The only thing that may be wrong with the South is we are in the process of taking all you Northerner's jobs as the factories move South!
Case in point - last ten auto plants built in this country have all been way South of the Mason-Dixon line, and all the Tier One suppliers with them.
When Volkswagen came to Chattanooga a few years back, the most popular out of state license plate we saw around here was Michigan.
Ooltewah, Tennessee, a bedroom community of Chattanooga, in the last four years has added 1500 condos to their city, major commercial centers, and a huge retirement home. Fifteen Hundred New Homes! And my town of Cleveland, we have a shortage of homes to buy, and they cannot seem to get the new homes and apartments up fast enough. In the last four years, we've gained two Volkswagen plants, two Amazon fulfillment centers, a major silicone company that provides all the chemicals for solar panels, and so many other companies I cannot even think of them all. I live in a city of 45,000 with multiple huge companies here, like Duracell, M&M, Amazon, Catnapper Furniture, the list goes on and on.
Where I used to live, NE Pennsylvania, when one plant of maybe 100 jobs would come in, they would shout it for weeks on the news.
Here, it doesn't even make the papers.
I think the mindset down here is a bit different. We are union adverse, although the Germans made Volkswagen put in sort of a union.
Instead of putting in more roads and saying, "build the interstate, they will come", our major internet provider for Chattanooga, EPB, laid a 1GB Internet service over the city of Chattanooga. End result was a bunch of new internet startups and internet based companies coming in rather quickly and quietly, including the Amazon fullfillment center. Hundreds of new jobs.
Tennessee is the number one state for: Tier One suppliers for the automotive industry, and the number one retirement state in the Union, (no, it is NOT Florida anymore). We also feature the cheapest gasoline in the country, (I filled up yesterday for $2.35 a gallon), no state income tax, and great riding for anyone up on two wheels, almost across the entire state. People are discovering the South...
The times, they are a changing, my friends...
Sorry for bragging - I just love this place! And I can still get fried chicken that will make you cry, it is so good, and barbeque? Oh heavens, heart attack heaven. Plus if I want real Mexican, I can get it. It is why my wife and I, once we realized where we had landed back in 2006, decided this was the place we would retire. And so we did. The first time I rode my bike up into the Smokies, through the Ocoee Road that goes to Copper Hill, I knew we had found home.