“We Disagree about Dalton”

I recently gained a new appreciation for the power of media as an article in the New York Times painted a less than desirable picture of my home town.  The article titled “No End to Housing Bust in Carpet Capital of the World” labels Dalton as a declining city far too dependent on one industry.  Since this article was published, it has been the hottest topic in the area.  I cannot recall one day in the last month that I have not heard a resident or business owner reference this article.   The most common reaction seems to be anger as people in Dalton understand that the current economic conditions have affected our area, but they never considered it to be close to the nightmare that the New York Times described. 

Here is a brief history on Dalton:  In the late 1800’s a process called tufting was developed in the area to enable quicker manufacturing of textiles, mostly bedspreads.  In the 1950’s this process was implemented in the carpet trade, which subsequently exploded with the post war housing boom.  The industry grew rapidly; Dalton, GA was the hub.  In a matter of no time, there were 300 carpet mills in the area employing 25,000 people.  90% of the world’s carpet was made in 60 mile radius of Dalton, GA.  The industry created many millionaires and gave seemingly endless work to laborers.  There simply were not enough workers.  Technology improved and machines got more efficient, but the increasing demand kept up with new efficiencies.  In the 1960’s, there were more millionaires per capita in Dalton, GA than anywhere in the world and by 2000, five of the ten richest people in Georgia were tied to the Dalton carpet industry. 

Dalton’s economic a base is manufacturing.  Any such town will have a tight correlation to certain markets and thus be sensitive to certain economic pressures.  In other words, the downturns can certainly hurt us.  But is it as bad as this article claims?  Absolutely not!  It all starts with the numbers; the writer suggests that according to the records Dalton lost a higher percentage of jobs in the last year than any other metropolitan area.  The question is where do these numbers come from?  The answer is they come from economic modeling, which is subject to misrepresentation.  Another interesting part of this article is the gloomy picture that the writer paints of Downtown Dalton.  She says “Now, downtown Dalton holds not much more than three pawn shops, an espresso bar that plays Christian soft rock and the Headquarters for the Carpet and Rug Institute”.  This quote makes it clear that no one from the New York Times has been to downtown Dalton, which has more businesses than it has ever had.  Downtown Dalton is home to several big branch banks, countless restaurants, and hundreds of unique businesses.   Getting back to the numbers, Dalton actually is one of the few metro areas in Georgia which has more jobs than residents.   I think this one fact disputes the theme of her entire article.  If I have to give the author anything it is that according to the numbers (which are very questionable) Dalton has experienced about a 13% drop in employment in the last 4 years, roughly two times that of the entire state.  However, is that not to be expected?  When you consider how tied Dalton is to housing, this number is neither severe nor surprising.  When the housing sector comes back, which it will, the lost jobs will return to Dalton.  I like what the mayor said in response to this article: “This $18 billion industry centered in Dalton did not receive federal bailouts; and it continued to pay millions of dollars in taxes while managing to remain profitable and employ thousands of people in northwest Georgia and southeast Tennessee.”  Another error the author made that astonished me was that she interviewed someone and dubbed this person the “carpet king of Dalton”.  I can name several people that could accurately be considered carpet kings, but I have never even heard of this person named in the article.  I do not mean to insult this person’s accomplishments, but this reinforces the fact that the author of this article simply did not do her homework.  It is one thing to bash our town, but it is another to do so when you don’t have the facts. 

It is easy for an author to criticize industry, but before you do, I think it is smart to consider all of the facts about that industry.  Dalton has a special place in American manufacturing- while the author’s iPad was slapped together in China, the world’s carpet has essentially been made in the US (Dalton) for 60 years employing thousands of people while paying fair wages.  Authors like this seem to have little understanding or appreciation for American business. The carpet trade is huge, not only for Dalton, but for the United States and insulting one of the last major businesses to support American manufacturing is simply un-American. The bottom line is this, yes Dalton has taken a hit, but it is still a great place to live.  Dalton has actually been through this before; in 1991, Dalton had 9.5% unemployment, but came back in a strong way.  Dalton is in position to bounce back as hard as it was hit as soon as we see substantial recovery in the housing market. In the interim, we continue to see retail development, a solvent local government, hard working entrepreneurs, and an excitement for the future.  The residents of Dalton have never depended on anyone or anything and because of our quintessential entrepreneurial attitude, we will be back.  Anyone who counts us out, like this author did, will soon be proven wrong. 

RWC, Jr.