Forbes Lists Savannah #57 on Best Places for Business and Careers

According to a report released by Forbes in March, Savannah is #57 on the list of best places for business and careers.

I'm questioning where they got their data though because some of the numbers look a little funny to me.

First of all, they list the total population of Savannah's metro area as 334,000, which seems inflated. Chatham County's population according to the census bureau is 248,469 as of 2007. As of 2006, the population for Savannah proper was only 127,889. Apparently though, our MSA includes Bryan and Effingham Counties, which probably flatters the area statistically by including the affluent areas of Richmond Hill and all the exurb communities in Pooler into the median income numbers and family demographics.

For example, the median household income in Savannah in '07 was $32,616, although Forbes lists it at $46,219, which is higher than even the ACS estimate for family income (which is always higher than household. ibid.) What it also fails to mention is that most of these stats are relative to race, because in 1999, the average non-Hispanic African American household earned slightly more than half the average non-Hispanic white household (scroll about halfway down the page if you follow the link).

And, although the study is focused mainly on business and career-oriented numbers, it doesn't include anything about the poverty level, which in Chatham County flutters right around 1 in 4 for children. However, the readers of Forbes are probably not concerned with poverty rates because they have enough money to ignore that sort of thing.

Further fault with the Forbes list, and one of the big reasons I question both their sources and their methodology, is their section for "Best Big Companies" neglected to mention Gulfstream Aerospace, International Paper or JCB, all of whom have a major presence in Savannah.

Don't get it twisted, I like Savannah. It's got problems, but it remains of the better places I've ever lived. However, one of the city's biggest problems is that it is so often misrepresented, locally and nationally in the media, and it's very serious social and economic issues are glossed over when lists like this come out and everyone above a certain economic stratus can pat themselves on the back for a job well-done. Yes, the city has made drastic improvements in certain areas over the past decade, but our schools still perform terribly, the gap between have and have-not is glaring, and a large portion of our tourism is founded on belligerent alcoholism. All I'm saying is that while this makes Savannah look good on a national level, and that is better for the city for long-term economic development than lots of bad publicity, it's not exactly time to break out the party hats.