A Prologue to 2020
It has been hard to focus lately. I’ve always been someone with many oars in the water. I started the year working my job, running errands, and taking care of a couple of properties. By March I was a full-time caregiver, still running errands, trying to prepare a garden, and taking care of those properties. In May I was back to my job, being a part-time caregiver, still running errands, trying to garden, and still taking care of those properties. That all continued throughout the rest of the year, but come December I became the infirmed myself, and to finish out the year I’ve had to focus on my well-being. Yeah, having a lot of oars in the water won’t get you much of anywhere if those oars aren’t paddling in the same direction.
I think that many of us
have dealt with these issues over the past year. The population of our area has
aged and so we 40 and 50 and 60 somethings have to look out for our parents who
are 70 and 80 years old and need some assistance. It’s just the reality of the
world we live in. When you throw in the healthy (really unhealthy) dose of
paranoia brought on by the Coronavirus Pandemic, then it becomes mentally
draining. The energy needed to make life work is incredible and much of the
energy for these tasks, we don’t want to do, feels like we are wasting time.
It’s like we are doing the same thing over and over again and not accomplishing
much, so it isn’t fulfilling. I think many of us are burned out by all that has
gone on in 2020.
The Surface
I haven’t written one of these State of Hickory pieces in 5 years. I think if you go back and read them, you will understand that these documents are written with sincerity. I think much of what has been written has stood the test of time and has credibility. What I write here is what I see, read, and hear about the goings-on in this community and what I sense about the present, and what it projects for its future. Unlike what you get with so-called “Journalism” these days, these words that I put down aren’t meant to fulfill a company agenda or to make sure that I don’t upset certain people. These words are meant to paint a picture of reality.
When it comes to Hickory, on the surface, you see some good things that have happened like the new multi-use apartment building and facility across from City Hall called One North Center. There has been a lot of energy that has gone into that project. According to articles in the Hickory Daily Record, the developer will have invested at least $15.5 million in the project as part of its agreement with the city. The city in turn agreed to spend $3.5 million, primarily for structural improvements to the site. The City was paid $240,000 for the property, which they had owned and used as city parking for years.
The property does look nice and it will fill a niche for those seeking luxury and who desire that trendy downtown lifestyle that many other communities have developed over time. The people interested in living at One North Center are excited because they feel like they are pioneering stakeholders in Hickory becoming like other trendy cities in the region. This developed as part of the movement promulgated by the local Powers That Be over the past decade. These are the same folks that pushed forward the Boost Hickory group that got the $40 million Bond initiative passed in 2014.
As part of the Union Square revitalization projects we have seen over the past decade, tons of concrete has been poured to further urbanize and restructure the area that centers around the courtyard of Union Square. The folks that are energized about the apartment development across from City Hall have been super excited to see the cleaner and wider sidewalk that is the Citywalk. Local officials point to the completion of these projects as examples of a community moving forward, achieving goals, and making economic progress.
Of late, coming into Catawba County on Highway 321 from Caldwell County – Granite Falls, Lenoir, the mountains – as one crosses the bridge and looks to the left, we can now see the pylons put into the ground that is the foundation for the Riverwalk. If you drive River Road in the Lakeland Park Neighborhood, then you can see activity taking place at Geitner Park. One of the bright spots for years in our community has been the success of the parks out along the river. Geitner Park, Rotary Park, and Glenn Hilton Park have been facilities that Hickory’s citizenry have enjoyed for decades and Hickory Inc. tells us that they are committed to investing more in these assets to make them even better in the years ahead.
We also see the Business Park named the Trivium Corporate Center located in Southeast Hickory crossing Interstate 40 and heading down Startown road towards Highway 321 South. This business center is located between Startown Road and Robinwood Road less than 2 miles from the Interstate 40, Highway 70, Startown Road intersection. Looking at the maps provided by Catawba County’s Economic Development Corporation, one sees that there are currently nine large proposed developments within this property and room for more sub lots. Of the nine large developments, four are already filled and these are the type of high-tech manufacturing facilities, with good-paying jobs, that our community has long desired. The projects already in the works represent right at 500 jobs and over $150 million to be invested in our area.
What has been expressed to the community is that hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in Hickory and there are promises of more to come. Infrastructure is being built that will make Hickory more modern and appealing. Jobs are coming to the area that we have needed and desired for a long time. We are seeing residential developments being constructed that are in demand by the well-to-do and will make the heart of the city convey a small town of prosperity, sort of like The Wizard of Oz’s allegory about the Emerald City.
The Middle
In the five years since I last composed one of these articles about our community’s condition, the economic landscape has certainly changed. Manufacturing was able to make a comeback during President Trump’s first 3 years in office with a focus on reshoring American industries that had been offshored over the past 20 years. In the United States, we were seeing solid growth in Gross Domestic Product due to the Domestic Business Policies that were put into place.
Before the Coronavirus Pandemic, the economy certainly looked to be on a path towards continued growth. Compare that to the previous 8 years where we were told that manufacturing in the United States was dead because we couldn’t compete with foreign cheap labor and other reduced costs of doing business. President Obama said he didn’t have a magic wand. There was a multitude of excuses that were given as to why we couldn’t get the economy rolling after the Great Recession that lasted from 2008 through 2009 – and beyond. We had one year of annualized 3% growth in GDP during Obama’s eight years in office. The key to National economic growth is correlated to manufacturing. Manufacturing takes raw materials and creates products. Selling products creates profit which moves the economy. The rawer the inputs >to> the more refined the product >equals> the greater the value >and> the greater the profit.
Hickory enjoyed the fruits of the Renaissance that we saw in manufacturing during the Trump Presidency because we are and have always been a manufacturing hub during the modern economic era in the United States. Obama’s years mainly saw an economy centered around Urban Expansion and a Global Economic Agenda that mostly benefited the upper crust of American society at the expense of the working class -- and the working class is the Middle Class. Our area couldn’t get a foothold under these policies, because we are a suburban population that isn’t metropolitan but isn’t rural either.
The major urban centers located near Hickory are Charlotte 50 miles Southeast, Winston-Salem 70 miles East-Northeast, and Asheville 75 miles West-Southwest. Most people don’t want a two-hour-plus commute to work every day. That drive would be a job in and of itself. So we aren’t going to be a bedroom community for the major metro areas. That just isn’t realistic.
The outskirts of our area are truly rural in nature. Those communities have suffered greatly from the Global policies that we have seen over the past generation. How are they supposed to progress when the Federal and State governments continually ignore their needs? These smaller towns and unincorporated areas in our immediate region have a relationship with Hickory that stems from Hickory’s location and its history as the commercial and transportation hub of the counties that surround it. Hickory has always benefited from this relationship, but that relationship has taken a hit over time, because of modern realities.
Hickory is the definition of caught in the middle. We are a community that was built upon Middle-Class values. We aren’t Urban and we aren’t Rural. We have all of the amenities of the larger cities of North Carolina and the Eastern United States, but those amenities aren’t as plentiful and they aren’t quite as nice, because of Economies of Scale. We are located a little too far from the urban centers to take part in the economic growth that those areas have experienced over the past couple of decades.
To express that growth in numbers, let’s look at the fact that Charlotte was the seventh-fastest-growing large metro over the past decade, increasing population by 15.9% between 2010 and 2018. Charlotte is now the 16th largest city in the United States by population and the fifth-fastest-growing city in the country. Charlotte’s expansion has been long-lasting and sustained. Charlotte's population was around 540,000 in 2000 and today it is estimated to be around 885,000. That means that Charlotte has grown by 64% since the year 2000.
Winston-Salem has grown by 8% since 2010 and 33% since 2000. Asheville has grown 11% since 2010 and 35% since 2000. In comparison, Hickory has grown by 3% since 2010 and by 11% since the year 2000.
If Hickory had grown at Asheville’s rate since 2000, we would have a population of a little over 50,000 people now. Asheville had around 30,000 more people than Hickory in the year 2000 and now it has 50,000 more people than Hickory and is more than twice Hickory’s size in population. If Hickory had grown at Charlotte’s rate, then we would have a population of over 60,000 by now. The dynamics of those numbers feed off of one another. The urban area populations grew because the Federal and State governments focused on helping them grow and people moved there for economic opportunity. On the other hand, we lost many of our best and brightest young people to those urban centers because of the economic opportunity that we could not provide.
Down Below
So here I am 13 years after I initially decided to publicly start writing about this community. What I have always attempted to do is paint a picture of our community as it is. Some people don’t care for my take on our community’s standing in the world concerning its economics, politics, and culture, I understand that this isn’t how everyone sees things. Like I have said so many times, I am not a salesman. My job isn’t to sell the community. I am here to paint a picture as close to reality as possible. Realistic assessments of where you are help individuals and groups of people make better plans that will help them achieve their goals to get where they want to be.
In November 2014, we saw the $40 million Bond referendum passed because Hickory Inc. pushed a narrative that it was urgent that this happens, because of the state of the local economic condition, which had been in a malaise since the early 2000s. Of course, that malaise was brought on by what I describe above – Globalism and Government pushing people into the Metropolitan Areas and focusing their directives upon those Urban Centers at the expense of communities like our own. We had basically been abandoned.
Unfortunately, during the beginning of this century, our community officials had made some decisions that exacerbated the malaise. They were promoting our area as a haven for retirees just when we were having our young people and nest builders yanked out from underneath us. Admittedly, I haven’t seen the demographic breakdown as of late, but over the first 15 years of this decade, we were deeply in the red when it came to the population growth of those 40 and younger. The reason we had any growth at all was because of the successful recruitment of retirees to our community.
As I said above, the population data reflects my assessment of the motives of Hickory officials and the reasoning behind the Powers That Be developing these current economic and cultural initiatives.
After the Referendum was passed, in February 2015 a bond commission was created under the auspices that it would play a role in the implementation of the $25 million of Bonds that were intended for traditional Hickory's infrastructure. Another $15 million was set aside for economic development and a business park in the Startown area. The Economic Development Corporation led by Scott Millar has been directing that project and over time it has become more apparent that he is playing a pivotal role in the developments taking place in traditional Hickory.
The Bond Commission hasn’t played any direct role in these developments other than to encourage community spirit and to support the public relations promoting the projects.
Most of the work pertaining to the development of these projects has been happening behind the scenes. The projects have been a collaboration of the City's executive staff and the project development firms they hired out. Freese and Nichols were the primary consulting group that worked in conjunction with city executives on the master plan for the city projects.
To be honest the implementation phase of these projects has taken forever, especially when it was sold to the public as urgent in 2014. Six years down the road from the Bond Referendum being passed and almost nine years after its forerunner initiative “Inspiring Spaces” was formed, I don’t think anyone would say that they thought it would take this long to not even be halfway into all of this. I don’t think what was promised could be said to be halfway delivered. I would also say that there hasn’t been much transparency in relation to this venture and that the perception is that city officials don’t have a feel for all of this themselves. They don’t know how long all of this is going to take.
Money
For practically all of my life, we have continued to
pump the public’s money into Union Square and to change it in some way hoping
to make it the center of attention for the community like it was in days gone
by. My issues with Union Square have never been personal. My issue is that Union
Square development seems to be the sole focus of our community's leadership.
Hell, in terms of real money (adjusted for inflation), we’ve probably put a
billion dollars worth of taxpayer money into the Square and we have seen little
return for most of Hickory’s taxpayers. And there doesn’t seem to be any end in
sight to these initiatives.
I have nothing against Union Square property owners, shop owners, or their
patrons, but I don't think it is the responsibility of the taxpayers (the investing
party) to enhance the area for those people, especially when we are still
seeing other parts of the community being neglected and disrespected.
Just think, I might own a restaurant, a clothing shop or another business in one of Hickory’s other areas miles away from the Square and Hickory Inc. is going to take my property tax money, sales tax money, and other city fees and redirect them to the benefit of my competition on or around the Square. Hickory Inc. is going to promote my competition at my expense. Do you see what I am getting at?
I also worry about the near term economic future of our community, because without the emphasis on manufacturing that we saw from 2017 through 2019, we might just fall back into that economic malaise that we just finger clawed out of. I hope to God I’m wrong. It has become apparent that the real problem with American manufacturing is that too many individuals are profiteering from selling out the interests of the American Workforce.
Hickory’s middle class is that workforce that has been constantly sold out for years. They are proud people who just want a decent job with decent pay and to be able to keep their money, have some nice things, and be able to invest a little in their future. They want a decent quality of life.
Hey, I’ll admit when I am wrong and when Hickory Inc. started talking about all of these initiatives and projects, and they started talking about the money involved, I thought for sure that interest rates would rise and we would be paying a crazy amount of interest, much less paying back the principal. Interest rates are still low, so we’ve been lucky by that token. Hickory Inc. has so far issued $30 million of the Bonds. The first issuance ($15 million) took place in August 2018 and the second issuance ($15 million) took place in November 2019. The first bonds were issued at a smidge under 3% and the second issuance was around 2.2%. They are 20-year term bonds and should be paid back by 2038-39. The third tranche of $10 million has not been issued yet, so they wouldn’t be paid back until the early 2040s.
We are still going to see property taxes rise to pay for these projects. The tax rate has risen 8.75 cents (per $1,000) since 2014 and you can expect it to rise further over the upcoming years. That comes along with the 4.5 cents (per $1,000) raised by Catawba County over that same span. That doesn’t amount to but $13.25 extra on a $100,000 property, but you know that isn’t going to pay back $40 million bucks either. Remember they have to maintain their present budget levels and the costs of goods and services will rise over time. The money to pay back these bonds will have to come from somewhere.
At some point with the debasing of the dollar through macroeconomic debt, we are going to have an inflationary spiral, but I’ve given up on trying to predict when that will occur because the worldwide economic wizards have the bands wound so tight, no one with a clue would have ever thought the current system would have lasted this long because it never has in the past.
And That’s the Bottom Line Cause The Hound Says So
I would describe the current condition of Hickory as better than it was but in need of constant situational awareness with regards to the National and Global Economic Landscape. We have certainly taken a big bite financially with regards to the bond projects.
In looking at what has taken place around Hickory’s City Center, I would describe these public works projects as upgrades. Existing infrastructure is being renewed, rearranged, reorganized, and recycled. There’s plenty that has happened to make the people who already consume Union Square happy. There isn’t anything that has happened down there that can be labeled as game-changing. No public works that have been done down there, as part of this revitalization, have been additional in nature. It is by definition a Beautification Project.
Well, people will talk about that One North Center multi-use apartment complex and that is an addition, but that is a private venture that the city helped facilitate through public investment. Hickory Inc. officials and its cheerleaders tell us that is what the Citywalk and the future sidewalk enhancement down Old 70 are all about. They say when they upgrade these sidewalks, more businesses and residences will spring up along these areas. Build it and they will come, so to speak. Well, we shall see.
How many more times can Hickory Inc. spend $3+ million (or even a million or a half a million) to help make a private project happen without some kind of a payback put in place? Yes, I understand what was said about it is necessary to clean up the issues that were buried under the city parking lot where this new Apartment complex is located, but there will be other properties with hazardous issues that have to be mitigated. We have seen that all across the city limits. How will we fairly pick and choose which properties will be helped along by taxpayer’s dollars and which ones won’t? I think that is a very fair question to be asked.
Still, not much has happened around other less fortunate areas of town that have continued to be abandoned. With all that has been budgeted and spent in the wash, rinse, dry, and do it all again City Center, we know that it will be at least 20 years before we could go about focusing on any of those other areas. If those areas are going to be revitalized, then it will take the neighborhood associations and possible business associations that will have to take the initiative to make things happen on their own. They aren’t going to get help from a City Hall whose resources are hyperfocused on the projects created of, by, and for the Bond Referendum and its supporters. I’m sorry but it seems that if those less prosperous areas are to be developed it will be despite City Hall and not because of it.
So what I am seeing and saying is that “It rolls downhill… It always rolls downhill.” Hickory spent years trying to get some attention from the State and Federal governments. It took a new administration with an “America First” perspective for Hickory to start rebounding. We finally got some of the attention we had long needed.
In turn, Hickory took the resources that have finally been afforded to it and decided to invest it in the same infrastructure it has been investing in for 50 years. The middle class, the people who most represent Hickory, continue to get muted. Like how Hickory had been ignored for years by the people above it, in turn, Hickory’s decision-makers have chosen to do the same to the people below them. They don’t seem to catch on to the irony.
Now it looks like we might be forced back into the situation we found ourselves in a few years ago. The Coronavirus Pandemic has certainly put everything into a holding pattern and I can just imagine the economic consequences that will follow the aftermath of this situation. The present year has certainly done us no favors.
Like a take on what an old mentor told me when I was younger, “Prepare for the worst and Pray for the Best.”
Please God, I beg you to bless this community in the upcoming year!
https://www.catawbaedc.org/properties/triviumcorporatecenter
https://www.hickorync.gov/city-hickory-sells-first-round-bonds
https://www.hickorync.gov/city-hickory-sells-second-round-bonds
