So you think Gaston County is a cesspool, eh?

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It’s the butt of many a joke.

Since I moved to Charlotte last year, I’ve noticed that people like to talk smack about Gaston County, Mecklenburg County’s neighbor to the west. Maybe people make fun of other counties around here, too. But in the nine months that I’ve been here, I’ve only heard people dissing Gaston.

Apparently, it’s great fun to trash it, to call it a backwater and make fun of its people, to say its workers are unskilled. Of course, just about every metro area in the U.S. has a town or county that’s always part of a punch line. It makes some people feel better about themselves when they are bashing others.

Well, I’m going to have a Chris Crocker moment now (brief pause while I put on my white shirt with black trim around the neck):

Leave Gaston County alone!

Seriously, haters, there’s some positive stuff going on in Gaston County these days — maybe not as much as in Mecklenburg — and I think you need to recognize.

Just this month, Repi, an Italian company, announced that it plans to invest nearly $6 million in Gastonia and create about 30 jobs over the next three years. Repi manufactures liquid colors and additives, among other things.

The week before that, Lanxess, a manufacturer of high-tech plastics, rubber and chemicals, announced that it will locate a new facility in Gaston County, creating 55 jobs and investing $15 million during the next three years.

Whatcha got to say about that, haters?

But those aren’t the only new-job announcements this year for Gaston County.

Last month, it was reported that Daimler Trucks North America said it plans to bring back 628 workers at its two plants in the county, thanks to demand for Freightliner trucks. According to news reports, 474 employees will go to an assembly plant in Mount Holly, while the rest will go to a plant in Gastonia.

Booyah.

Then you have Boca Raton, Fla.-based Patriot Rail Corp. restoring rail service on the Piedmont and Northern Railway line in the county, and that’s a sign of progress.

But let’s not kid ourselves: Gaston County’s not a boomtown. The people running things over there have their work cut out for them.

A couple of weeks ago, we ran a story about how Gaston County is lagging the growth of other counties in the Charlotte metro area. Mecklenburg, Lincoln, Iredell, Cabarrus and Union counties have seen double-digit percentage increases in population over the past 10 years. That hasn’t been the case for Gaston, whose population rose only 8.3 percent. Of course, it could always be worse: Look at poor Halifax County, whose population fell 4.7 percent from 2000 to 2010.

Some blame the decline of the textile industry for Gaston’s struggles. Others point to the Catawba River and the access problems that it creates.

So, Gaston’s got its problems, but, as we reported in the aforementioned story, people there are trying to turn it around.

So make fun of Gaston County all you want, but know that as the health of its economy improves, it’s likely to benefit the economy of the region and vice versa.

Editor Deon Roberts can be reached at [email protected].