job-seekers-in-2014.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter. Good to see Charlotte make these dime a dozen lists again. 

 

Also, Charlotte metro area's unemployment rate has now dipped to 6.9%. Granted, there are a lot of factors for that number and it doesn't really acknowledge the "true" unemployment rate, but still nice to see the official percentage drop. 

Edited January 8, 2014 by wend28

[TheBigShamrock8]

I'm so happy that Charlotte has been able to keep its momentum from the financial institutions and translate it into overall growth from the city.  It's great to see development outside the city and redevelopment within the city to grow a more cohesive and lively urban area.  I love this city.

 

I don't really have anything else to contribute other than my warm and fuzzy feelings.

[atlrvr]

 

 

Also, Charlotte metro area's unemployment rate has now dipped to 6.9%. Granted, there are a lot of factors for that number and it doesn't really acknowledge the "true" unemployment rate, but still nice to see the official percentage drop. 

 

I always hate that the newspaper dances around what the most important thing is, which is job creation.  In Nov (which it what was reported yesterday), Mecklenburg County added 2,500 jobs, and saw its labor force deline by 600 people.  The creation of jobs far outweighed the decline in labor force for the large improvement in the unemployment rate, but both are factors for the improvement.

 

Curreny Mecklenburg employment is 469,800 (the highest # ever), which is substantially higher then the pre-recession peak of 443,500 which was in October 2008.

[Urbanity]

^I'm curious of what's the source of the fact that our labor force declined by 600 people.  We added how many tens of thousands in population since the pre-recession peak - are none of them labor force?  

[atlrvr]

^ Labor force declined by 600 from the previous month, not from 2008 (which is up >30k people).  This is primarily due to NC new policies of not extending unemployment benefits, so people just give up looking.

[Urbanity]

^Thanks.  I misunderstood your other post!

[southslider]

Despite Charlotte's low median age, the second largest generation is increasingly retiring.

[MilZ]

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/outside_the_loop/2014/01/charlotte-offered-to-move-east-boulevard-build.html?page=2

 

We had a pretty interesting package put together to pull Boeing... shame we still missed.

[DMann]

Anyone know if Mayor Pat is in town?  My office is on Brevard Court and I could swear he just walked by.

[MilZ]

Anyone know if Mayor Pat is in town?  My office is on Brevard Court and I could swear he just walked by.

You must be mistaken, this is the "Good News" thread 

[MilZ]

On second glance, I failed to notice that it could be the old or the new Mayor Pat...

[Urbanity]

Washington DC economist notes Charlotte should be a strong growth economy on par with Raleigh and Austin over next few years.   Predicts Mecklenburg county will be 1.3m people by 2040.   Other positive is that there is evidence that city has been diversifying its economy (this last one makes me particularly happy).   

 

Negative is still higher unemployment than many other places.   Just speculating, but I would assume that may be partly a result of attracting large influx of people from other cities who are seeking jobs .

 

Source: Observer

[Third Strike]

1.3m people by 2040 seems to be a bit low. Aren't we floating at 1 million now? I know growth will begin to plateau out in the future, but I also think Meck would be way past that number by 2040.

[Niner National]

1.3m people by 2040 seems to be a bit low. Aren't we floating at 1 million now? I know growth will begin to plateau out in the future, but I also think Meck would be way past that number by 2040.

Meck hit 1 million in the second half of last year.

[Urbanity]

1.3m people by 2040 seems to be a bit low. Aren't we floating at 1 million now? I know growth will begin to plateau out in the future, but I also think Meck would be way past that number by 2040.

 

Meck hit 1 million in the second half of last year.

You know, I thought that seemed off when I read that.   Does anyone think its a typo and the author meant 2.3m 

[kermit]

Once again, this thread has really dried up....

[Norm2]

Once again, this thread has really dried up....

It has only been a few weeks. It will pick back up again.

[kermit]

Boeing incentives scorecard:

SC: $1.5 billion

MO: $1.7 billion

WA: $8.7 billion (per http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303722104579242612164575226?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection )

 

Sorry about the self quote but I thought it was interesting how far out of range NC was with incentives for Charlotte and Raleigh ($780 million and $883 million respectively), yet they were willing to offer a very strong $2.5 billion of incentives for the Transpark site.

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/05/4665270/nc-proposed-up-to-25-b-in-incentives.html#.UvKEAbRPaGU

 

Based on the Charlotte and GSO numbers alone I would have assumed that Commerce was either incompetent or ideologically opposed to incentives. However, the stratospheric figure for the Transpark (which has almost none of what Boeing needed -- none of the NC sites made it to the shortlist) makes me lean towards incompetence.

[15895]

Sorry about the self quote but I thought it was interesting how far out of range NC was with incentives for Charlotte and Raleigh ($780 million and $883 million respectively), yet they were willing to offer a very strong $2.5 billion of incentives for the Transpark site.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/05/4665270/nc-proposed-up-to-25-b-in-incentives.html#.UvKEAbRPaGU

Based on the Charlotte and GSO numbers alone I would have assumed that Commerce was either incompetent or ideologically opposed to incentives. However, the stratospheric figure for the Transpark (which has almost none of what Boeing needed -- none of the NC sites made it to the shortlist) makes me lean towards incompetence.

Rural lawmakers probably believe we could pony up the money ourselves and not on silly things like lightraild...