AN EXAMINATION OF ECONOMIC TRENDS IN NORTHERN VERSUS SOUTHERN US INDUSTRY

Recent American economic trends suggest the appearance of comparably higher rates of new industry in the Southern US as compared to the Northern US, particularly the Rust-Belt and Northeast regions. Although prerecession and recession indicators demonstrate comparably lower economic conditions in the South, manufacturing is trending in positive directions in the South as compared to the North, a phenomenon which scholars indicate first began in the mid 1960s. Although Northern states exhibit higher economic indicators such as GDP and median household income, the South is now the preferred destination for new manufacturing investment, particularly commitments from global sources/majority owned US affiliates and new contract work, causing the South to better mitigate against the national deindustrialization trend, based on statistics from the 2010 US Census.