Atlanta enjoys best job growth in five years

Source: The Atlanta Business Chronicle

Price Waterhouse Cooper Atlanta office could see 20 percent employment growth in two to three years. Photo credit: Byron E. Small

Atlanta just saw its best stretch of job growth in five years — and for some employment sectors the best period since the late 1990s.

The improvement in the jobs picture comes after months of local and national employment data that showed Atlanta was lagging other metro areas whose job growth was recovering much faster. But, the initial data did a poor job of tracking the birth and death of companies, causing the numbers to miss the mark.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics data originally showed greater Atlanta losing 17,600 non-farm jobs and the state losing 15,600 last year. Atlanta actually added 34,300 jobs in 2011, Georgia 35,000.

Georgia’s upward revision was the largest of any state, said Jeff Humphreys, economist at the Terry College of Business at The University of Georgia.

These are very encouraging numbers,” Humphreys said.

Atlanta recently completed its strongest stretch of employment growth since 2007, netting 68,400 jobs from January 2011 to January 2012, said Wells Fargo Securities LLC economist Mark Vitner, whose March 5 report on the revisions was titled: “Georgia’s recovery kicked into high gear during 2011.”

Atlanta’s job growth has appeared anything but in high gear.

Even so, for the year-over-year period ending January 2012, some of Atlanta’s job sectors saw their strongest expansion since the ’90s.

For example, 26,200 jobs were created in professional and business services in Atlanta, the best mark since June 1999 when 29,700 jobs were added over a one-year stretch, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.

Professional and business services help form the backbone of the metro Atlanta economy and includes law, accounting and engineering firms.

Among these is Pricewaterhouse- Coopers LLP, which expects by mid-2012 to move about 1,100 employees into new offices at the 1075 Peachtree building in Midtown. The Atlanta office could also see 20 percent employment growth in the next two to three years.

Another was North Highland, a Buckhead consulting firm, which has said it’s posting double-digit growth, creating the need to expand its headquarters. It chose to relocate to the Terminus 200 office tower in Buckhead last year.

Deloitte LLP’s consulting revenues have led the firm’s other business areas the past two years.

“Business services lives off the good fortune of others, so this tells me, in part, that the economic recovery is sustained and broadening,” Humphreys said.

Also during that January-to-January stretch, the trade, transportation and utilities sector added 20,300 jobs in Atlanta, the best since December 2006, the labor department said.

That sector includes retailers, airlines, railways, freight and warehousing, among other employers.

The sector’s growth was illustrated by a big March jobs announcement: Australian supply-chain logistics company CHEP will move its U.S. headquarters to metro Atlanta from Orlando, Fla., and bring with it 173 corporate jobs.

The CHEP USA headquarters will be in Dunwoody, Ga.

Atlanta saw 12,800 jobs added in education and health services during that same January-to-January stretch. That sector, economists have predicted, will help lead Atlanta out of the downturn. The last time it added that many jobs over one year was in March 2006, when it expanded by 14,500 jobs, the Labor Department said.

Manufacturing also added 5,800 jobs in metro Atlanta from January to January — the most since October 1995. The growth is a salve to the region, which has suffered major setbacks to its manufacturing employment base since the late ’90s, with the closings of the Ford Motor Co. plant in Hapeville, Ga., and the GM plant in Doraville, Ga.

“Compared to last year, we are seeing a lot more activity in manufacturing,” said Brooks Mathis, vice president of economic development for the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.

Its economic development teams are working on projects that reflect broad-based growth, including manufacturing, international companies seeking to expand in metro Atlanta, and existing companies that also want to grow.

“These are fast-moving projects,” Mathis said. “They see an economy that has become more positive, and they see that they are finally able to start growing again.”

Economists, though, want to temper too much enthusiasm.

Wells Fargo cautioned the pace of job growth between January 2011 and January 2012 might not reflect a true picture of the speed at which the recovery is happening.

Such strong growth in professional services also suggests that rather than hiring, companies are still outsourcing their work, using temporary staff, or both, Humphreys said.

“It suggests there is still uncertainty out there, and uncertainty has been a hallmark of this recovery,” he said.

There remains a 35 percent chance the nation could still suffer a back-to-back recession, Humphreys said, citing worries related to oil prices and the global financial markets.

Humphreys, though, said he dropped his chances of another recession from 45 percent.

The upward revisions do lessen the blow that Georgia’s economy suffered since 2007, though not by much.

Georgia lost more than 222,000 jobs in 2009 alone. It was going to take the state until 2020 to get back all the jobs lost since the recession.

“Now we’re looking at 2018,” Humphreys said.

Where the jobs are

Atlanta’s fastest-growing jobs sectors January 2011 to January 2012:

• Professional and business services 26,200 jobs
• Trade, transportation and utilities 20,300 jobs
• Education and health services 12,800 jobs

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Bicycle commuting in Atlanta grew faster than anywhere else in the United States

Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle Saporta Report

When it came to riding bicycles to work, the City of Atlanta enjoyed the highest rate of increase in the nation between 2000 and 2009, according to a report released by the Alliance for Biking & Walking.

The report showed that bicycle commuting in the City of Atlanta increased by 386 percent in that decade.

But one of the reasons Atlanta’s numbers were so strong was because its base was so low.

Less than 1 percent of Atlanta residents ride their bicycles to work, according to American Community Survey data. It’s no coincidence that only 1 percent of federal transportation tax dollars spent in Atlanta were invested in bicycle and pedestrian projects.

“A much greater investment is needed in biking and walking to increase active transportation,” said Jeffrey Miller, president and CEO of the Alliance for Biking and Walking. “The Benchmarking Report shows that biking and walking are smart and cost-effective solutions that will pay for themselves many times over in healthcare savings and impact on local economies.”

According to the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, Atlanta’s preliminary investments in bicycling and walking have already resulted in a more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly city.

Edgewood Avenue underwent a “road diet” in 2004 that included bike lanes. Today the street is the city’s most popular bike route, according to biannual bicycle traffic counts.

Click here to search for intown homes convenient to Edgewood Avenue. 

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Urban agriculture movement — a healthy trend for Atlanta

Source: Business Chronicle. By SUSAN VARLAMOFF, director of the Office of Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia

SUSAN VARLAMOFF

Social, health, economic and environmental factors now feed a grassroots movement to convert vacant lots across Atlanta into farms and community gardens.

Atlanta is ripe for urban agriculture. It has a high unemployment rate and homelessness abounds. Food deserts, where fresh food is nonexistent, cover half the city. The state ranks No. 2 in obesity, largely due to poor diets.

The movement is supported by the Atlanta Local Food Initiative, which encourages consumers to request locally grown food in their supermarkets and restaurants.

Environmentalists see no sense in transporting lettuce from a California farm to an Atlanta table, leaving a wake of greenhouse gas emissions behind, when it can be grown in Georgia and in the city.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed will break ground on the Trinity Ave. farm across from City Hall in 2012 to show anyone wandering down its paths how to grow vegetables and fruits in their own backyards or neighborhood lots.

Atlanta BeltLine’s leaders are investing in farms and community gardens along the transit’s green corridor to bring fresh food to nearby neighborhoods and restaurants.

The English Ave. neighborhood, where foreclosures and abandoned homes litter the landscape, will undergo a renaissance.

Entrepreneurs collaborating with the Prince Charles Foundation (yes, Prince of Whales of the United Kingdom) will upgrade the homes to LEED standards and locate an organic farm, a fresh market and food hub in the neighborhood.

The Atlanta Mission, the city’s largest homeless shelter, now boasts a community garden where the men cultivate vegetables year round to supply the mission’s kitchen with fresh food.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences provides technical assistance to rural farmers. Today, CAES is seeing a huge surge in requests for assistance on how to grow food in the city.

Most importantly, Mayor Reed provides the bold leadership to make Atlanta a model for sustainable urban agriculture. Through his “Power to Change” sustainability plan, he pledges to bring local food within 10 minutes of 75 percent of all residents by 2020. The Trinity Avenue farm is a down payment on this promise.

Growing food in the city requires more than just digging a hole, placing a plant and reaping the harvest. Urban sites are a challenge. Soils may be toxic from previous uses, tall buildings may shade the lot making vegetable gardening difficult and the land may be covered in concrete and asphalt. And if vegetation is sparse, bees needed to pollinate the plants may be absent.

Urban farming reaps many benefits.

Rashid Nuri, nonprofit director of Truly Living Well, employs 40 people on his six farms and community gardens. They supply fresh food to south Atlanta food deserts and to high-end restaurants such as Empire State South and Restaurant Eugene’s.

Wheat Street Garden in the Historic Fourth Ward with downtown skyline in background

Wheat Street Garden in the historic Fourth Ward area is now a safe community-gathering place that was once a hangout for the homeless and sex and drug traffickers.

The Atlanta Community Food Bank distributes canned food to the disadvantaged and has seen a 34 percent increase in 2011 over the previous year. However, a steady diet of processed food, often high in sugar and salt, leads to obesity. So, they have launched 175 community gardens to supply fresh food to the poor.

Environmental benefits are many. Shortening the transport from farm to table reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Through photosynthesis, a process in which plants make their own food, plants absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and release oxygen used by humans in respiration. Plants cool the air through transpiration and can reduce the urban heat island.

Lastly, cultivating fertile soil to grow food takes carbon out the air and stores it in the earth reducing the effects of climate change.

Urban farming is not a new phenomenon. During the 1893-1897 economic recession, Detroit Mayor Haze Pingree instituted potato patches to feed the poor and employ the unemployed while saving the city money in social services.

In World War I and II, Liberty Gardens and Victory Gardens produced million of pounds of food from backyards and vacant lots. Today, with the Great Recession and environmental issues looming large, urban agriculture makes even more sense.

As the poster child for sprawl, metro Atlanta has plenty of open spaces for farms and community gardens.

Rashid Nuri, nonprofit director of Truly Living Well, employs 40 people on his six farms and community gardens

Due to its warm climate and long growing season, food can be grown year round. Right now lettuce, broccoli, cabbage and kale are growing in downtown Atlanta. According to Nuri, the demand for local food far outstrips the supply.

Since colonial days, agriculture has been Georgia’s leading industry, worth $69 billion annually. CAES has supported this industry successfully for 150 years through its research, teaching and outreach programs.

The college maintains a laboratory to help farmers and gardeners to test their soil and water to be sure it is contaminant-free and contains the right nutrients and pH for sustaining their plants. If there is a problem, scientists provide recommendations to improve it.

No one organization can do the job. It will take a coalition of academics, municipal agencies, community leaders and nonprofits to provide the technical assistance, regulation and oversight, community organizing, funding and education to develop and implement a strategy.

New York and Philadelphia have commissioned studies to determine the potential for urban agriculture within their cities. The studies serve as a blueprint to site gardens in areas where fresh food is most needed and where the land is most suited for cultivation.

Atlanta has strong leadership, a robust local food movement and countless organizations needed to create a sustainable urban environment by connecting people to their food systems.

Our success lies in our ability to convene the players, plan the strategy and systematically work the plan until fresh food is available to all Atlantans regardless of where they live.

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Homebuyers, Now May Be Best Time Ever

Atlanta Business Chronicle recently published the article below on the state of the Atlanta real estate market provided by David Boehmig, the President and Founder of Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty. 

David Boehmig, President and Founder of Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby's International Realty

Home sales, along with job growth and improving consumer confidence, are three of the most important keys in our economy’s ability to show a steady, sustained recovery. This past week, it was reported that the Atlanta residential housing market was dealt another blow and that home values continue to plummet. In terms of average sales price at the lower price point of the housing market, this is true. However, there are plenty of nuggets of encouraging news that don’t seem to be making it to the light of day. In reality, I believe we are forming the foundation of a steady period of recovery that we may look back on and realize was the bottom of the Atlanta housing market.

Here are some facts: Across all price points in the six-county metropolitan area (defined as Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cherokee and Forsyth counties) through the first 10 months of this year, as compared to the first 10 months of 2010, the inventory of available homes (single-family residences and condominiums) for sale in the city’s largest MLS, First MLS, is down by 23.7 percent. Falling inventory is one of the components that make up a value environment of increasing prices as less housing inventory on the market means there is more competition for homes. Over the past year, the number of months of inventory of available homes for sale, determined by the number of homes that sell during the period, has dropped from an 11- to 12-month supply, to seven or eight months. In other words, based on the current level of sales activity, it would take seven to eight months to absorb all of the homes currently on the market. As the month’s supply of homes on the market approaches six months, we will then begin to shift from the buyer’s market that we are currently in to more of a balanced market between buyers and sellers. Another component indicative of recovery is the number of homes being sold. So far this year, over 4,400 more homes have sold and closed than in the same period last year. If these trends continue, basic economics teaches that the laws of supply and demand will kick in, and prices will begin to rise.

What is more interesting, however, is what is happening in our market below the surface of these “overall” statistics. When I drill down and examine the market by price ranges, a pattern begins to emerge. The pattern is that, in general, across the metro Atlanta area, the higher the price range of house, the stronger the signal of recovery emerges. For example, as compared to the recent overall value reports, when you look at only those homes priced over $250,000, instead of values dropping by the overall 9 percent, the average prices actually rose over the last 10 months by 2.5 percent. That’s quite a swing. In reality, for many homes in our market area, the average sales prices are steadily increasing. Just as it is difficult to base local housing values on national statistics, it is not accurate to use overall market statistics for Atlanta to determine what is happening with values in a particular community.

So, what does all this mean? One, if you cull out the lower-priced houses in our Atlanta housing market, you come up with not only lower inventory levels and higher numbers of homes sold, but also modest increases in average sales prices. Secondly, and most importantly, a few months from now when buyers feel that sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach and look in the rearview mirror, they just might realize they missed one of the best opportunities to buy residential real estate they may ever have.

Click here to see the article from the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

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