SOUTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center

Year One

Final Report

Institute on Transportation Policy Prepared by the
South Carolina Executive Institute

Creating A Transportation Policy Institute At South Carolina State University

In May of 1986, the Southern Growth Policies Board issued a profoundly influential and prophetic report entitled "Shadows in the Sunbelt." In it, the Growth Policies Board, through its contactor MDC Corporation, sketched a picture of two Souths, a South where the booming economies of such places as Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Raleigh, Austin and Jackson lay in sharp contrast to the declining conditions of rural areas only a few miles away.

The theme of the report came from an unnamed Georgia legislator who said at the time, "We live in two Georgias. We live in an urban Georgia that is booming, prosperous, creating new jobs and opportunities; we live in a rural Georgia that is on the decline and losing jobs, people and confidence.

The rural/urban dichotomy was expanded to include virtually every geographic section of the South, and the report came as a shock to those civic boosters who had succumbed to the notion that there was, in fact, a "New South" emerging, and that old Dixie was a thing of the past, a South so successful and expansive that it was dubbed "The Sunbelt."

The fact was, however, as the experience of later years verified, that what was billed and promoted as "The New South," or "The Sunbelt" may have been the last hurrah of the "Old South." Southern economic growth, as it had been for decades,  was largely based on investments coming from elsewhere in the country and the world. As new plants sprang up bearing names like Michelin, BMW and Hoechst, the jobs and other economic benefits were largely concentrated in urban areas where the state's best education, transportation and other infrastructure systems were concentrated. Elsewhere, the gap widened between the "haves" and "have-nots."

Eighteen years after the gloomy prophecy about the "Two Souths," it has become a deepening reality, and nowhere is it more evident than in South Carolina's depressed Lowcountry. In a region whose largely rural and small-town landscape traditionally narrowed its economic options, events of recent years have left it even more vulnerable.

A Tale of Two Highways. In defining the "Two Souths" in South Carolina, there are clear statistical contrasts between the "have" and "have-not" areas. Those contrasts are often described on a regional basis, the prosperous Upcountry as compared to the less-prosperous Lowcountry. For purposes of more specific comparisons, it is useful to assess the comparative economic condition of two Interstate highway corridors, I-85 in the Piedmont Upcountry and I-95, which traverses the state's Lowcountry.

I-85 passes through Cherokee, Spartanburg, Greenville and Anderson counties, connecting the booming economies of Charlotte and the North Carolina Piedmont with the southern metropolis of Atlanta. By contrast, I-95 connects the sparsely-populated North Carolina sand hills with the Georgia beaches and marsh country. It meanders for 194 miles through nine counties which lie between the state's tourism-rich coastal counties and the growing Midlands/Piedmont counties.

Comparisons of the I-95 and I-85 corridors tell the story of the "Two Souths" in many ways. They tell it in terms of educational achievement, health care, life expectancy unemployment, public safety, levels of income, and many other statistical data which to a significant extent favor the Upcountry corridor.

Causes of "Two South Carolinas." Causes of the dichotomy are many, and some of them have been long-standing. The populous Upcountry has long been the state's manufacturing center, dating back for more than a century to the days when much of the New England textile industry was transplanted to the South. Even more long­standing has been the Lowcountry dependence on agriculture as its chief economic activity, a tradition which dates back to the earliest days of South Carolina's settlement in the 17^th century.

In recent years, the distinctions between the industrial Upcountry and the agricultural Lowcountry have become even more pronounced, owing to a number of factors:

• Tobacco Farming. The decline in tobacco farming cost parts of the Pee Dee and Lowcountry regions what was once their top cash crop. In the last decade of the 20^th century, harvested acreage in flue cured tobacco fell from 52,000 to 30, 500 and the value of the cash crop dropped from $190 million to $129 million.
• Military Employment. Between 1990 and 1998 and South Carolina lost almost 27,000 military jobs, or 31 per cent of its previous total, with many of them coming in the Lowcountry. Particularly damaging was the closing of the Charleston Navy Yard, which had been a source of employment on a commuting basis to residents of the state's inland counties.
• Manufacturing Jobs. Between  1990 and  1999, the state's manufacturing employment fell from 389,514 to 351,760, a loss of almost 38,000 jobs, or almost  10 per cent of the work force. The decline in manufacturing employment has been another major factor in the persistent unemployment in many areas of Lowcountry South Carolina.
• Indirect Influences.   Shifts in population, political influence and public policy have contributed additional causes of the "Two South Carolinas" dichotomy and while their influence may have been indirect, it has nonetheless become an economic fact of life in 21st century South Carolina.

Thirty years ago, South Carolina was a place in which rural and small-county legislators wielded disproportionate power. Men like Edgar Brown and Solomon Blatt from Barnwell, Marion Gressette from Calhoun, Rembert Dennis from Berkeley and many others held the reins of the General Assembly, controlled its purse strings and made it their business to look out for the best interests of their rural and small-town constituencies.

That all began to come apart when federal court rulings based on "one man, one vote" principles broke up the rural domination. Population centers became the centers of political power, and South Carolina began looking at things differently. Public institutions and agencies considered to be crucial to rural and small-town economies came under scrutiny and some were recommended for closure. Budget cuts at the state and federal levels reduced public programs and services for low-income and aged citizens, and the impact of such cutbacks was particularly strong in rural areas.

Clustering. Economic development strategies in the increasingly competitive, high tech 21^st century concentrated energies and attention where current industry is strongest, and where link-ups can be made with senior research institutions. In the Lowcountry, where the jobless rates rose in the wake of slowdowns in the farming and manufacturing sectors, unemployed farmers and mill workers are stranded. All across the region, many workers board buses for hours-long round-trip bus rides to coastal resorts for low-paying tourism-related jobs.

At the policy level, "clustering" has become a buzzword, describing strategies by which the state can create concentrations of effort and attention among firms with similar and/or related interests in loosely drawn and defined work areas. Such "clustering" is designed to create competitive advantages for member firms and for the region as a whole.

Rural Concerns. In rural areas of the Lowcountry, "clustering" is admittedly impractical in many cases. As a 2001 Clemson University report put it, "The development of a cluster requires specific conditions that may be attainable only at significant costs. For areas deficient in these necessary conditions, the promotion of industry clusters will be unproductive."

Such admissions have fueled conjecture among Lowcountry legislators and other leaders that their needs and interests were being lost in the scramble for high-tech prominence, and a former Governor's aide was quoted in a recent State newspaper report that "the feeling is that clusters will be built on the momentum generated by the state's research universities."

"Many rural lawmakers feel their areas could be left out of the cluster concept," Tom Davis, a former chief of staff to Governor Mark Sanford, told a conference of the state's technical colleges.

Clusters Without Borders. In the absence of a unifying plan or strategy addressing the problems generally associated with South Carolina's Lowcountry and other rural counties, multi-county home-grown alliances and strategies have sprung up, built around practicality and necessity.

The "clustering" strategy has been used to the extent that it is practical in several of the more developed areas. Elsewhere, the notion of partnerships across jurisdictional—and even state—lines has fostered creative approaches to the area's economic development needs. Where once counties and cities competed against each other for industrial prospects, it's more likely that those cities and counties will find the concept of pooled resources and practices more productive. "We frown on the idea that a single town or even a county is getting a grant for water or sewer," one developer said. "We need lines that stretch longer and serve a more comprehensive area."

Innovative Strategies. The notion may not fit the exact definition of "clustering," but in Lowcountry South Carolina, where distances between towns and economic partners may be substantial, innovative partnerships are fostering a wide range of shared activities. Orangeburg County is billing the triangle formed by Interstate Highways 26 and 95 and U.S. Highway 301 as a South Carolina "Gateway," and is aggressively marketing itself as a potential site for an "Inland Port" to handle the overflow of freight from Charleston.

Economic development strategies are binding cities and counties into regional economic alliances, and the Columbia-based Central Carolina Alliance has reached into eastern counties to extend its partnerships. Congressman James E. Clyburn, whose Sixth District encompasses much of Lowcountry and Pee Dee South Carolina and is one of the poorest districts economically in the nation, has identified a series of initiatives as part of his "Economic Future" projections, most of them tied to the state's tourism industry.

In short, Lowcountry South Carolina is fighting back. Its scarce resources are being mobilized in innovative and pragmatic ways to give the area new economic life. Whether current trends can be arrested and whether the region can be placed on firmer economic footing will be a story of long-term duration requiring the involvement of a multiplicity of political and economic influences.

2003-04 Project Report

Exploring S. C. State's Role. In that setting, South Carolina State University has emerged as a central and an energizing force to mobilize a vast array of academic, research and public resources to address not only the problems of Lowcountry and rural South Carolina, but also to develop strategies to be applied to the chronically distressed rural areas all across America. Under the institution's James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center (UTC), S.C. State commissioned the Executive Institute, an educational, training and research arm of the State Budget and Control Board, to explore means by which transportation could be more directly coordinated and linked to the area's economic needs.

The project was among a number of initiatives addressing the issue from various perspectives, among them the ongoing programs of the S.C. Commerce Department to stimulate rural economic growth, various efforts by the S. C. Transportation Department to stimulate and coordinate public transportation, and S. C. State's own Southern Rural Transportation Center and National Environmental Policy Institute.

Under the direction of UTC Executive Director Dr. Clarence Hill and in coordination with other S.C. State academic and administrative officials, the Executive Institute explored ongoing programs, carried out individual and group interviews in the region, surveyed existing materials and research and convened regional meetings on the S. C. State campus to bring state, local, federal, public and private professionals together to address common problems and to propose strategies and solutions.

Planning and Advisory Committee. In the course of its work, the Executive Institute organized a Planning and Advisory Committee to serve as a coordinating body for the project as well as a source of information and recommendations. The committee was structured to represent transportation and transportation-related interests across a wide spectrum of state, local, regional, public and private sectors. Members of the Committee are Hal Johnson, Orangeburg County Development Commission; Bill Clark, Orangeburg County; Chikwe Njoku, City of Sumter; Mike Covington, S.C. Department of Transportation; Dr. Arlene Prince, S.C. Department of Transportation; Ed Parler, Central Carolinas Economic Development Commission; Jim Darby, Santee Lynches Council of Government; Jim Kepner, Sumter County Development Commission; Sen. Herbert Fielding; Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority; Robert Nance, Office of Sixth District Congressman James E. Clyburn; Ben Cole, S. C. Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper); Karl Bowers, Transportation Consultant; and Dr. James Walker, S. C. State University.

Purpose and Mission. The project adopted the following statements to guide its work:

• Purpose. To bring to the public attention the role of transportation in the overall  economic,  political  and  educational  well-being  of communities, regions, states and the nation and to amplify the role of South Carolina State University   in    furthering   all   aspects   of   transportation   education   and development.

• Mission. To provide a mechanism by which the development of transportation policy may be explored through a series of workshops/forums addressing various aspects of the topic, including the relationship of transportation to economic growth, public education,  environmental protection and public health and safety.

In carrying out the articulated purpose and mission, the project was designed from the beginning as (1) an examination of ongoing initiatives, (2) an exploration of roles and functions appropriate to South Carolina State University and (3) the design of a vehicle which could enhance the effectiveness of both.

It also became clear that an examination of transportation and economic development could not be carried out in isolation. Economic conditions and the potential for growth and development were influenced by the full range of life quality issues, including public education, health care, environmental protection, public safety and many others. The effectiveness of those programs and services were, in turn, directly dependent on the quality of transportation supporting those services.

In rural areas, one planner said, "it's not enough to develop job training programs for people who have been displaced from their jobs. Programs are of little value if people physically cannot get to them. In many parts of this state, it's very difficult and expensive for people living some distance from training centers to get there on their own."

Similarly, ailing and elderly citizens living in remote parts of the state have traditionally had difficulties finding transportation to and from medical and health care facilities, often located in urban and metropolitan areas. Such difficulties have only been worsened by funding reductions which have threatened some public transportation services as well as the transportation components of public and non-profit human service programs.

Project Priorities. It became apparent that the project's usefulness and effectiveness could be optimized by designing its activities to fill niches and gaps in current efforts to address the region's economic needs, and to utilize the unique role which South Carolina State University could play in those initiatives.

Meeting over the fall and winter of 2003 with Planning and Advisory Committee members, project staff was made aware of the vast array of issues which could be usefully addressed in the context of meeting the economic needs of South Carolina's Lowcountry and rural counties. Filtering those issues and screening out those being addressed elsewhere, project staff developed a set of priorities it felt could be reasonably attained, given current time and resources.

• Public Awareness, In today's high energy world, ideas and issues flow into a worldwide market of communication. The economic plight of rural South Carolina competes for attention with a panoply of   urgent issues being pressed from other quarters. As rural legislators and other officials worry about the direction of the state's economic development strategies, their voice is straining to be heard above the clamor of other conversations and other priorities. The case for South Carolina's rural economic needs should be articulated forcefully and positively in well-prepared and  well-informed public forums.
• Interconnections. Addressing the full range of issues facing rural America today requires the attention and the partnership of many disparate parties. Public and private sector interests should be blended with the multiple levels and tiers of public programs and services in a strategically coherent and cohesive manner. "Clusters" may serve the needs of many parts of South Carolina in building an economic future for the state. Other types of aggregations of shared interests across regional boundaries may meet the needs of more rural and less affluent areas, and should be encouraged and developed. Such shared interests often go beyond the clustering of common economic interests, and reach into the full range of human services and programs.
• Infrastructure. In many parts of the industrialized world, rural and small town living is supported by intricate systems of rail, passenger and freight carriers. In rural South Carolina, the scarcity of such support systems threatens the very existence of many communities. As infrastructure needs mount and as crowded urban areas clamor for priority attention, unaddressed rural infrastructure needs—highways, bridges, water, sewer and other such basic requirements—may undermine the otherwise aggressive efforts to stimulate a region's economy.
• Continuity. The problems of rural America are many and persistent and should be addressed in the context of long-term plans and strategies. In many instances, public policies and political agendas driven by urban priorities to the exclusion of others must be addressed and re-directed. The development of viable living options and productive economies for rural areas and small-town settings can effectively be accomplished only in a   permanent institutional setting where the educational, research and capacity-building functions may be conducted on a long-term basis.
• Grass Roots Advocacy and Activism. Local governments and other public, or non-profit entities, represent a significant force to support and advance the cause of Lowcountry and other rural areas of South Carolina. To the extent that they can be mobilized and informed of programs and opportunities, they may become catalytic agents in making the public case for their rural constituencies and their economic needs and ambitions.

Proposals and Recommendations

Permanent Institute. To meet the above-stated priorities, it is recommended that there be created as an ongoing operational component of the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center at South Carolina State University a Transportation Policy Institute.

In the initial stages, the Institute would be designed to address the above-listed priorities with specific measures as described below. In doing so, it would also work to promote and further the establishment of South Carolina State University as a broadly recognized academic and research center for addressing the economic and other interests of Lowcountry South Carolina and for the development of strategies and techniques applicable elsewhere in rural America.

Through the channels of the University Transportation Center, the Policy Institute would work to make available to students, faculty and administrators opportunities for academic-related activities and research through the establishment of internships, graduate fellowships and other mechanisms by which the activities of the Policy Institute could extend the academic experience of the University. The Policy Institute would, in turn, benefit from the extensive experience already developed at South Carolina State University through the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center.

Advisory Committee. To serve in an ongoing advisory capacity, a permanent Advisory Committee of 12-15 members would be created to meet regularly with Institute staff, review activities and provide overall recommendations and guidance to the Institute. Membership on the committee would be comprised of a cross-section of individuals representing various elements of relevant fields, including state, federal and local governments, public and private sector leaders, transportation professionals and officials. S. C. State would have permanent ex officio status on the Committee. All relations of the Transportation Policy Institute with S. C. State students, faculty and administration would be coordinated through the administration of the University Transportation Center.

First Year of Activity. In its first year of activity (Fiscal 2004-05), the major project of the Transportation Policy Institute would be the development and conducting of periodic regional conferences on campus designed to address the above-stated priorities.

The conferences, already in the planning stages and coordinated with the University Transportation Center and the Planning and Advisory Committee, would bring to campus as program presenters several leading regional figures, including:

• David Dodson, President of the MDC Corporation, which performed the above-referenced "Shadows in the Sunbelt" report in 1986, and which currently administers a major series of Duke Endowment grants addressing poverty issues in North and South Carolina;
• Dan Mackey, retired director the S. C. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, the organization which performed the last comprehensive study of the state's infrastructure needs.
• J. Mac Holladay, CEO, Market Street Services of Atlanta, former S. C. Development Board Director and creator of the Advantage West Workforce Development Plan for 23 counties in rural western North Carolina.
• Robert Goble of CGA Consulting Services, long-time transportation planners in  South  Carolina and joint producers of a major study for a Public Transportation Management System in S. C.

The conferences would be six-hour sessions on the S. C. State campus and would include the participation of Congressman James E. Clyburn and other major public and private sector leaders in the state. The conferences would be structured as workshops, and would feature panels and discussion groups composed of major state and local government leaders in transportation, economic development and other relevant areas. The conference structure is designed particularly to stimulate inter-jurisdictional and inter-disciplinary discussions.

Region-wide Participation. As a means of addressing the need for grassroots advocacy and activism, invitations would be extended to major public and private sector leaders at the state, local and regional levels to attend and participate in the conferences. The purpose of such cross-functional participation would be to stimulate lively debate and discourse of the topics under discussion, and to promote interest in critical Lowcountry issues among those who influence critical policy decisions.  Bringing together a sufficiently diversified and disparate group may require some promotion and recruiting among Lowcountry leaders, and two prominent Charleston-area public figures have been retained to serve as local government liaisons for the project and the Institute.

Outcomes. Proceedings from the regional conferences at S. C. State would be recorded, transcribed and analyzed and would be made available to any interested party. Final summaries of the proceedings will be produced for purposes of University archives and research and for general public information.

The summaries would also constitute the findings for the first year of operation of the Transportation Policy Institute and would be published as part of the annual report of the Institute for public dissemination. The proposals would also be reviewed by the Advisory Committee and other appropriate parties for the purpose of determining issues sufficiently significant to form the basis of proposals and recommendations for further attention.

Such proposals, depending on the issues and circumstances, could form the basis of immediate recommendations for further action. They would also form the basis of a second year of conferences, bringing together a similarly diverse and disparate group of Lowcountry leaders (perhaps some of the same as attended the first year sessions), to discuss and refine proposals developed from the first year, and to introduce new issues and concerns.

An Agenda and a Cadre of Informed Leaders. Whatever may be the content of the proposals coming out of the Transportation Policy Institute, the most important product may be the development of a "Transportation Agenda" for Lowcountry South Carolina and a cadre of informed and motivated grassroots leaders to promote that agenda. Such an organized and coordinated effort could also serve to attract public attention and understanding on a regional and statewide basis, and further the process of educating South Carolinians and other Americans to the plight of their rural and small county neighbors.

Such a process could also be supported by an internal cadre of interested students, faculty and administrators from South Carolina State University who could advance the inquiry and research necessary for the effective pursuit and promotion of such activities.

Conclusion

In the 18 years since the "Shadows in the Sunbelt" report described the two Souths in America, and by inference, the two South Carolinas, the gaps have widened between the "have" and the "have-not" regions of the state, and the contrasts between the two sectors of the state have grown more distinct.

Statistical comparisons tell part of the story of the separation, but of perhaps more concern are developments regarding public policy and public knowledge. When the proposal to connect two populous centers of economic activity in eastern South Carolina with a bridge across upper Lake Marion was dubbed "The Bridge to Nowhere," it represented a serious misunderstanding of the needs of an important part of the state.

Similarly, as economic development strategies are increasingly targeted toward the high-end, high-tech, research-oriented sectors of the state's economy, other constituencies worry that their voices are not being heard. While the state's drive to become more competitive in the complex global economy of the 21st century is vital to South Carolina's future, there are many thousands left behind amid vanishing manufacturing and agricultural jobs who may never participate in the high-tech economy.

Rural leaders also worry that the prospect of reducing or shutting down local government services and educational institutions may further damage economic prospects and opportunities across the rural and small town landscape of South Carolina.

Identifying the problems is not the issue. For years, researchers have documented the economic decline of rural South Carolina, its causes and its consequences.

What is needed today is a means by which that story can be brought to the attention of South Carolinians in an effective and persuasive way. It will begin at the local level with leaders who are not only concerned about their communities but who also are equipped with the knowledge and with a team of similarly-situated leaders who can make a case for their collective needs.

It will also begin with leaders who are provided with policy options growing out of a deliberative process of discussion and debate in open discourse with leaders of varying outlooks and opinions. Those policy options can find their way onto the public agenda at many levels—school boards, county councils, state agency priorities, legislative studies and proposals, non-profit planning and federal government action.

Rural interests must find their way back onto the state's agenda of priorities in an informed, enlightened and influential way. The state's economic future should not be determined in a "winner-take-all" strategy in which one set of interests overpowers the other.   The restoration of interest and concern over the plight of rural South Carolina should be accomplished in a collaborative process of partnerships and shared responsibility for ail elements of the South Carolina economic future.

There is no better or more logical place for that process to begin than at South Carolina State University. Long associated with championing the needs of emerging elements of the state's population, the institution is also uniquely equipped with one of the nation's fine University Transportation Centers to provide a high level of academic and professional attention to the needs of rural South Carolina and rural America.

Restoring the economic health of rural South Carolina is a campaign with many players and for a long duration. Coordinating the development of rural transportation policy and initiatives is a good fit at South Carolina State University and guarantees the kind of institutional permanence and continuity necessary for such a marathon undertaking.

Percentage of Persons in South Carolina 25 Years of Age and Over with
Less than a 9^th Grade Education, with a High School Diploma, with Four or
More Years of College by County (2000)

Source.  U.S. Bureau of Census. Census of Population and Housing, 2000

Unemployment Rates Ranked By County
July 2004 (Unadjusted)

Source. S C Employment Security Commission, Released August 20, 2004