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South Carolina has the 10th fastest population growth in the nation, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Upstate's housing market shows it. South Carolina and Georgia were among the top 10 fastest-growing states in terms of population change from July 2005 to July 2006, according to the Census Bureau information. South Carolina was the 10th fastest-growing state, with a 1.7-percent population increase. Georgia was the fourth fastest, with growth of 2.5 percent. Georgia also was among the top 10 states in terms of the raw number of additional people living in the state in the past year, with a population growth of 231,388. The number of Anderson County housing units grew by about 6,000, to 79,350, between 2000 and 2005. The increase presents an opportunity for reviewing whether the available housing is affordable, said Michael Cunningham, assistant county administrator.
Tulane University president Dr. Scott Cowen's recent homecoming to Cleveland was a bittersweet remembrance of before and after Hurricane Katrina.
Speaking at the State Theatre as part of the Town Hall of Cleveland series on Mon., Nov. 13, Cowen described the devastation Tulane and the city of New Orleans experienced last year. He also said he is “fortunate" to be part of the rebuilding effort. Cowen, dean of Case Weatherhead School of Business for 14 years prior to assuming his Tulane post in 1998, credited “Cleveland's rebuilding efforts in the 1970s for preparing me for the challenges I've had to face."In the months prior to the cataclysm, Tulane had enjoyed an unprecedented level of success. The school had received a record number of applications from prospective students, a record level of research grants, and a designation from US News & World Report as one of the “hottest schools in the US."Then came “a monster of a storm." Cowen and four other top officials were ensconced at the uptown campus as mandated by the school's emergency evacuation plan.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - About 50 people demonstrated in front of Mayor Ray Nagin's house today, demanding the reopening of public housing in New Orleans. Nagin was not present for the demonstration, which capped off a week of several major developments concerning public housing in the city. Before Hurricane Katrina, where were about three thousand apartments that typically rented for 85 dollars a month. During the week, Nagin sent a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking Secretary Alphonso Jackson to immediately place a thousand units into service and open an additional thousand units with in 90 days. Nagin also asked that 750 scattered sites, possibly using modular homes, be set up. On Friday, the National Housing Partnership Foundation announced it would build three thousand units in the New Orleans area by 2009 to help with the housing crisis.
Board members of the benevolent foundations helping rebuild 36 homes in Pass Christian met the grateful homeowners Thursday at a Home Again celebration on Henderson Avenue. The nationally recognized community development experts think their program model can be used coastwide to help other distressed homeowners. "Home Again is the biggest concentrated effort for providing housing for low-moderate income families on the Coast," said Phil Eide, vice president of Jackson-based Enterprise Corporation of the Delta/Hope Community Credit Union. All the homes are being built between North and Second streets and Henderson and Seal avenues. The majority of the homes are modular and come from Carolina Building Solutions. Ten homes have been completed and 24 more are being built in the factory or finished on site.
The spec homes have been removed from their slabs at what was supposed to be the I-10 East sales office of the ambitious modular home manufacturing start-up, Premier Designed Homes LLC . Meanwhile, the group's newly built corporate headquarters sits empty in the flood-ravaged former National Finance Center complex in the far reaches of eastern New Orleans. Two months after the company gave away a shotgun home in a publicity gambit at the Gulf Coast Building & Remodeling Expo and boasted of investing $1 billion in two eastern New Orleans factories that would create 2,500 well-paying jobs and crank out 8,000 to 9,000 new homes each year, the project appears to be dead. Whether it was a scam, an ill-fated venture of amateurs that crept prematurely into the public eye , or a grandiose but unrealistic vision remains to be seen.
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