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chaPtEr 2 The Economic Impact aref a. hervani To say that the Latino population has had a significant impact on Dalton and the larger Whitfield County community would be an understatement. As noted in chapter 1, the Latino population has increased dramatically over the past two decades, creating numerous economic impacts on both the city and county. As might be expected, the sudden increase in the size of Latino population has both directly and indirectly influenced all aspects of social life in the city, including the community setting and character, the size and structure of local health-care services, and the availability of affordable housing. Demand for the use of these local resources has, at various times, created pressures on local area institutions as well as created numerous economic benefits.1 Of course, communities undergoing demographic transition are affected differently, as the degree of impact is always dependent upon how quickly the local economy can balance the demand for goods and services with the growing demand for labor and wages. The influx of Latinos into the Dalton area between 1990 and 2007 led to increased demands for such resources, including land, homes, and educational and health-care services.2 At the same time, as the area population grew, so did Latino buying power, a phenomenon being observed across the entire United States. Finally, financial achievement among Latinos spilled over into the local economy, causing further economic growth and more intensive community development.3 This chapter briefly summarizes the overall economic impact of Latinos in the Dalton–Whitfield County area and is followed by the first-person observations of a successful local Latino business owner, Francisco Palacios. Located in the northwest part of the state of Georgia, Whitfield County covers 290 square miles, with an average of 288 people per square mile. The official Whitfield County population in 2005 was 90,889, a 16 percent increase from 1990.4 In Georgia, only 7.1 percent of the population was Latino in year 2005, well below the national average of 16 percent.5 In Whitfield County, 29 percent of the population reported being Latino in the year 2005, a figure almost three times the national rate. In the city limits of Dalton, the rate is even higher, although percentages vary according to which government agency is doing the enumerating. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau placed the Latino population at 40 percent, whereas the North Georgia Planning Commission reported aref a. hervani 24 that it was well over 50 percent.6 According to official statistics, between 1980 and 2007 the Latino population in Dalton increased by more than 800 percent, resulting in many significant changes to the local economy.7 The manufacturing sector generated the greatest wealth in Dalton–Whitfield County, as the carpet industry and related enterprises have been the number one employer of both Latinos and Anglos. In Whitfield County, the official Latino labor force was 1,294 individuals in 1990 and 5,179 in 2000, an increase of 490 percent.8 Since 1980, labor migration has been responsible for much of the economic growth in Dalton, although there are many ways to measure the health of a local economy, including the growth rate of output, average yearly wages, and per capita income. In 1990, for example, the per capita income in Whitfield County was $17,254, and by the year 2000, a decade later, it had risen to $25,391, a growth rate of 47.2 percent. By 2003, the per capita income had increased another 6.6 percent to $27,072, which was nearly double the Georgia rate of 3.6 percent. The growth rate in economic output was 61.3 percent between 1990 and 2000, when the official county population grew only by 15 percent, implying more output per capita and a slight rise in the standard of living.9 Between 1900 and 2000, the growth rate in wages and salary was 84 percent in Whitfield County but only 42 percent in the state of Georgia. Given these data, the state of the local economy clearly showed considerable improvement even as Latinos were becoming a key fixture in Dalton and the surrounding community.10 The rapid influx of Latinos into Dalton during the early 1990s also led to a greater demand for goods and services, more employment opportunities and business establishments, and the need for a public infrastructure capable of accommodating the growing population. In 1990, there were 68 Latino-owned businesses in Whitfield County, and...

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