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- There seems to be paradoxical and conflicting economic data right now around the economy and our general business climate.

Welcome, again, to the most widely watched and the longest running program on Carolina business, policy and public affairs seen every week in North and South Carolina.

I'm Chris William.

In a moment we will start with experts from North Carolina's triangle and the low country in South Carolina.

And speaking of South Carolina, "Garden & Gun Magazine" based in Charleston has a lot of notable success.

Joining us later is the Senior Vice President and Editor in Chief, David DiBenedetto.

Stay with us.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Major funding also by Blue Cross, Blue Shield of South Carolina, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

And Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource-based building materials, providing the foundation on which our communities improve and grow.

(vibrant music) On this edition of "Carolina Business Review," Aaron Nelson, from The Chamber For a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Dr. Tonya Matthews of the International African American Museum, and special guest, David DiBenedetto, Senior Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of "Garden & Gun Magazine."

(vibrant music continues) - Hello, welcome again to our program.

We're glad you're joining us.

Also joining us virtually from Chapel Hill is, of course, Aaron Nelson, and also from Charleston in South Carolina's Lowcountry is Dr. Tonya Matthews.

Welcome to you both, good to see you.

Tonya, I wish you could experience Aaron Nelson in our studio, but you're not gonna be able to this time.

(both chuckling) And I'll just leave it there.

He's a great energy to be around and I'm halfway kidding about that 'cause we like having him and would love to have you in the studio.

So, Aaron, boy, what a setup.

Let me start with (chuckles) let me start with you.

You know, so the economy's good.

These are good problems to have.

However, what shows up in places like Orange County and North Carolina, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, is very expensive housing, and Aaron, I don't think I'm over the tips of my skis, this is forcing people to move, isn't it?

- Yeah.

When we survey, and Chris, it's really good to see, and Tonya, I hope to meet you in person, when we survey businesses about what their top challenge is, they say the top challenge, "Is finding and keeping employees."

And when we ask them what they attribute that to, they say, "The cost and availability of housing."

"It is the top challenge."

The average cost of a home, the transaction value is over $600,000 here in Orange County and also in Chatham County, and that is not dissimilar in the counties around us.

And we're gonna have to, as a community, both public and private sector, find some solutions.

Traditional models have worked really well from Habitat housing to some government-supported, but we think there's some new models that are really gonna help bring more housing faster, and we're gonna have to prioritize that if local businesses are gonna continue to be successful in finding workers that they need.

- I'm sorry to interrupt you, Aaron.

Have you reached a tipping point?

It seems like it's kind of that, no?

- Well, there are places that we can see that have been through this before, a recent trip, our community went out to Boulder, Colorado, and 10 years ago it was $900,000 split-level ranches from the 1950s, and commuting was the solution.

People just drive further and further away, which is driving up wages, which is also leading to sprawl, which makes it so the transit doesn't work.

We wanna bring more people proximate to their places of employment.

And I think there's zoning regulations, some state laws that could change, and some new strategies to bring the housing, but it has to be the business communities, a key top priority.

- Tonya, this can't be unfamiliar in the Lowcountry at all?

- You know, it's not unfamiliar at all.

You know, as a new resident, less than five years and a new employer, I'm definitely resonating with what Aaron is saying.

Of course, Charleston is the destination, if I may say so myself, and there are incredible economic drivers that are positive in that space, but when it comes to things like housing and affordability, it is something that we're grappling with, particularly since one of the reasons where we are such the place to be is to see homegrown culture.

Well, if homegrown culture's got to move 45 minutes out of town, you're not gonna get to see what you came to see when you come into downtown Charleston.

And of course, we just opened, and the issue around supporting employees and employee travel, employee housing, hybrid work environments do not fix everything.

So I'm definitely resonating with the points that Aaron is making.

- So when, you know, we're talking about it now, it's been talked about over and over, it's talked about in community meetings.

You all just made the good argument right now, is this something we just need to deal with?

Just need to know, or in, in your case, Tonya, that people are gonna be driving in from Pinopolis or Orangeburg just to get to work in Charleston.

I know that sounds a little bit dramatic, but is it a tipping point for you?

- No, I think that is a dramatic question, but it's a good question because, for example, one of the reasons that I've enjoyed being here, I am a Washington, D.C. native, okay?

So when you wanna talk about the two-hour commute, it's the nature of the beast there, but it was part of my decision to think about coming here.

And we've got several folks who are from the Lowcountry who work for the museum and some folks who have come in, and I do have to say that the issue of commute is actually a question, and where and how folks live is a question, right along with the salary.

And you can only raise salaries so much because I think folks are thinking a little more clearly about work-life balance, travel, childcare, all of that starts to become a factor when you talk about folks having to move farther and farther out just to get to work.

- In 2003, both North and both South Carolina had posted some of the biggest numbers ever in economic development, Aaron, and a lot of those projects are big projects.

I'm not gonna go down the list, but it's tens of billions of dollars.

It's thousands of employees.

And while this sounds good on the surface, it does create these issues of housing.

So I want to come back to this idea that the Carolinas are experiencing tremendous growth, how do we manage this growth?

And I'm speaking to you as an economic developer in a very core part of North Carolina.

Again, what would you say instead of just living with the problem that North Carolina can be doing proactively?

- Well, I think that we're just are gonna prepare for more housing, and that the nimbyism isn't gonna work anymore.

Wake County's grown by 65 people a day.

Our community's not growing that quick, there's a lot of folks coming and we're gonna have to build the housing and it's not gonna be all single-family, large lot.

We're gonna do multi-family.

We're gonna have to look at different models and I think employers can get involved.

First we gotta build it, right?

We gotta make sure we have the infrastructure, the roads, the transit, but that is imminently accomplishable.

and we've seen other regions handle that well, they've been there before.

But then I think then there'll be strategies on how to make it more affordable.

Everything from down payment assistance that an employer might offer as a forgivable loan to direct rent support.

We do it for healthcare, we help pay the healthcare of some of our employees and maybe housing support may be a thing we're gonna need to do to recruit and retain.

- Do you get the sense there's gonna be some political softness to entertain just what you said?

- I mean, we already have the legislature thinking about how they might remove some of the authority from local governments, that they'll get involved to make it easier to build the housing.

That local zoning regulations that have made it difficult in some places might be relieved, but we're gonna have to build it if our economy's gonna continue to grow.

- We've got a couple minutes before we bring on our guest.

Before we do that, I wanna get to something that's good.

Purely good.

(Dr. Matthews laughs) And congratulations, Dr. Matthews, on the opening of the International African American Museum in the Lowcountry.

Wow, what a wonderful event, but now you're open for business and now some things are emerging for you.

You have a fresh set of eyes living in the South, certainly in in the Lowcountry.

What has become apparent, and I wanna ask you specifically, and I'm not answering my own question, but the idea of cultural tourism certainly has been highlighted, but what else?

- Well, thank you for that.

You know, for folks who may not have picked up on it, we just opened in June 27th of 2023, so we are still less than a year in the game after about a 23-year journey to get to this space.

Cultural heritage tourism is definitely part of the business sector that we support, but it's interesting because, particularly Charleston, the Lowcountry as a whole, tourism history is our business, right?

So the tourism is our business, history is our brand.

And so what the museum represented, I think, is a filling out of that story that folks have been really excited.

We just got the results back from our economic impact study and it was upwards of $40 million in the first six months of operation.

And I think that's because, you know, there's an itchin' for this story.

We didn't create it.

We are just, I think, the newest tool in the toolbox and a lot of the stories we tell have been, of course, circulating in the Lowcountry, South Carolina, dare I say, the nation, for several hundred years.

- Well, thank you.

I wish we could unfold that a little bit more.

But, again, congratulations, it's a wonderful event, of course.

- Thank you.

- But also a lot of promise.

We're gonna bring our guest in.

It is hard not to compare the old "Southern Living Magazine" meme or theme to the new "Garden & Gun" publication.

They certainly seem similar, but "Garden & Gun" is seemingly breaking some publishing rules.

It's still a heavy, hard copy of a coffee-size table kind of a publication.

Most other pubs have gone online, solely online, but "Garden & Gun," what is their brand?

How do they define success?

And their audience?

Joining us now from Charleston, again, is the editor-in-chief, David DiBenedetto.

David, welcome to the program.

Nice to see you, sir.

- Nice to see you, thanks for having me.

- So, David, you've heard some of the conversation, we're not gonna go down that road, maybe later on in the dialogue, but, you know, "Garden & Gun", (chuckles) I say it kind of, it breaks rules.

You have a hard copy, it's delivered.

You have subs, it's being mailed.

What is the spirit of "Garden & Gun?"

What is it?

- You know, great question, right?

I think, overall, the mag is a celebration of the South that we love, right?

So we're covering food, music, art, literature.

And what certainly separates us from other magazines is our coverage of the sporting culture that is such a big part of the Southern DNA, and also this appreciation of the land where that sporting culture happens.

But there's also a commitment here to top-notch writing, photography, and using that to tell the stories of the South and its people.

But I gotta say we're also not a magazine that's afraid to acknowledge our very difficult history, and, again, happy when we can celebrate stories that show we're moving forward.

- The audited subscriber base is almost half outside the South.

- Yes.

- How do you define the audiences?

How do those two audiences live together?

- Well, what's really great about the audience and doesn't happen in a lot of magazines is we're also split down the middle.

There's the demographic is, you know, 48% female, 52% male, right?

So, that rarely happens.

And what I start with is we need to make a magazine that's interesting to anybody who picks it up.

Every page has to matter, every story has to be interesting from start to end.

And that may sound simple, but that's not the way it's always done, right?

And we come out six times a year, which allows every issue to be a bit of an event.

You know, when a magazine comes out 12 times a year, like the old days when there was no internet, and it was all, you know, magazines were having their heyday, we could admit that, you know, they came and went.

I think when "G & G" arrives, it's a bit of an event.

And when you talk about those folks out of the South, outside of the South who love "G & G," my ear pieces keep falling off.

(laughs) We get those letters that they either are expats who have moved out, or folks who just appreciate the lifestyle.

- We're gonna open it up the panel.

Aaron, please go first.

- We are seeing a locally real strong interest in the physical, beautiful, well-written, somehow it feels refreshing shift away from the scanning.

Are you seeing advertisers also sort of lean in and wanting to spend more and is circulation growing?

- So, yes.

I mean, what's great about "G & G," which we can say to readers, to advertisers, to anyone out there, well, what we can say to advertisers, and is that our readers actually read the magazine.

They read every page.

You know, I've been in this business for 25 years.

I spent 12 years in New York City at Winter Media, men's magazines, outdoor magazines.

I've never been at a magazine where the mailbag is consistently full, right?

We're touching folks in a way that matters to them, and they appreciate it and they want to talk about it.

And I can promise you when we get it wrong, they let us know that, too.

But, there is an appreciation for what we're doing.

And I believe, because people are so engaged with the content, they're also engaged with the ads, and to the publisher's credit, to our publisher's credit, the ads very much feel organic to the pages.

- Dr. Matthews?

- You know, it's great to chat with you, David, 'cause the one thing folks don't think I am, and "G & G" would have so much in common, but the thing we do have in common is that we have incredible stories and incredible visuals, right?

And there's often this, the photographer's like, "No, this picture will say all the words," and the writer's like, "Yeah, no, you're gonna need some words with that picture," and vice versa.

(David laughs) So talk a little bit, 'cause I love the visuals in "Garden & Gun."

So, talk a little bit about how you balance or think about curating the visuals with the stories that you're telling.

- Yeah, I mean that commitment to photography has been there from the very first day.

And, I have to say, "Garden & Gun" was founded in 2007, I came down from New York City in 2008, so, you know, a year into it, and that was already in place.

And, you know, it also starts, you know, early on we mentioned the quality of the paper, right?

Everything about it is almost lux in a big production, and the quality of the paper makes those images stand out and stand up.

And for me, you know, I want every page of the magazine to excite you, to interest you, to make you curious.

And, you know, we spend, it shouldn't be any surprise, right?

Anything you do well, you work really hard on, and you get this, we spent hours and hours and hours just thinking about what image might work on a two-page spread, or what two images or, you know, editors and I will talk about a headline for hours 'til sometimes I drive them crazy, but, you know, I like to say every word matters.

I mean, it does, and when it comes to images, it's even more important.

I mean, it sets the tone, and thankfully we've been able to keep and stay with that great quality of paper, and number of pages.

I mean, you know, the magazine always lands with a thud.

And I mean that in a good way.

(group laughs) You know, it's nice to be able to say that because you get some in the mail these days, and I love these magazines, but, you know, they're paper thin.

- David, AI, of course, it's all the rage now, even though it's been around for a long time, but how do you embrace AI and how do you do it in a way that does not undermine integrity when it comes to writing?

- I mean, when it comes to writing, I can't say that I know that answer yet.

I mean, you know, we are certainly waiting it out to see how it may be beneficial, but not in a way that undermines the quality of what we do, right?

I mean, there may be ways that AI comes to us and, you know, I heard someone talking about a program now that can look at covers and the covers of your competitors and analyze what words worked and what words didn't.

And, you know, that might be interesting, but when it comes to writing, I'm not comfortable with any use of it, so far.

And, and again, I might sound like a dinosaur and there may be, you know, things may change, but I think everything about "Garden & Gun" is almost the opposite of AI.

- Aaron?

- As you tell the story of the South, what role do you think you play in, I don't know, affirming stereotype or breaking them?

Do you go out of your way to say this isn't the South you think of or the South you remember?

- I think breaking them.

For instance, like, we don't use the word Dixie in our magazine, right?

We're not showing confederate flags.

I mean, that's not the South that we are.

I mean, my South, my team South, is an inclusive South and happy to champion the stereotypes of family and tradition, and, you know, this appreciation of the land, if you want to call those stereotypes, but certainly trying to avoid the cliches and especially the ones that just reflect poorly on us.

- Tonya?

- Well, you know, you kind of just sort of opened up a nice door there, David, because when you say the words Southern culture, it's never just one thing, right?

I mean, A, it's a big old region, and B, you know, as the heart of the nation, we've got everything here.

So you do have these conversations around diversity, and I can just imagine the challenges around, say curating the different stories.

So how does "G & G" sort of approach the broad diversity of Southern culture when you're trying to think about what to feature, what to talk about?

- Yeah, I'll say that we've learned a lot over the years how to be better at it.

You know, when I started in 2008, we thought about, you know, diversity in the pages, right?

We wanted to reflect a diverse South.

As time went on, we realized, well, we need to also let people of color tell the stories of other people of color, right?

So, it became not only are we gonna be diverse in our pages, but our storytellers, that we're gonna share the mic with a diverse group of storytellers, photographers, illustrators, and, so, you know, a complete package.

And, you know, we strive, it's top of mind all the time to represent what we consider the South, you know, that very varied south, And as you mentioned, like, I love it, the global South.

So many times, so many cultures piling into recipes and dishes, and that's who we are now, right?

- Yeah, so, since we're on easy topics, let's talk about the actual brand itself, "Garden & Gun."

The term gun is inclusionary, and it's exclusionary at the same time.

It's an interesting term.

So, what does gun mean?

And, I guess, then what does garden mean?

- Right, yeah, so, quickly, the name of the magazine was inspired by a club in Charleston called The Garden and Gun Club, which was around in the seventies.

And as I understand it, it was very much the Studio 54 of the South.

And when the bars would close, everybody ended up at the Garden and Gun Club, and it was the best party in town, which is what I kind of love, right?

There it is, that very inclusive idea from the beginning.

But, the other idea, the other thing, that I think the founders of this magazine liked was that "Garden & Gun" spoke to the male, female readership, it spoke to the appreciation of the land and the use of the, you know, the sporting culture that we were gonna cover.

But you're right, I mean, gun is a tough word.

There's no doubt about that.

You know, we have those discussions, you know, I usually start by telling people who have never heard about the magazine, it's not about gardens or guns, it's a Southern lifestyle magazine.

- Yeah, that's probably a good way to couch it.

Aaron, we have about two minutes left.

- I was just gonna ask, so is it creating a challenge for you?

Are you having to lately spend more time explaining it?

Or is it such a unique name that it's to your benefit?

- I would say it's a blessing and a curse, right?

In so many ways, it's been a wonderful name that grabbed attention and people remember it and it speaks to folks, on different levels.

And, then, on the opposite side of that, you know, there are folks who just hear the word gun and react to it in a way that we wouldn't want them to.

So, again, the best answer to that is please just open up the magazine, right?

You know, if you see what it's really about, and, sure, we cover the sporting culture, which involves guns, but this is not a magazine about handguns or gun rights, or, you know, rifles or anything like that, you know, we're talking about $40,000 shotguns.

So, I will say as we mature, it's something we think about and talk about a lot.

- About a minute and a half, Tonya, quick, quick question maybe?

- Sure, last thing, you told us that your readership is almost 50, 50, male and female.

We know, usually, our magazines are separate, so what do you think is the secret sauce behind that statistic?

- You know what's funny?

Or what was smart?

You know, when this magazine was invented, it scratched an itch that wasn't being scratched.

You know, these people weren't being talked to, this type of demographic.

They certainly were.

And, again, I'll go back to storytelling.

What we do really well is tell interesting stories and, you know, say we're, you know, we're writing about a home.

You might think that that might, you know, like style, interior design, that that might only be of interest, or more interest to women.

It's not that, I mean, you know, we always say like, "We want a home that, you know, if those walls could talk," "we want 'em talking."

We want every story to appeal to whoever picks it up and I want them to be surprised by it.

The number of letters we get from readers who might say, like, "I've never fly fished in my life," but I read the profile of Lefty Kreh, and, you know, now I want to go pick up a fly rod.

So, I think it's really about creating great content and just putting it out there for people to consume.

- We literally have 30 seconds, David, I want to ask you this, and I don't want to compare and contrast, but, you know, you gotta think of "Southern Living."

I mean, did they blaze the trail for you?

They had to.

- "Southern Living" is the behemoth, right?

I mean, they're still the biggest, you know, I'm friends with some of the folks over there.

They do it really well, and, yes, you know, back in the day, "Southern Living" was a little bit more broad than they are now.

But, you know, they found their groove and they're successful and we've kind of found ours, And it's a happy competition, I should say.

- That's a good way to put, that's the last word.

David, thank you for taking time to join us.

Dr. Matthews, thank you for joining us, Aaron, always nice to see you, and best of spring luck to all of you.

And, David, thanks for squarely planning the brand in Charleston.

- Yes, well, - Thanks, Chris.

I love to be here, I was happy to move from New York City back to the Lowcountry.

- Thank you, take care.

Good night, now.

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