It doesn’t take a deep dive into the business location industry to discover the truth about economic development. Walmart moved years ago to a more central Camden location at its present site leaving its older, smaller store for redevelopment. As we all know, the entire shopping center has struggled since. But moving from one retail location to a new location in the same town does not create new jobs. Sure, if the store is larger or more successful, there will be a few more jobs, but the increase is not "economic development" where a new industry paying NEW wages is brought into Camden County. Nor is moving government services from several locations into the old Walmart real "economic development" except that the workers will have a few closer restaurants for lunch. What we normally think of as "Economic Development" produces a real increase in real Gross Domestic Product and permanent jobs that are not dependent on government spending.
The factors that drive site location for non-government businesses are - access to key inputs, trained and trainable workers, suppliers, and customers - will vary depending on the nature of the company's products or services. Three-gigabyte thingies are cutting-edge high-tech, so they need to be close to a research university or government lab, usually in a large metro area with cultural amenities. Titanium thingies require a lot of electricity, so they need a place with cheap (probably hydro) power. Software thingies require a lot of code writers, so they'll go to a city with similar companies, a labor market with code writers. Commodity thingies have very competitive pricing, so they need a place where labor is cheap. Chemical thingies require a lot of oil, so they need to be in an oil patch, or where imports arrive. Paper thingies need to be near forests and fresh water. Cartoon thingies are drawn by cartoonists who are mostly concentrated in the cities where the other 364 cartoon companies are located. Thingie Hydrogen just needs our fresh aquifer water and heavy-duty electricity supply imported from distant solar fields. (Adapted from The Great American Jobs Scam by Greg Leroy)
In 2004, Camden County Development Authority agreed to invest $564,000 and Georgia spent $994,000 to renovate the former Walmart for Express Scripts. Taxpayers paid to install the computer wiring and make other changes to accommodate the Express Scripts call center. Express Scripts abandoned Camden County when they figured a way for their Camden County employees to work from home, or from anywhere in the USA. Does anyone remember the development authority announcing when Express Scripts’ closed here? In addition to the freedom from paying property tax for the first 10 years, Express Scripts made a fast $1.8 million when they recently sold the building to the City of St Marys. In the same year that Express Scripts opened, Jobs Scam included an entire chapter about this type of ‘temporary’ economic development.
In 1801, Camden County missed out on an important new industry. The brand-new US Navy would have built a naval shipyard in St Marys (using Camden County Live Oak lumber!) to build one of the first US Navy ships-of-the-line. It would be a sister ship to the USS Constitution, nicknamed ‘Old Ironsides’ because French cannonballs bounced off her sturdy Georgia-Live Oak hull. But we didn’t have enough shipwrights (carpenters skilled in ship construction) so the Charleston shipyard built the ship.
Another factor, although we have no evidence that it was in play for Express Scripts, Spaceport Camden, or Airport Camden, is that some site location consultants work on commission; that is, they get paid largely or in part by a percentage of the subsidies they negotiate for the company – as much as 30 percent of the subsidy package. (Jobs Scam, page 57) And of course, if they can convince local authorities that a spaceport or airport is in the future, they can get a gig that lasts for years and years, spaceport or not.
You get the idea. Companies actually base their decisions on Business Basics - affordable supply of key inputs, the right mix of potential workers, and proximity to suppliers and customers, but far less often on the availability of an airport next door. Unless they build flying thingies.
County Administrator Boatright must think that every company needs an airport, or the Camden County Joint Development Authority’s messaging is limited to businesses that use a company plane to fly executives from place to place. But of the over 115,000 US companies with more than 100 workers, only 22,000 or so own an airplane. Hardly "always."
More likely, for almost a decade, Camden government was almost totally committed to the space industry. If a business wasn’t space-related their owners figured Camden wouldn’t be a good Business Basics match. And most companies don’t want to compete with Elon Musk-type salaries. Space sucked all the opportunity out of Camden County.
So now, for four of our five commissioners, it’s spend millions for an airport-thingie.
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