A Vision for Rational High-Growth Management in Upstate South Carolina

Upstate South Carolina is experiencing sustained economic and population growth that will shape the region for generations. A Vision for Rational High-Growth Management addresses the central challenge facing the Greenville-Spartanburg corridor: how to welcome growth without sacrificing affordability, infrastructure alignment, or quality of life.

Author Dennis C. Hayes - inventor of the Hayes Smartmodem, former Georgia technology leader, and chairman of SpartansFirst - draws on firsthand experience with high-growth environments to introduce the Rational High-Growth Management (RHGM) model. The model places housing supply at its center and identifies five forces that act upon it: demand growth, infrastructure capacity, policy and regulation, time and delay, and cost and capital. Through case studies of Greenville's concurrency debate, California's housing crisis, Austin's supply-focused reforms, Northern Virginia's corridor planning, Florida's concurrency and impact-fee systems, and Gwinnett County's suburban transformation, the volume illustrates how these forces interact and what happens when they fall out of balance.

The book proposes ten planning pillars for the Upstate, including maintaining abundant housing opportunity, intelligent corridor and activity-center development, measured infrastructure discipline, fairness to long-time landowners, predictable approvals, affordability as a competitive economic asset, regional coordination, and family-centered quality of life. A final section provides a community application framework for the RHGM model, identifying required participants and observable system attributes that enable or impede balanced growth.

This volume is intended for regional policymakers, local government officials, planners, developers, builders, landowners, financial institutions, and informed citizens with a stake in how their community grows.