Seventy years of dominating economic development in the world’s largest economy
By Michael C. Randle
In 1998, in the middle of an intense Dot.com and semiconductor recruiting era in the South, a young San Antonio Express-News reporter asked me a simple question: “Is the South ‘poised’ to become the nation’s economic engine, therefore the worlds?”
I was kind of taken aback by the question, like I always am when someone wants me to make a speech and the subject suggested is “The progress going on in the ‘New South.”’ I told the San Antonio newspaper, “Bro, the South was poised to become the economic engine of the largest economy in the world in the 1960s and 1970s.”
I mean, really, “Progress” in the “New South?” Don’t blink! The South, at least through 2026, is experiencing a massive wave of economic development projects that never seems to end. Here are some sample headlines near the end of calendar year 2024.
1. “The Southern Automotive Corridor takes down Detroit.” — Southern Business & Development
2. Site Selectors Survey: “Why site selectors love the South.” — Site Selection
3. “The South sweeps first five high growth states in the U.S.” U-Haul Growth Index 2024
4. “Sorry, Harvard. Everyone Wants to Go to College in the South Now.” — The Wall Street Journal
5. “EV Boom Remakes Rural Towns in the American South” — The Wall Street Journal
6. “Hard News and Honky-Tonks: How to Cover the American South” — The New York Times
7. “Dear Black Americans, Please Move to the South” — The New York Times
8. “The evolution of the Southern economic development strategy” — Economic Policy Institute To me, the “New South” can be categorized as the last remnants of any stereotyping or innuendo that exists today toward our once dirt-poor region.
“The New South” has a peculiar, cheap ring to it that suggests native Southerners are turning in their two Dixie cups and a string for a rotary phone. That was the “New South” to me. I have and never will use the phrase “The New South.”
The South Rules All Region in Economic Development
This juggernaut has blown past and boat-raced the other three U.S. regions over the last 40 years and there is no sign of a slowdown except what we found in the last two quarters of 2025 and especially the first two quarters of 2026. Yes, even the threat of tariffs and the subsequent tariff implementation has affected all U.S. regions; just the South, not as much.
Then again, I am surprised stereotyping even exists today since about half the South is home to millions of folks from up North. And we like that. Migration to the warm regions of the South makes us more prosperous, so welcome!
The in-migration from other states outside the South to the South since 1955 has been enormous. In fact, this will blow your mind: In 70 years (see charts below), or since 1955, the South has added more residents than the total populations of the Northeast, Midwest combined.
Repeat: The American South has gained more residents after 1955 to today than the populations of Midwest and Northeast combined. To prove that, in 1955 all three regions had about the same population: right at 50 million. Today, the South has over 130 people, more than double the Northeast and Midwest populations collectively. You cannot have prime economic development without people, of if a region is losing population like many states in the Midwest and Northeast.
The New South?
New South? The Old South died in 1865. The “New South” earned that name during the industrial revolution in the early 1900s and it was solidified by Atlanta being chosen in the 1960s by the FAA as the nation’s first domestic airline hub.
And no, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is not a Southern tourist attraction, but Elvis still has his gig going on up in Memphis and in Tupelo.
What to call the South today is so far beyond the “New South.” The region is such an economic development juggernaut in that the South leads the other three regions in virtually every financial and demographic statistic the federal government covers, both in services and manufacturing.
I mean, if there was an economic development war between regions, the South and the West stand out, while the Midwest and Northeast fall short in retaining residents, tax base, capturing deals and of course, creating higher incomes (see charts below).
Wages are stagnant in the Midwest and have been for a while now, with annual average incomes actually decreasing in some states.
But there can only be one No. 1 and that has been the South for decades and will be for decades to come.
The South is an economic development juggernaut
The region bests far and away all U.S. regions in exports, GDP, in-migration, population and other critical statistics that make an economy go. The South is dominant to the point that its annual GDP totals earned it the “World’s Third Largest Economy” about 17 years ago and every year since; third to only China and the U.S. based on GDP in the world.
So, essentially, in just, 70 years, the South has added more people to its population (80 million) than the current overall populations of the Northeast and Midwest.
The South’s collective GDP had skyrocketed almost overnight in the mid-to-late 1990s, blowing past the other three U.S. regions by 1998.
The South was ‘poised’ to become the economic engine of the world’s largest economy in the 1960s when Atlanta won the first international and domestic airport hub in the U.S. Few realize Birmingham was the FAA’s first choice and leaders there turned the hub down in the early 1960s. And certainly we were “more than poised” by 1980 when the new Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport opened and became the busiest airport in the world and has been every year since 1998.
In fact, there were many projects in the South that helped us become “poised” long ago to be the third largest economy in the world. But nobody can say the “New South” without pointing out the Atlanta airport in the 1960s and 1970s. That was the first real beachhead the South built for further regional growth. We became poised then to dominate North American economic development.
Other developments that made the South “poised” to be the economic engine of the U.S. A few others have staked large Southern claims that you might recognize. One would be FedEx’s international hub and world headquarters opening in Memphis in 1973.
About 34,000 people work in the Memphis area at the company the late Fred Smith launched when many of you were in elementary school, or not even born yet.
And the largest UPS hub in the world was being developed in the 1990s and in 2022, the shipping company called its Louisville delivery hub facility, “WorldPort.”
You can make a strong argument that Walt Disney World in Central Florida, based on sheer employment (about 100,000 in Central Florida), moved the South up the “poised” meter on October 1, 1971, when it opened, especially the tourists it draws from places all over the world.
Those are some of the largest employers in the American South and in the U.S. and their foundations set the South up as so much more than “poised” decades later. In fact, Disney’s Orlando operation is the largest single-employer in the United States.
The South, where economic development was invented
The Southern region of the U.S. had laid the foundation in that economic development was invented in the South in the 1930s and 1940s (Fantus, BAWI in Mississippi, etc.).
There have been several books on the subject written by James C. Cobb, Edward A. Pollard, Mark Williams, Neal Wade, myself and Joe Hollingsworth.
Then, more Southern states joined the government-backed economic development bandwagon by WWII and even more after. I am sure that effort kept going even more strongly in the 1950s through the 1960s when so many economic development strategies were being formed in the region because at the time, we were still the poorest region of the country.
The facts are the South invented the practice of economic development out of necessity. We were dirt poor for almost 100 years after the end of the Civil War and tariffs were placed on manufactured goods made in the South that were shipped up North. Those tariffs did not exist for Northern manufacturers to export their goods to the South.
Let’s look at what professional economic developers and their colleagues have accomplished in the South in the last 70 years I won’t bore you with economic statistics from the 1950s and 1960s. They are sketchy at best. There have been plenty of books written about the Amazing South’s industry recruitment’s prowess. Let’s just say the American South was being “kept down home, cuz” by a few federal laws — mainly tariffs on our goods shipped up North — as well as its economy remaining more than half agrarian back then.
Gaze and study these regional statistics comparing the regions from 1955 to 2024.
Population by Region 2024
South — 128.6 million (+84 million)
West — 81.1 million (+57.6 million)
Midwest — 70.4 million (+21.6 million)
Northeast — 67.4 million (+21.2 million)
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, World Population Review
Population by Region 1950
Midwest — 48.8 million
Northeast — 46.2 million
South — 44.1 million
West — 23.5 million
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, World Population Review
The South has a wide lead over the other three U.S. regions in exports, tripling export totals from the Northeast.
Exports by Region 2024
South — $921 billion
Midwest — $380 billion
West — $369 billion
Northeast — $282 billion
Exports by Region 2023
South — $920 billion
Midwest — $360 billion
West — $353 billion
Northeast — $291 billion
Source: Various federal agencies, Statista
The South’s lead in GDP is not nearly as wide as it is in exports shown above.
Gross Domestic Product by Region 2024
South — $9.4 trillion
West — $8.25 trillion
Northeast — $7.1 trillion
Midwest — $6.5 trillion
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
Personal income growth of 4.2 percent in the South led all U.S. regions in 2024.
Personal Income Growth by Region 2024
South — 4.2 percent
Northeast — 3.4 percent
West — 2.7 percent
Midwest — 1.6 percent
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Q2, Q3, 2024
This shows you how far the South’s economy has come in 70 years. Tracking 1955 incomes was difficult to triple verify. But we believe the numbers below are accurate.
Note that the U.S. Commerce Department separated annual incomes between White and Nonwhite residents. That is also done today.
But check the annual incomes in the four U.S. regions below. A nonwhite in the South in 1955 didn’t average even $1,000 a year in average annual income. And look at average annual incomes per region in 1955 with the South pulling up the rear, which it had done for 100 years prior.
Personal Annual Income by Region 1955
White Nonwhite Average
Midwest $3,738 $3,295 $3,516
Northeast $3,686 $2,903 $3,295
West $3,833 $2,590 $3,211
South $2,962 $997 $1,979
Source: United States Department of Commerce
Conclusion
So, the income figures of 1955, that is the era I call the “New South.” What should be call this era, with the South beating the pants off all other U.S. regions? The only thing I can think of is the South is an economic juggernaut in so many different ways.
