PEMBROKE, GA — For more than two decades, Ray Butler has run Butler’s Tire & Lube in the heart of Pembroke. He’s seen the town evolve, shrink, and now, rapidly grow — all during the time of his life as a local here.
“We had three grocery stores once a long time ago. That went away and for a while things felt pretty empty,” Butler recalled. “Now, it’s housing ... housing going up everywhere. That’s just in the last six to eight months.”
That burst of activity isn’t random. Just 10 miles down the road, Hyundai Motor Company has built a $5.5 billion Metaplant — a sprawling electric vehicle and battery complex expected to create more than 10,000 direct jobs, with thousands more in supporting industries.
For towns like Pembroke, a 40-minute drive west of Savannah with a population of 2,800, the arrival of a global manufacturing powerhouse brings both promise and pressure. How do you preserve the feel of a small town while preparing for massive new demands on housing, infrastructure, and services?
The Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute is hoping to help with that question — not just for Pembroke, but for any community facing sudden economic acceleration.
“We built a tool that predicts where and when growth will happen,” said Betsy McGriff, a project manager at CEDR. The tool, CEDRC™, is an economic development certification program that assists communities in planning for workforce infrastructure. “It looks beyond one county or one city line and focuses on commuting patterns — where people actually live, shop, go to school. That’s what gives you a truer sense of regional impact.”
CEDRC™ was developed with coastal Georgia in mind, specifically the unprecedented scale of the Hyundai investment. But its applications are broader — a way for cities and counties to model real-world impact and plan accordingly. It translates job growth into practical numbers: how many households, how many students, how much more demand on water, roads, or emergency services.
For Pembroke Community Development Director Derek Cathcart, that modeling is critical.
“There’s a tension between keeping the small-town charm people value, and the growth pressures we’re seeing,” Cathcart said. “You have to plan for that middle ground. We’re doing infrastructure studies, housing studies, transportation planning — and this tool helps us make those decisions with real data.”
McGriff, who grew up not far from Pembroke and has worked extensively with rural communities, understands that language matters.
“Sometimes planners talk in units per acre, in zoning codes — but people don’t live in codes. They live in places that feel right to them,” she said. “So I ask: Does this feel like the town you want?”
In April, McGriff and her team hosted a public listening session in Pembroke, where residents gathered to view street designs, development options, and housing styles. Rather than presenting a one-size-fits-all plan, the team asked locals what they liked, what felt right, and what kind of community they wanted to build.
“It’s not about imposing a vision,” McGriff said. “It’s about helping people shape their own.”
The feedback gathered from that session will be shared with city leaders and used to help guide updates to zoning codes and ordinances — giving Pembroke the regulatory tools it needs to make its residents’ vision a reality.
The new model lets communities visualize the future they want — whether that’s historic preservation and thoughtful infill development or room for newer commercial corridors. And it emphasizes that decisions made today shape what becomes permanent.
“You’ve got one bite at the apple,” McGriff said. “Once it’s built, it’s built.”
Back at Butler’s Tire & Lube, business is good. New faces are walking in the door, and Butler enjoys chatting with folks about where they came from and why they chose Pembroke.
“I’d never live anywhere but a small town,” he said. “It’s different now — a big change to get used to — but it’s exciting too.”
For Pembroke and so many other towns that are neighbors to big development projects, growth is inevitable. With tools like Georgia Tech’s model in hand, communities may have a better shot at shaping that growth — rather than being overwhelmed by it.