ABSTRACT
In 1971, a group of Southern governors created an organization charged with accelerating growth in the region and making sure that it is done in such a way that it improves the quality of life. There are a number of unique characteristics of the rural South that should have provided early warning of poor economic performance. Southern cities continued to grow fester than Southern towns and villages—in population, jobs, and per capita income. Despite the number of jobs created in the South in the period from 1950 to 1980, the quality of many of those jobs has been marginal. In 1984, the Southern Growth Policies Board, which took early notice of the developing economic problems in the nonmetro South, began to analyze employment patterns. In the period from 1982 to 1984, employment in the metro counties in the South continued to grow about 65 percent fester than employment in nonmetro counties.
