Turns out the South is a happening place
I took a road trip recently from southeastern Massachusetts to the southeastern United States -- Georgia, to be specific, where my youngest daughter was headed for post-graduate studies. As we traveled south, it quickly became evident that the images of sleepy plantation life, depressed economies, and abject poverty below the Mason-Dixon Line are exaggerated, outdated, or both.
Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, is now a major service and manufacturing center that is vibrant with commercial activity. Charlotte, N.C., the Queen City of the South, boasts that it is now the second largest financial center in the United States after New York City.
We crossed over into South Carolina and quickly drove through Greenville, where BMW has built its only US assembly plant. Finally, we arrived in Athens and the greater Atlanta area, where the economy is booming. New homes are cropping up everywhere, and it is easy to bump into someone who has left Massachusetts for good.
As we roamed around Athens and Atlanta, there were abundant clues about why the future of our nation's economy is centered in places like northeastern Georgia, not southeastern Massachusetts, despite our area's rapid population growth.
First, the people who matter when it comes to economic development -- government, business, banking, the media, and higher education -- are all on the same page. There is little evidence of the petty feuds, political gridlock, and endless procrastination that are the hallmarks of bringing about change in our state and region.
Yes, there is corruption and yes there are boondoggles, but things get done and quickly. The new South is brimming with newness and optimism. There is a welcoming spirit and a can-do attitude. People take pride in their state and know that their growth curve is heading upward.
Then there is the investment in public higher education. Politicians in Atlanta may grumble about the liberals at the University of Georgia, but they always come up to the plate when appropriation time approaches. Buildings are new, faculty are being added, salaries are generous, equipment is state of the art, and all students with good grades get a Hope Scholarship, which pays the tuition bill, leaving only a small amount to pay in fees. There is an astute understanding in Georgia that spending money on college students reaps untold rewards.
Finally, by attracting brain power from the North, places such as the Research Triangle in North Carolina and the counties around Atlanta have a deep pool of managers, software engineers, scientists, engineers, and medical personnel
The NASCAR culture of the good ol' boys is still prominent, but it is being overshadowed by highly trained professionals who can compete with their counterparts in the North and usually win. The new South is not run by Boss Hogg from the ``Dukes of Hazzard," but by corporate executives who run the
Of course all this growth and prosperity does have its downside. Atlanta has urban sprawl with smog and traffic jams. Beautiful old trees are being felled to make way for new housing developments. There is also racial tension as plans for suburban trains to help ease the traffic are waylaid by whites who fear a mass exodus of urban African Americans to the gated communities around Atlanta. And there is more evidence t here than in our region of the realities of income inequality.
Still, there is a sense of something happening in the South that is not evident here, in the shadow of Boston, at least not yet. As my wife and I said goodbye to our daughter and headed back to southeastern Massachusetts, what bothered me the most was that I was heading back home to a place that already may have seen its best days.
Michael Kryzanek of Whitman is professor of political science at Bridgewater State College. He can be reached at mkryzanek@bridgew.edu. 
