Hickory still poised for growth: Catawba County leaders acknowledge bumps in the highway but expect to get back in the fast lane soon.

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Understand this right off about Hickory: Residents don't deny the city and its surrounding region have had a rough time. You don't lose 5,000 jobs in a year without suffering some problems.

For most of the late 1990s, Hickory and Catawba County seemed as if they would be impervious to economic trouble. The city and county were the flagships of the Unifour region, which includes Alexander, Burke and Caldwell counties. The region's business community was too diverse, with a manufacturing base grounded in furniture, textiles and telecommunications equipment, to suffer from economic swings in one industry. In April and May of 2000, the MSA's unemployment rate was a puny 1.8%.

The problem was, all three of those industries faced trouble at the same time. Textiles, of course, have been tanking across the country as companies have cut production or moved factories overseas to combat cheap foreign competition. More than 250 textile jobs have been lost since April 2001. Furniture always has been a cyclical industry, and 2001 was one of the down cycles. More than 1,100 jobs were lost. And even the region's pride and joy, its telecommunications industry, was caught in a worldwide slowdown. More than 1,800 jobs departed at the big three, CommScope Inc., Alcatel North America and Corning Cable Systems LLC.

All that added up to a bad headline: Largest increase in manufacturing unemployment in the United States. Reporters from CNN and other national outlets have flocked to profile the region and its woes.

But what the reporters find when they actually get to Hickory isn't what they thought they'd see. The streets aren't lined with boarded up businesses and filled with homeless people. Construction hasn't ground to a stop. Economic leaders aren't bemoaning the jobs that aren't here any more.

What they find instead is a vibrant, still-growing region, where residents and leaders alike are positioning themselves for another growth spurt now that the recession has ended. In fact, many refuse to see anything but good times.

Scott Millar, director of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp., says it's difficult not to see the positives. "I think people here would invite anyone in to see what's happening, rather than just letting them read the doom and gloom." He points out that, for one thing, Catawba County's unemployment rate for February was 8.3%, above the statewide rate of 6.7% but not nearly as bad as some manufacturing regions in California and Michigan.

Dewitt "Dee" Blackwell, assistant executive director for the Western Piedmont Council of Governments, acknowledges that "things are a little down." But he says the metro area is far from out. "I'm still having to stand 20 minutes in line to get into a restaurant," he says. "We're still seeing full parking lots in front of retail stores. Even home sales in the area have been very positive."

Blackwell admits he's irritated by some of the concentration on the negatives. "For so many years, when we were down at 2%, 3%, had the highest percentage of women employed, that wasn't news to anybody. CNN wouldn't send anybody here to talk about our giant employment rate. But when ours goes from less than 2% to 8%, it's news," he says. "Granted we have lost 4,000 to 6,000 jobs. It is a grabber as a headline."

But he says that concentrating on the increase is missing part of the big picture, mainly that the region's rate was so low that any increase made it look worse than it was. "You need to have an evenhanded look at...