In my City Talk column today, How many tourists does Savannah want?, I mention three unresolved issues that all raise questions about tourism in Savannah: How many tourists do we want? What kind of tourists do we want? And what…
Month: May 2011
With Case-Shiller on the verge of new post-recession lows, how to gauge the bottom for housing?
[UPDATE, 5/31: Case-Shiller: National Home Prices Hit New Low in 2011 Q1] About three weeks ago, I wrote a post asking How far will home prices fall? Today the NYT is reporting Housing Index Is Expected to Show a New…
With the festival underway, remembering some personal Spoleto highlights
I think the first Spoleto USA show that I saw was the opera Wozzeck by Alan Berg in 1997, a spare and stark production — a bit too spare and stark for me, especially after a big, rich dinner with…
More evidence of severe farm labor shortage in wake of signing of strict immigration bill
A couple of days ago I wrote a post titled “Early signs of trouble for harvests in wake of Georgia’s stringent new immigration law”. That post cited an AJC article with credible claims of severe labor shortages at farms that…
Another periodic blog post about . . . blogging
With almost five months of blogging behind me, a few observations. (This is probably only of interest to diehard readers, close friends, or other bloggers.) I continue to make a lot more posts than I thought I would, but: I’m…
The Dirty Guv’nahs to open for Cold War Kids at SCAD’s graduation concert in Forsyth Park
SCAD has not officially released the news (as far as I know), but The Dirty Guv’nahs will be opening for Cold War Kids for the college’s annual New Alumni Concert in Forsyth Park on the evening of Friday, June 3rd.…
Another crappy fake bigfoot video
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by cryptozoology, which can be defined I guess as the study of animals whose existence has never been proven. “Study” being a pretty loose word here, since, in the absences of physical…
Savannah metro area unemployment rate up slightly in April compared to year ago
Another bit of dreary news for the Savannah economy, although the Georgia Department of Labor is once again trying to put a positive spin on it. The Savannah metro area’s unemployment rate “decreased” from 8.6% in March to 8.5% in…
Early signs of trouble for harvests in wake of Georgia’s stringent new immigration law
I’ve written numerous times (including here and here) about my reasons for disagreeing with the passage of HB 87, Georgia’s new law that threatens draconian punishments for undocumented workers in the state while providing for very weak penalties for employers…
Leading state economist sees slow growth, high unemployment through 2013
Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, has been one of the most sobering — and most accurate — guides to the Georgia economy in recent years. While all…
How late should live music start? 10? 11? Midnight?
In my Savannah Morning News column today, I grapple with the question “Live music: Does it have to start so late?” In my opinion, the short answer is no, but it’s a really complex question, the answers to which involve…
Georgia governor, Atlanta mayor headed to DC to lobby for port dredging, passenger rail funding
Well some very interesting news this morning from Jim Galloway at the AJC’s Political Insider. According to Galloway, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed are headed next week to Washington “for a strategy session on Port of…
Embedded video for Savannah Music Festival’s campaign to support Swing Central Jazz
Attending one great Savannah Music Festival performance after another, it’s easy to forget about the SMF’s tremendous education efforts. The most important of those efforts might be Swing Central Jazz, an ambitious effort to bring high school jazz bands to…
What a severe recession and a weak recovery look like in just one graph
The Chicago Fed releases a monthly index for national economic activity. Their latest release: Index shows economic activity weakened in April. Now, that’s not to say that activity contracted as it would during a recession, but the pace of growth…