-By Warner Todd Huston
Northern elites love to look down their noses and sneer at southerners whom they consider loutish hayseeds who are just plain stupid. But as many in the north have dismissed the south, our states south of Mason and Dixon’s line has risen again right under the north’s very nose. Now, the best quality of life is in the south.
Recently Joel Kotkin noted that much of the economic power in the United States today is located in the old Confederacy where taxes are low, weather is pleasant, and jobs are plentiful. Meanwhile, the north is struggling under mounting debt, job loss, and rising taxes and a dwindling populace to tax.
In his article, “How The South Will Rise To Power Again,” Kotkin points out that current trends show that, “the South will expand its dominance as the nation’s most populous region. In the 1950s, the South, the Northeast and the Midwest each had about the same number of people. Today the region is almost as populous as the Northeast and the Midwest combined.”
“Perhaps more importantly,” Kotkin says, “these states are nurturing families, in contrast to the Great Lakes states, the Northeast and California. Texas, for example, has increased its under 10 population by over 17% over the past decade; all the former confederate states, outside of Katrina-ravaged Mississippi and Louisiana, gained between 5% and 10%. On the flip side, under 10 populations declined in Illinois, Michigan, New York and California. Houston, Austin, Dallas, Charlotte, Atlanta and Raleigh also saw their child populations rise by at least twice the 10% rate of the rest country over the past decade while New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago areas experienced declines.”
Southern states are more business friendly, working harder to insure that government works with business as a partner not as an enemy, have lower taxes, and focus on keeping regulations to a minimum compared to the northern states which seemingly go out of their way to do just the opposite.
Kotkin also notes that northerners who sniff that education in the south is substandard and that this factor will eventually kill the southern expansion as businesses realize their work force is too stupid should take note that the education gap is quickly narrowing.
Not only that, but as the north loses their population the south is picking them up and many of these people bring their higher northern education with them.
Kotkin wraps up his piece pointing out that with all this growth will come more political power, too.
“In the next half century, more Americans will be brought up Southern; the drawls may be softer, and social values hopefully less constricted, but the cultural imprint and regional loyalties are likely to persist. Rather than fade way, expect Southern influence instead to grow over time. It is more likely that the culture of the increasingly child-free northern tier and the slow-growth coasts will, to evoke the past, be the ones gone with the wind.”
Finally, it should be pointed out that the states with the best economies in the nation are prominently Red areas of the country run by Republicans.
Who need a shootin’ war? The north has allowed the south to rise again without firing a shot!
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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