Report: Columbia area lags other Southern metros in several key economic metrics
The Columbia area continues to lag behind some comparable metropolitan areas in the Southeast in a number of key economic metrics, according to a new report.
On Monday, EngenuitySC, a nonprofit focused on economic development, published its Midlands Regional Competitiveness Report for the sixth consecutive year. The report looks at how the Columbia metropolitan area, which includes Richland, Lexington, Saluda, Calhoun, Fairfield and Kershaw counties, compares to nine other metropolitan statistical areas across the South in a number of economic metrics.
The other metro areas include Raleigh; Greenville; Knoxville; Charleston; Greensboro; Winston-Salem; Augusta; Lexington, Kentucky; and Tallahassee, Florida. The report examines how Columbia stacks up against those areas in economic indicators such as talent, innovative capacity, entrepreneurial and business environment, industry clusters and livability.
Data for the Midlands Regional Competitiveness Report was compiled and analyzed by officials at the University of South Carolina, including economic professor Doug Woodward and research economist Joey Von Nessen. That data was culled from federal sources, such as the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The Capital City area ranks fourth among its peers in terms of population, at 838,433 across the six counties. But Columbia finds itself looking up at some competitors across several economic metrics.
Of the 10 metro areas listed, Columbia ranks ninth in talent and seventh in innovative capacity, industry clusters, and livability. A bright spot for the Columbia area comes in the category of entrepreneurial and business environment, where it ranks third out of the 10 metros.
In a Monday afternoon presentation, Von Nesson said economic growth in Columbia has been slow in recent years.
“If we look broadly, and look over the past decade, we do know that Columbia has seen sluggish growth, relative to its peers,” Von Nesson said. “This comes across very clearly in the data. We see this in terms of slow employment growth, a reduction in the size of high value traded clusters and also the departure of major company headquarters we have seen in the last several years.”
Traded clusters are, according to the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project, groups of related industries that serve markets beyond the region in which they are located. According to the competitiveness report, the Columbia region has seen a 2.6% decrease in total employment in traded clusters in the last decade, a concern because traded clusters generally pay better wages and generate more innovation than local clusters.
Columbia has shown steady gains in the entrepreneurial and business environment category in the competitiveness report across the years. It ranked ninth out of 10 in the category in 2017, but came in third in each of the subsequent three years, including 2020.
According to the report, part of the reason for Columbia’s strength in that metric is because it harbors a “small-business first” environment. The region also ranks third among its peers in the share of employment in professional and technical services, possibly related to the presence of state government, a frequent customer of support industries.
Columbia has slipped some in the livability category, at least compared to several years ago. While it did rise from eighth to seventh among the 10 metros in 2020, that’s down from as high as third in 2016. Livability measures a region’s ability to build an inclusive and dynamic live, learn, work and play environment.
While the Columbia region continues to thrive in arts, entertainment and recreation growth, other pieces of the livability metric remain troublesome, including crime.
“Though the region has seen improvement, the violent crime rate in the Columbia MSA is the worst among our peers,” the report reads. “An abundance of scientific literature ties violent crime most closely to localized economic disadvantage.”
Von Nesson told The State he also thinks Columbia lacks an economic and even cultural “brand.”
“Columbia really doesn’t have a brand, good or bad,” Von Nesson said. “I don’t mean to say Columbia is perceived negatively, because we are not. But the absence of being perceived at all is a negative in itself. … That’s especially true outside of the Southeast. People simply don’t know about Columbia very often. That’s something we need to work on, looking forward over the next decade, because we do have a lot of natural amenities here.”
The economist listed a low cost of living and the affordability of housing, especially compared to other areas of the U.S., as two big draws to the Columbia area.
Third-term Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin nodded at the regional nature of the report, and said it will take a collaborative approach to make the Columbia area more competitive with metros across the South, especially in the wake of the global pandemic.
“Make no mistake, we must continue to work together — counties, cities, towns, businesses, neighbors — more than we ever have before, as we begin the process of recovering from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Benjamin said. “The underlying conditions, opportunities and challenges our region faced before this pandemic have not gone away.”
Cayce Mayor Elise Partin chairs the EngenuitySC board. She said the competitiveness report provides a map of the area’s strengths, and where it needs to raise the bar.
“This data does give us the opportunity to imagine. This data gives us the opportunity to create real results,” Partin said.
The Cayce mayor added the report enables the cities and counties of the area to have a “meaningful, measurable track record of success.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
