Cocke County

I. Introduction

Cocke County, Tennessee is located at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains and partially within the Cherokee National Forest of eastern Tennessee, adjacent to the North Carolina border. It encompasses an area of 434 square miles and contains a population of 33,884. Although Cocke County is blessed with a rare natural beauty and an abundance of natural resources, we have unfortunately not enjoyed the same farming, industrial, and tourism successes as have neighboring Sevier, Greene, Hamblen, and Jefferson counties. Indeed, in Cocke County we continue to find ourselves far behind the rest of Tennessee and the U. S. as a whole in every statistical ranking.

For more information on Cocke County, please refer to the website of the chamber of commerce at www.cockecounty.org, or the tourism bureau's website at www.cockecounty.com.

II. Economy

As a result of the pervasive poverty within the county, the Appalachian Regional Commission has labeled us as one of the eleven Tennessee counties that it considers to be economically distressed. It designates as distressed those counties that have three-year average unemployment rates, per capita market incomes, and unemployment rates that are at least 50% worse than the national average. We have also maintained distinction as a federal disaster area (due to flooding) since March of 2002.

source: 2000 U. S. census

Poverty is not a new phenomenon in Cocke County. Historically, we have had a poverty level much higher than the national average. After this poverty was established in the early stages of Appalachian industrialization, it has been difficult for Cocke County residents to escape from chronic poverty without the initial influx of capital needed to promote sustainable growth. Although the situation has improved since the first half of the twentieth century, our rate of growth has again started to lag behind the national rate, and we continue to have an income well below the national average:

source: U. S. census, selected historical decennial data
incomes are shown in 1999 dollars for ease of comparison

Our disadvantaged status continues to be evidenced by a lack of business investment within the county. There were no jobs created by new business development in 1999 and 2000 and only 151 new job opportunities in the county's preexisting businesses. Furthermore, in the same two year period there was only $3,804,000 in capital investment and improvement within the county. (source: Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development). A comparison with the other East Tennessee counties bordering Cocke puts its current business situation in perspective (see also the graph on the following page).

Source: Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, 2001 report

This lack of business development means that many Cocke County residents are forced to take low paying, entry-level jobs in other counties: currently, 4212 workers live in Cocke County and work elsewhere, while only 881 workers live elsewhere and work in Cocke County. (source: Tennessee Valley Authority's Report on Cocke County and its Labor Force).
Many of these commuter jobs, as well as many of the job opportunities within Cocke County, do not provide workers with adequate income to support themselves and their families.

As demonstrated in an earlier chart, in 1999, Cocke County's average per capita income was $17,891, compared to a state average of $25,548 and a national average of $28,546. (source: the Regional Economic Information System of the University of Virginia's Geospatial and Statistical Data Center). According to the Tennessee's Self Sufficiency standard, a single adult in Cocke County needs to make $12,031 a year to live without public or private assistance or subsidies; a single adult with two children needs to make $23,091 a year to live independently. (source: Self-Sufficiency Standard for Tennessee; www.tennesseeallianceforprogress.org. Appendix A provides the complete table). Cocke County's already low average income is considerably lower for many families, because the average is skewed by a growing number of upper middle class newcomers who build upscale homes in Cocke County and commute elsewhere for work. Clearly, a great deal of Cocke County's workers are not able to meet this minimum standard for self sufficiency. This issue is compounded by the fact that the regressive nature of Tennessee's sales tax (as of July 15, 2002, the highest in the nation) places a disproportionate burden on the poor. Another tax burden are Cocke County's property taxes, among the ten highest in Tennessee.

III. Ecology

One of the explanations of Cocke County's continued economic misfortune is the polluted Pigeon River running through the heart of the county. There are a number of environmental issues in Cocke County, including several sites designated as superfunds by the EPA because of excessive pollution, but the Pigeon River has been the most visible and detrimental source of pollution in the county. It has been contaminated by waste from a paper mill upstream in Canton, North Carolina since the mill's construction in 1908. The industrial discharge has caused the river, a resource that should be a community asset, to become a deterrent to tourism, agriculture, and industrial development. A 1985 study by Hank Barnett and Orville Bach of Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tennessee, hypothesized that a clean Pigeon River would bring in seven million dollars (in 1985 dollars) in tourism revenue alone, based on the much higher recreational use of other similar but unpolluted Appalachian rivers. In addition, a clean river could also result in improved farming, more industrial development, and a more efficient public utilities system. However, despite a change in the mill's ownership and renewed pledges to reduce waste disposal, those living and working on the river say that it is dirtier now than it's been in five years. Although there has recently been an increase in whitewater rafting usage-in 2000, 73,536 rafting trips were made-the pollution remains a major impediment to our economic growth. The damage of the polluted river to Cocke County's overall economic well-being becomes clear when we are compared to other neighboring counties whose rivers are not polluted:

source: 2000 U. S. census

IV. Population

Beyond economic effects, the high level of the poisonous chemical dioxin in the river, along with a dearth of health education, has likely contributed to a higher than average cancer rate in Cocke County and specifically in the river town of Hartford. Between the years of 1983 and 1995, Cocke County adults aged forty-five to sixty-four suffered 356.2 cancer deaths per 100,000 adults. In comparison, Jefferson County's rate was 234.1 per 100,000; Sevier County's was 280.3 per 100,000; Hamblen County's was 299.3 per 100,000; and Greene County's was 303.3 per 100,000. The difference in cancer rates is explained by more than the simply the lifestyle features associated with Cocke County's higher poverty rate, because Cocke County still has a significantly higher occurrence of cancer than other Tennessee counties with similar poverty rates, such as Hancock and Grainger. (Source: Community Diagnostic Tables compiled by the University of Tennessee). Appendix B provides more details.

Demographically, Cocke County residents are regarded throughout the state and even the rest of the southeast as backward, hostile, or even criminal. Newport, the county seat, does have one of the highest rates of juvenile commitments in Tennessee and there is a fairly high crime rate in general. Cocke County also has of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country. Additionally, between 1992 and 1994, 39.2% of total pregnancies were to unwed mothers, including 72.1% of pregnancies among the African American and Latino communities. (Source: Community Diagnostic Tables compiled by the University of Tennessee). However, those who look behind the statistics find a population that is in fact resourceful, tolerant, and very expressive. The often cited teenage pregnancy rates have created a rapid succession of generations with tightly woven social infrastructures and effective communication. Cocke County residents have suffered severe poverty for many years, often at the hands of outside institutions, and always in the face of a local economy totally controlled by a few wealthy families, but are ready to make the steps toward sustainable growth away from poverty.