David Birch got a sharp rebuff when he tried to bring back to Boston an employee who had been temporarily assigned to Atlanta.
“I told her, `It’s time to come back to the main office.’ And, she said: `No.’ “
Birch found that neither arguments nor time would change his employee’s mind. Mark one more Northeasterner lost to the growing American love affair with the South and Southwest.
“She’s still there. She’d been in Boston, grew up in Michigan, spent one year in Atlanta and that was it. She said no coming back.”
Birch wasn’t surprised. He’s been watching this happen now for some time as president of Cognetics Inc. and Cognetics Real Estate in Cambridge, Mass., which tracks real estate trends.
There have been some improvements in the colder states, but nothing has changed the basic trend. The South is a nice place to live.
“Why live in the snow and ice? Why put up with it when you can live somewhere where you can play golf, tennis all year long and jog and roller blade and live a very comfortable life?”
The trend toward the milder climates and easier lifestyles isn’t about to end soon. Birch and other forecasters see it continuing well into the next century.
Birch spoke at a recent conference of international investors in U.S. real estate, where he delivered a warning that future growth does not lie in the Northwest or Midwest; not even in his own city of Boston, whose recent real estate comeback depends heavily on the growth of Fidelity mutual funds.
Not only are companies and their employees moving to lower latitudes but they also are moving West. The Rocky Mountain states are popular. Utah is hot now.
The top 10 metropolitan areas for commercial growth are Atlanta; Phoenix; Dallas-Fort Worth; Los Angeles; Orlando; Las Vegas; Austin, Texas; San Francisco-Oakland; Seattle; and the District of Columbia.
Martha O’Mara, a professor of management and organizational behavior at Harvard, says many companies are looking for “an easy place to live,” which is something more than quality of life.
“Ease of living is: Can you balance your home life and your work life? Is there attractive, affordable housing nearby? Are the schools good? Can I go on a business trip and get home in a reasonable hour?”
This is especially important in two-career families. Not every Southern community has these things, but enough do to sustain the general migration, she said.
The South and other newly popular places have other advantages. One is that they’re not only pleasant places, they’re new.
There’s “synergy in bringing operations to a new building and starting something fresh and getting rid of the old group, or bringing people to a new location,” O’Mara said.
Not just anywhere in the South or West will do. Even Dallas is full of vacant office buildings.
Cities that offer something special, such as Baltimore’s downtown waterfront, can still hold companies. Some firms prefer cities because they value what O’Mara calls “the urban point of view. They think it is a more creative and exciting environment for their employees.”
But those attending a conference of the Association of Foreign Investors in U.S. Real Estate were warned to look carefully before putting money into downtown areas anywhere.
Birch said Southern and Western states have an entrepreneurial attitude that accounts for their growing popularity. They welcome newcomers, help them join clubs, put them on boards and treat them as first-class citizens.
Atlanta’s Ted Turner wouldn’t last 10 minutes in Boston, Birch said.
“He made his money recently,” he said. “Made a lot of it, too–that’s even worse.”
