Forbes magazine and the Praxis Strategy Group teamed up to predict the future job growth of America’s 52 largest cities.

Charlotte ranks eighth for projected economic growth in the review of the “Next Big Boom Towns in the U.S.” by writer Joel Kotkin.

Researchers looked at growth in the past two years to estimate future possibilities. Austin, Texas is expected to prosper the most in the next ten years.

The top 10 list is as follows:

1. Austin, TX
2. Raleigh, NC
3. Nashville, TN
4. San Antonio, TX
5. Houston, TX
6. Washington, DC
7. Dallas, TX
8. Charlotte, NC
9. Phoenix, AZ
10. Orlando, FL

The Charlotte region ended 2010 in a state of transition, stuck in an economic recovery that didn’t feel like one, and in many ways, this year will deliver more of the same, economists say.

But they say 2011 looks stronger than last year, and that more companies and consumers are taking note.

“While we’ve still got a lot of climbing left to do, there are more and more people who have begun that climb,” said Rick Kaglic, an economist at the Federal Reserve in Charlotte. “It’s a modest increase, but it’s broad-based, and that’s kind of the encouraging thing about it.”

Local indicators from unemployment to home sales to commercial building permits point to a rebound early this year, after a stretch of setbacks in the second half of 2010. Home sales, for instance, rose 18 percent in January over the previous year, and foreclosures fell that month by nearly a third.

Other measures suggest lingering trouble: Residential building permits dipped 40 percent in January, and bankruptcy filings rose. Unemployment, though it continues to fall from its peak in early 2010, remains well above prerecession levels, and experts worry the slower-than-expected pace of job creation could hinder the recovery for years to come.

Kaglic and two other economists weighed in last week on the latest economic data from Mecklenburg County – and what it means for the year ahead.

Rick Kaglic, Federal Reserve economist

Kaglic saw promising signs in the latest indicators, from home sales to local sales tax collections, which climbed 12 percent in January over January 2010. But there’s still a lot of damage that needs to be undone, he said.

“It’s a familiar story: We’re moving in the right direction,” he said.

Last year was like a roller coaster, with the economy growing in fits and starts, due in part to government stimulus, Kaglic said. Looking forward, he expects the recovery to progress a little more evenly.

Employers have reported in recent business surveys more output and demand, and more firms are gaining the confidence to hire again, Kaglic said. That likely means a gradual improvement in the Charlotte area’s unemployment rate in 2011, especially in the second half of the year, he said.

Because of the “huge hole to fill in the job market,” though, that growth won’t be all that gratifying. It could take several years to achieve a sense of normalcy regarding the local unemployment rate.

Despite the continued challenges, the local data are encouraging and mirror what’s going on nationally, suggesting a better year ahead, Kaglic said.

“We’ve got more tailwinds and fewer headwinds heading into the second quarter of 2011 than the second quarter of 2010,” he said.

Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo economist

There’s some good news in the local economy, but also enough bad news to mean the recovery will remain painfully slow, Vitner said.

“It’s not a fast enough pace so people without jobs can readily find a comparable job,” he said. “… That makes it tougher for home sales and retail sales to bounce back all that rapidly.”

The data paint a complicated picture: Sales tax climbed, for instance, but that was only after falling the year before. Foreclosures fell in January from January 2010, but Vitner has heard anecdotally that foreclosure activity has since increased.

Overall, “it seems like there’s a little less bad news and a little more good news,” he said. “Things that were weakening don’t seem to be any weaker.”

The job market remains difficult, and even employers who initially planned to hire workers this year might back down, due to rising health care and unemployment insurance costs, which have made it more expensive to hire new employees, Vitner said. Employers are also uneasy about the uncertainty in the economy, from government debt to the effect of natural disasters, he said.

Vitner expects stronger job growth in 2011, particularly in finance, commercial real estate, leisure and retail. But he said it could take until the middle of the decade or longer to replace the more than 74,000 jobs the Charlotte region lost during the recession and to return to the sub-5 percent unemployment levels the area routinely experienced before the recession.

“We have a long way to go,” he said. “As an economist, you tell people the economy is getting better, but that doesn’t help people who can’t find work.”

John Connaughton, UNC Charlotte economist

Connaughton was more optimistic, saying the Charlotte-area economy has turned a corner.

The number of unemployed workers has fallen, and jobs are slowly returning. Although lagging indicators such as falling residential building permits and still-troubling foreclosure rates continue to pose a problem, 2011 will bring more job opportunities and more confident consumers, he said.

That means people will be more likely to spend – and economists won’t be called on as much to speculate on the region’s outlook, a sure sign of improvement, Connaughton said.

“By summer or next fall, you guys will stop calling me,” he said. “You won’t be seeing economy stories every night on the local news. That’s the difference.”

Connaughton expects the most job growth in the business and professional services, finance and health sectors, while jobs will remain scarce in manufacturing and construction. He said the N.C. unemployment rate is likely to fall to 9.5 percent by the end of the year, and while that’s still well above prerecession levels, the drop will feel significant compared with years past.

Connaughton said it could take four years for the state to gain back the jobs it lost during the downturn. But for many local workers and businesses, the recovery will be well on its way before that.

“If everything kind of stays in line with where we think it is, 2012 will really feel like a go-go year,” he said.

Business Facilities magazine ranks Charlotte No. 5 among large metropolitan areas for economic growth potential and No. 5 among most-wired cities.

The magazine’s July/August issue ranks metropolitan areas and states in various business-related categories.

North Carolina ranks No. 4 for economic growth potential, fifth in work-force training and sixth in business climate. The state didn’t make the top 10 for quality of life, cost of labor, business taxes or education climate.

The magazine says Chattanooga, Tenn., leads the nation in growth potential among major markets. South Carolina leads the states in that category.

From: qnotes

Every 10 years, the U.S. Constitution mandates that all people living in the nation be counted. The mammoth, decennial census affects the drawing of local, state and federal districts, informs the number of U.S. House members apportioned to each state and determines the distribution of more than $400 billion in federal funding for infrastructure and services such as hospitals, job training centers, schools, senior services, roads and highways and emergency services.

While the census doesn’t directly ask for sexual orientation, officials and the White House have announced they’ll be taking a more accurate count of LGBT Americans through information gleaned from answers provided by married and unmarried LGBT partners.

In 2000, the census revealed close to 600,000 same-sex couples lived in nearly every single county in the nation. The numbers have likely grown in the 10 years since the last nationwide count. One estimate of all same-sex couples in 2004 placed the number at over 700,000.

In North Carolina, 16,198 same-sex couples were counted. While North Carolina ranks as the 10th largest state by population, it also ranks as the 11th largest in the number of same-sex couples. In the state, Charlotte’s 28205 ZIP code had more same-sex couples than any other ZIP code statewide.

Encompassing a large swath of East Charlotte — including Plaza-Midwood, NoDa, parts of Elizabeth and parts of the 7th St./Monroe and Central Ave. corridors — 28205 is home to dozens of LGBT-owned or -friendly businesses, bars, coffee shops, antique stores and neighborhoods. At one time, Charlotte’s gay bookstore, White Rabbit, and the Lesbian & Gay Community Center found themselves at home in Plaza-Midwood. qnotes’ offices are here, too.

Each of the three primarily LGBT Christian congregations in Charlotte are located in East Charlotte. Unity Fellowship Church and the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of Charlotte are only blocks away from each other on Eastway Dr. New Life MCC shares worship space and offices with The Plaza’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.

East Charlotte has seen more than its fair share of economic and development challenges. The decline of the once-famed Eastland Mall and changing demographics have transformed the area over the past two decades. LGBT community members have responded to the growing and changing needs in their neighborhoods. Many serve on neighborhood boards, promote local businesses or own them and reach out to less advantaged neighbors.

MCC Charlotte is doing its part. Pastor Catherine Houchins says her congregation reaches out to its surrounding neighborhood through the church’s food pantry. They’re also in the process of starting a clothing pantry.

“We have many more people than just those in the LGBT community who come,” Houchins says. “I would say there’s much more than 50 percent now who are not a part of the LGBT community and most are from this general neighborhood.”

Houchins says most of the food pantry’s clients are African-American and Hispanic. She believes the work the church does is an integral part of its mission as a community grounded in a faith which stresses the importance of social justice.

“As a faith community group we are called to reach out to all people,” she says. “Because we ourselves are oppressed we need to reach out to anyone else who is in distress.”

Tom Warshauer, an openly gay staffer in the city’s neighborhood and business services departments, says while there are challenges and uncertainty in East Charlotte there are plenty of strengths as well.

Warshauer says he and his colleagues have worked with several non-profit groups and businesses, some of which have gay members or are LGBT-owned. He says there is a “richness” present in the diversity of East Charlotte’s ethinicities, sexual orientations and perspectives. That cultural richness, perhaps, might one day turn to revitalization.

“A lot of people want to look at and focus on the uncertainty of Eastland Mall or Independence,” he says. “The area is one of the most diverse regions in the entire state from an ethnic perspective and we should be celebrating that diversity.”

But with such diversity comes challenges, Warshauer says. He believes there remains a challenge of integrating the east side’s international community, especially immigrants from Latin America, with long term residents.

“It is a long-standing issue,” he asserts.

Responding to the issue will take time and concerted effort. In his role with the city, Warshauer continues to reach out, building upon the strengths of East Charlotte.

“There are a lot of strengths of which the LGBT community is a part,” he says. “We are seeing LGBT people involved. Through the work the Charlotte Business Guild has done to reach out to the Charlotte Chamber or at an individual level where there are businesses located in Plaza-Midwood and NoDa that are LGBT-owned.”

And, while they might already be involved in the city’s business affairs or East Charlotte’s revitalization, Warshauer says he’d like to see members of the LGBT community get more involved.

“I would love to see the LGBT community more engaged, sitting on boards with the city,” he says. “It would be fantastic to see the LGBT community more engaged in that way or on other social or civic boards.”

Carolina’s LGBTs

Although Charlotte’s 28205 ZIP code has the highest number of same-sex couples, other ways of drilling down the data from the 2000 census reveal different glimpses into LGBT life in North Carolina.

ZIP code by highest number
28205 (Eastway, Charlotte)* 215
27705 (West Durham 138
28806 (West Asheville) 135
27707 (Lakewood, Durham) 130
27701 (Northgate, Durham) 124

ZIP code by percentage** (20 or more couples)
28202 (Downtown Charlotte) 6.18
27601 (Century, Raleigh) 5.34
28801 (Downtown Asheville) 5.01
27701 (Northgate, Durham) 4.68
28204 (Duke, Durham) 4.38

City by highest number
Charlotte 1,443
Raleigh 673
Durham 642
Greensboro 537
Winston-Salem 460

City by percentage** (30 or more couples)
Asheville 2.38
Durham 1.96
Carrboro 1.88
Monroe 1.71
Henderson 1.59

MOORESVILLE The Charlotte region, including the Lake Norman area, will rebound faster than the nation as a whole from the economic downturn – although Charlotte area home prices will continue to drop until March, a leading economic forecaster predicts.

“The employment base is more diverse, and this is an area people and businesses want to move to,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo in Charlotte. “We are the best alternative to Atlanta in the Southeast and, for some, the only alternative” because of proximity to Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.

“This is still a desirable place for people to do business,” Vitner said, after a construction and real estate financing symposium at the Charles Mack Citizen Center on Thursday. Vitner was the keynote speaker at the Lake Norman Home Builders Association event.

Vitner cited various major corporations that call the area home, including Ingersoll-Rand in Davidson, Lowe’s Companies Inc. in Mooresville and such new arrivals as Electrolux Major Appliances North America, which began a move in July to bring nearly 750 jobs to the University City area.

The region offers a high quality of life at comparatively low cost, he said. Its roads aren’t as congested as other metropolitan areas, he added.

It may just take until next spring for the national economy to get back on track and the housing and commercial sectors to improve, said Vitner and other panelists at the forum.

Panelists also included Lake Norman-area bankers, William Nurney of the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, Va., and Jim Felds, managing principal at Focustar Capital Group LLC, which manages about $975 million in projects in North Carolina and four other states.

Vitner cautioned the 100 or so builders, real estate professionals and others in attendance that “the era of cheap and abundant credit is over. We’ll never see it priced the way it was.”

He said housing prices won’t improve until the traditional spring buying season. “We’re expecting a very sluggish recovery for housing,” he said.

And while the Charlotte area will have added at least 16,000 jobs this year, 71,000 jobs were lost during the recession and many of the new jobs don’t pay as well, he said.

Still, he said after his talk, the region is better positioned economically than many other areas. “People and companies are still moving here,” he said. “We’ve seen positive industrial announcements this year.”

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/21/1635072/economist-charlottes-rebound-to.html#ixzz0xFK7esq3

Next meeting June 8
6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Windsor Park Elementary School
3910 Sudbury Road

The number of closings in March totaled 1,900, jumping from 1,671 a year earlier and 1,397 in February, the association says, citing Carolina Multiple Listing Services Inc. data.

Pending contracts reported in March were also up, rising 23.2 percent from March 2009 and up 27.8 percent from February levels.

“First quarter has started out strong, with March statistics showing the third consecutive year-over-year gain in closings,” says Lyn Kessie, 2010 association and CMLS president. Kessie attributes the activity, in part, to the federal government’s first-time home-buyer tax credit that expires at the end of April.

The average sales price in March was $197,564, up 3.2 percent from a year ago and 3.3 percent above February’s average.

The average list-to-close period in March, or the number of days a property was on the market from listing to closing, was 144.9 days, or nine days fewer than the previous month.

That’s an improvement from 2008 and 2007 when Charlotte didn’t even place. In 2006, Charlotte was No. 10 with 4.66 percent growth.

Bronx, N.Y., ranked No. 1 this year with 17.22 percent growth, followed by Houston, at 10.80 percent and Portland, at 10.16 percent.

Growth cities were determined by calculating the percentage of inbound moves vs. outbound moves in areas that had more than 5,000 families moving, according to U-Haul International Inc.

The Phoenix-based do-it-yourself moving company released its annual national migration trend report this week, which lists its leading growth areas and its top 50 U.S. destination cities. U-Haul pulled the data from more than 1 million one-way transactions during a 12-month period.

[Fun nerd fact: The annual mileage of U-Haul equipment in North America is the equivalent of traveling around the Earth 194 times a day, every day of the year.]

The Queen City was the 26th most popular destination in 2009 among U-Haul customers, up from 32nd place in 2008. But not nearly as popular as past years when Charlotte ranked 17th (2007), 24th (2006) or 25th (2005).

In first place for 2009: Houston, Texas, up from second place last year.

Rounding out the Top 10 is Las Vegas; Chicago; San Antonio; Orlando, Fla.; Austin; Atlanta; Sacramento, Calif.; Kansas City, Mo.; and Denver.

Raleigh came in at 47th, below Columbia, S.C., which placed 43rd.

Read more: Charlotte Business Journal: U-Haul: Charlotte ranked ninth in growth

A nationwide survey conducted by mortgage lender FannieMae found 65% of the homeowners and renters in said there is still value in owning a home.

However, the survey also revealed that consumers are taking a more cautious approach to homeownership. Nearly a quarter of renters polled said they will buy a home later than once planned.

“Consumers are still committed to owning a home, but are showing increased cautiousness,” Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, said in a statement.

“They are rebalancing their attitudes toward housing and homeownership by adopting a more realistic, long-term approach, and are less willing to take risks,” he added. “This focus on sustainable housing is better for the economy, better for the housing market and better for America’s families.”

The survey showed that 60% believe buying a home today is harder than it was for their parents, and nearly seven in ten believe it will be even more difficult for their children.

Still, about two-thirds of respondents believe now is a good time to buy a house, and nearly one in three said now is a very good time to buy a house. This is nearly as many who said it was a good time to buy in 2003, well before home prices peaked, FannieMae said.

A full 70% said they believe buying a home continues to be one of the safest investments available. In contrast, only 17% believe buying stocks is a safe investment.

Nearly three-quarters anticipate housing prices will go up or stay the same over the next year, according to the survey. That includes 37% who see prices will increase and 36% who feel prices will remain about the same.

The survey was conducted by telephone with 3,451 Americans age 18 and older.

Metropolitan Charlotte ranks 33rd in population among 940 areas across the country, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The figures do not come from the census that is under way, but reflect the population as of July 1, 2009. At that time, the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill area had nearly 1.75 million residents. That’s up from 1.33 million in 2000, when the area ranked 37th in population.

The Raleigh-Cary metro area has made the most impressive climb since 2000, with its population rising to nearly 1.13 million from 797,071. Raleigh-Cary ranks No. 49 in the updated estimates, up from No. 59 in 2000. Its rise of 10 places in nine years is the biggest gain registered by any metro in the current top 50.

Buffalo, N.Y., and New Orleans suffered the sharpest declines.

Other Southern cities among the top 50 metropolitan growth areas in the new ranking: Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Fla., No. 7; Atlanta, No. 9; Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla., No. 19; Orlando, Fla., No. 27; Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Va., No. 36; Nashville, Tenn., No. 38; Jacksonville, Fla., No. 40; Memphis, Tenn., No. 41; Louisville, Ky., No. 42; Richmond, Va., No. 43; Birmingham, Ala., No. 48; Raleigh, No. 49.