{"id":4570,"date":"2012-12-30T11:38:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T16:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=4570"},"modified":"2012-12-30T11:38:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T16:38:58","slug":"wheres-the-savannah-economy-headed-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/12\/30\/wheres-the-savannah-economy-headed-in-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Where&#8217;s the Savannah economy headed in 2013?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"10\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:600px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"8268618372\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<br \/>\nMy Sunday City Talk column today details the reasons behind my fairly upbeat predictions for the Savannah area economy in 2013: <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/exchange\/2012-12-29\/predictions-savannah-economy-2013#.UOBlY478-gw\" target=\"_blank\">Predictions for the Savannah economy in 2013<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I wrote that column on Thursday &#8212; that&#8217;s my usual Sunday deadline &#8212; so I didn&#8217;t know at the time that the potential strike by longshoremen at East Coast ports had been avoided for at least 30 days.<\/p>\n<p>The other big variable that I discuss early on is the so-called &#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221;, which remains unresolved. As I&#8217;ve written before, Obama and Boehner were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/12\/20\/tonight-in-the-fiscal-cliff-boehner-calls-off-vote-on-plan-b\/\" target=\"_blank\">within a hair&#8217;s breadth of crafting a deal<\/a>, but that collapsed because of the inflexible Republican caucus in the House. It looks likely now that we&#8217;ll see a somewhat smaller package of tax increases but perhaps more spending cuts &#8212; at least in the short-term &#8212; than the Obama\/Boehner deal would have contained. <\/p>\n<p>That likely result is certainly going to be a drag on the nation&#8217;s economy, but I doubt that it will push us back into recession.<\/p>\n<p>I touch briefly upon local politics in today&#8217;s column, but I should also emphasize that good decisions at the local level could really help the local economy accelerate.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m hopeful that city staff learned something from their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/03\/16\/city-takes-aim-at-the-savannah-slow-ride-again\/\" target=\"_blank\">terrible handling of the controversy early in 2012 about the Savannah Slow Ride<\/a> and their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/09\/15\/savannah-horse-carriage-tours-where-should-they-wait-if-forced-to-leave-city-market\/\" target=\"_blank\">initially poor handling of the issue of horse carriages in City Market<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We do a lot of things right in Savannah in terms of the signals we send to young entrepreneurs, but we cannot allow bureaucratic nightmares &#8212; including overly cumbersome inspections and approval processes &#8212; to drive away investment. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/JohnnyMercerStatue-e1351345460934.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"3992\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/10\/27\/hutchinson-island-racetrack-a-terrible-partner-for-savannahs-historic-downtown-marketed-for-its-charm\/johnnymercerstatue\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/JohnnyMercerStatue-e1351345460934.jpeg?fit=400%2C255\" data-orig-size=\"400,255\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"JohnnyMercerStatue\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/JohnnyMercerStatue-e1351345460934.jpeg?fit=300%2C191\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/JohnnyMercerStatue-e1351345460934.jpeg?fit=400%2C255\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/JohnnyMercerStatue-e1351345460934.jpeg?resize=400%2C255\" alt=\"JohnnyMercerStatue\" width=\"400\" height=\"255\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3992\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>I think Mayor Edna Jackson has set a great tone in these regards, and I think she&#8217;s listening to some smart people. I think the city might have made a few positive strides even under former City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney, and I&#8217;m sure hopeful that acting City Manager Stephanie Cutter understands the importance of having an upbeat, vital small business sector that is supported by the city, not hindered by it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4374909701\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m hopeful that city staff learned something from their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/03\/16\/city-takes-aim-at-the-savannah-slow-ride-again\/\" target=\"_blank\">terrible handling of the controversy early in 2012 about the Savannah Slow Ride<\/a> and their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/09\/15\/savannah-horse-carriage-tours-where-should-they-wait-if-forced-to-leave-city-market\/\" target=\"_blank\">initially poor handling of the issue of horse carriages in City Market<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/12\/30\/wheres-the-savannah-economy-headed-in-2013\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/392460_10150685680329103_103600253_n-1.jpeg?fit=400%2C265","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-1bI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4570"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}