In early April, I joined 375 others at the Carolina First Center and spent the day placing toy bricks on a map of the Upstate.   The event was sponsored by the Urban Land Institute and is supposed to give participants a regional perspective on how growth can emerge in coming years.  The variety of press that followed is targeted to heighten the awareness of the regional challenges that must be faced.

The data used to drive the exercise was the conservative estimate that the ten counties of the Upstate will be adding 118,000 households and 203,000 jobs by the year 2030.  The region is attractive and growing.  There are a lot of competing visions as to how much of that growth lands in each community. 

The entire focus was on the patterns of growth that could occur.   The urban planning professionals were focused on whether the alternate patterns more closely represented a corridor development expanding on existing roads, a compact development in the city centers, or a rural village pattern supporting small towns.    Our region and every map appeared to have elements of all three. 

The transportation network defines the economic strength of the Upstate.  The Interstate 85 corridor makes this region the connection between Charlotte and Atlanta.  Interstate 26 gives access to the port in Charleston.  Rail and air give a variety of choices to send cargo to the rest of the world.    The companies that will either choose to locate here or grow and prosper here are influenced by this basic infrastructure.  

Quality of life is another influence that draws economic growth.  We are only the type of region that is attractive if we value our cities and smaller towns.   Basically our urban centers must have the amenities and jobs that people who live in urban areas expect.  The variety of small towns will only prosper if they have goods and services on Main Street with a combination of jobs and households in town centers.   The Upstate growth patterns must reflect all three realities.

Several important realities were not on the table.  First all jobs were treated equally.  The basic opportunities are going to be different in each of these pieces of the pattern across our region.   The question is not a matter of good jobs versus bad jobs.  The question is instead “what will we produce and create that adds value?”  How does that change given the locations we are considering?  A more focused question might be, “to what extent does growth comes from expanding existing companies, recruiting new companies or building new companies in this region?”   

The emerging enterprises and entrepreneurs have the most potential.  As business changes many of the jobs that will be present in the year 2030 are in industries and occupations that do not exist yet.  The surest way to have high quality jobs is to support emerging entrepreneurs.  Innovation and entrepreneurship have their own infrastructure requirements.  If we want to see companies growing in this region that engage in high value added productivity, then we need to foster and nurture that type of innovation.  

There is a lot of work that occurs between having a new idea and getting the business to profit in the marketplace.  Entrepreneurial education is as much an infrastructure need for the Upstate's economic development as roads, rails, water and sewer.  If we have talent educated in how to develop and run small businesses then this region can build its future prosperity as a place to build and prosper for innovative high impact entrepreneurs.

Darrell Parker, Ph.D., is Dean of the George Dean Johnson Jr., College of Business and Economics and Professor of Economics at USC Upstate.  The USC Upstate Johnson College is accredited by AACSB International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business).  He can be reached at dparker@uscupstate.edu.