2011 Briefing Book on the South
OCTOBER 2011 — The Center for a Better South’s 2011 Briefing Book on the South is a unique resource to help policymakers, influential community leaders, academics and journalists better understand what’s happening now throughout the South. Taken as a whole, the study’s 36 indicators and more than 70 data points for each state from an array of sources paint a picture of the region that will give many a reason to pause and reflect.
As the data suggest, the South is a diverse economic engine that continues to face educational, environmental, poverty, health and other challenges brought on, in large part, by a long period of neglect following the Civil War. While today’s South is far better off than the region just 50 years ago, it continues to play catch-up with the rest of America. As Southern states in recent years invested more and more to get on par with the rest of America, states in other regions did not sit idly by. They too invested. So as the South improved, other states did also, generally keeping Southern states where they don’t want to be: at the bottom of national lists of rankings in multiple areas found throughout this Briefing Book. Today, some 150 years after shots were fired onto Fort Sumter in Charleston, the states of the American South still have a statistical hangover — a Civil War hangover — compared to other areas of the country.
We hope thinking Southern leaders will consider the data and redouble efforts to leapfrog our region away from the bottom through creative policy efforts that will improve education and health care, while reducing poverty and unemployment.
Organizational structure
Following this introduction, the Briefing Book is organized in three sections:
A. Snapshot of the South — a three-page summary that compares major data indicators in the South
B. State snapshots — page-long summaries of all of the data for each state found in Section C.
C. State data — Detailed descriptions of indicators with links to sources.
A note on the data
The Center collected data in the summer and fall of 2011 to complete this Briefing Book. We highly recommend that anyone who uses the data check with the online primary sources listed with each indicator. Not only is it possible that you’ll get a more recent statistic, but you will be able to double-check any statistic you plan to use.
In advance, please accept our apologies for any transcription errors. If you find an error in this document, please let us know. Thank you.
