Sad news for the newspaper world today, and especially sad news for residents of New Orleans.
New Orleans Times-Picayune to cut print edition to 3 days per week, launches ugliest website ever
Category: Economics
New data shows homes underwater, county by county
In Chatham County (Savannah), 37% of mortgages are underwater. Most counties in metro Atlanta top 50%.
No surprise in Facebook stock decline
But the social network’s power to capture and hold users is still spectacular, at least for now.
AJC looks at likely effectiveness of proposed transportation sales tax
“If some spots edge toward transformation, that’s a bonus. Regionwide, metro drivers in 2025 would waste 128,000 fewer hours in traffic each day than they would if the referendum doesn’t pass, the ARC found.
But they’d still waste 1.8 million hours a day.”
Politico: Panama Canal expansion turns into ‘money grab’
“It’s all a money grab,†said Tom Finkbiner, senior chairman of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver. “The competition becomes between ports and it goes to Washington and you have to justify why you are spending this money. So it becomes an excuse.â€
Student loan debt around the country
The New York Times has excellent coverage with some great graphics today detailing the student loan debt burden for private and public colleges across America. The average Armstrong graduate has $19,000 in debt; the average SCAD graduate $39,000.
WSJ: Unemployment rate would be 7.1% without government cuts
Like it or not, government jobs have traditionally been good, stable ones, and we have been used to those jobs expanding in number as the population grows.
What do these cuts look like in the real world? Last month, almost 1600 people showed up for a city government job fair in Savannah, although the city only had 22 openings.
A closer look at the declining labor force participation rate
The declining labor force participation rate is largely the result of well-documented long-term demographic trends that we’ve known about for decades.
Does “Whole Foods Effect” spur business investment and neighborhood revitalization?
In the second half of my City Talk column today, I wrote about the symbolic importance of Savannah getting a Whole Foods. Coincidentally, a Facebook friend yesterday sent me a great piece from Salon: Whole Foods is coming? Time to buy
April employment report: mediocre job gains as unemployment rate slips to 8.1%
Estimates vary widely, but the 115,000 jobs added in April in the U.S. is about the number needed to keep pace with population growth.
So that’s not a disastrous number under normal circumstances, but it looks pretty bad considering the deep hole we still need to climb out of.
Savannah City Council approves One West Victory development
One West Victory, with plans for 121 apartments as well as a relatively small amount of commercial space at the corner of Victory Drive and Bull Street, won fairly easy approval at today’s City Council meeting. I’m a little surprised by the investment that Jamestown and Greenstreet Properties is willing to make there, but I’m generally thrilled about it.
Whose is bigger? McClatchy takes a long look at U.S. port depths and locations
If you’re interested in the ongoing debates, controversies, costs, and risks regarding dredging the Savannah River from 42′ to 47′, check out this interesting piece today by Curtis Tate of McClatchy Newspapers: As states seek funds for deeper ports, will ships come in?
It’s official: Whole Foods coming to Savannah
Whole Foods Market announced officially today that it’s coming to the former Backus Cadillac property in Savannah.
Euro area unemployment rises to 10.9%, in another sign of misguided policies
It’s been like watching a slow-motion — and entirely preventable — train wreck: extreme austerity measures aren’t leading Europe to prosperity but driving the continent’s economy into the ground. This has seemed pretty obvious for a long time, but European policy makers have seemed somehow blind to the problem.