How do our cities compare...

[teshadoh]

I agree totally. It would make Greenville a city of 300,000+ like it really is. Greenville has the dumbest city limits I have ever seen. When I lived in Greenwood the city limits reached almost to the rural areas. Did you know that 90ish percent of Woodruff Rd. is not in the city? Yet there is traffic jams over there every day.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not hardly - the city would still be under 200k (from what I remember from what I posted in the annexation thread). Assuming the city would annex developments within 1000 people per square mile that is adjacent - this would be north to Travelor's Rest, east to Greer, the most directly adjacent development to the south, & lastly west across the river into Pickens County (a big stretch). Still - a noticable difference though....

[motonenterprises]

Even 200k is better than a very weak 56k though.

[teshadoh]

Absolutely, there are a number of other cities with urban areas nearing 500k & with municipal populations barely over 50k. I think Melbourne FL is one (or is it Daytona Beach?), but Greenville should definitely be over 100k, that could be easily done by annexing in just the eastern & northern areas within a few miles of the city.

But you kind of have to blame Greenville too - they have had an opportunity to annex before anything developed. But also another thing to consider - they might not want to grow any further. The less of a population to provide services too, while receiving taxes from businesses in downtown & the mall - the better off financially the city is. That is one thing I learned from working for a municipality - they won't simply annex anyone just for the sake of a larger population. Marietta GA has been requested multiple times to annex, but they use a formula that would determine what they would get out of the annexation financially.

[Charleston native]

My hometown does have aggressive annexation history, but it still has a long way to go as far as unification of its UA. First if all, there should not be 2 separate cities of North Charleston and Charleston. These should be merged...then at least on a map, people would understand the true representation of how big Charleston really is. Second, James Island and St. Andrews PSDs should be merged into Charleston as well. There have been countless debates on county and city management of development, and this would solve the debate as well as encompass most of the UA for the city.

Then, you would have a city of Charleston with over 200K in a metro area of almost 600K...this makes sense! Other cities such as Mount Pleasant, Goose Creek, and Summerville would provide sizeable suburbs for Charleston, yet the area would still have tiny beach towns such as Folly Beach, Edisto Beach, and Sullivan's Island.

Oh yeah, to correct an earlier post, N. Charleston has never annexed land West Ashley or James Island...that has been Charleston. (You see, you get confusion with just this situation, unless they merged!) This city has mostly annexed parts of Dorchester County south of Summerville.

[gvillenative]

Teshadoh, even though it is below 300k, I would take 185k over 56k anyday. I think we should steal Reno, NV's slogan. LOL. "The biggest little city in the world." For all of those ready to pounce because I said its the biggest little city in the world it was a joke, don't shoot me. It's just the feeling I get. You tell somebody you live in a big city and they ask you the pop. you kinda have to whisper 56,000, they started talking smack oh thats not a big city thats a little town. LOL

[Spartan]

Spartan where do you get all of this info? This map proves what I was saying about Woodruff Rd(the 90 percent thing). Mauldin and Greenville basically touch on some parts of this map. Didn't realize how close they were.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It seemed relevant to show what was being said since it is hard to visualize what you meant by 90%. All of this info is from the Census 2000 TIGER/Line data that I imported into a GIS program.

[sonofaque86]

Teshadoh, even though it is below 300k, I would take 185k over 56k anyday. I think we should steal Reno, NV's slogan. LOL. "The biggest little city in the world." For all of those ready to pounce because I said its the biggest little city in the world it was a joke, don't shoot me. It's just the feeling I get. You tell somebody you live in a big city and they ask you the pop. you kinda have to whisper 56,000, they started talking smack oh thats not a big city thats a little town. LOL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LMAO....If Greenville had 125.2 square miles like Columbia I bet it would be bigger....Persons per square mile for the 4 biggest cities in SC...

1. Columbia - 928.6 Persons Per Square Mile (125.2 Square Miles)

2. Charleston - 996 PPSM (97 Square Miles)

3. N. Charleston - 1360.6 PPSM (59 Square Miles)

4. Greenville - 2,148 ppsm (26 Square Miles)

Rock Hill will over throw Greenville as the 4th biggest city though in the 2010 census

[krazeeboi]

I wouldn't doubt it....Greenville had better do SOMETHING. I would hate to see that happen.

[teshadoh]

Rock Hill will over throw Greenville as the 4th biggest city though in the 2010 census

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Already happened...

2003 Census Population Estimates:

Greenville 55,926

Rock Hill 56,114

Also Mount Pleasant is 54,788

When Mount Pleasant jumps over Greenville, that will make Greenville only the 6th largest city in the state.

[krazeeboi]

Sick.....

[motonenterprises]

Despite what the census says. Everyone knows that Rock Hill or Mount Pleasant are nowhere near as big a Greenville. This is just government drawn lines. Not a true indicator of a cities size.

[krazeeboi]

This is true, but everyone isn't making site visits to see whether or not this is the case. I just want the official stats to truly reflect the actual size of our cities. Oh well, we still have UAs and MSAs. But even then, with Rock Hill being included in Charlotte's MSA, we have the largest MSA in the state. Watch out Greenville, we're taking over!

In light of all of this, can we get a Rock Hill subforum? LOL

[teshadoh]

Despite what the census says. Everyone knows that Rock Hill or Mount Pleasant are nowhere near as big a Greenville. This is just government drawn lines. Not a true indicator of a cities size.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh please - don't you think we already realize that? Of course you are correct, but certainly as you have agreed the municipal boundary of Greenville is underserving the greater urban area.

[motonenterprises]

Charlotte is a NC MSA which means you don't have the largest MSA in the state of SC. I think everyone is going to be surprised in the next census when they see how much Greenville's population has actually gone up by then. There is a whole lot of stuff going on here that is bringing in lots of people from everywhere. ICAR alone is supposed to make around 20,000 jobs. With that comes those peoples families. Don't know much about Rock Hill, but I could live there with it being so close to Charlotte.

[teshadoh]

Don't know much about Rock Hill, but I could live there with it being so close to Charlotte.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No you couldn't, I wasn't able to

[UrbanSoutherner]

Already happened...

2003 Census Population Estimates:

Greenville

[The_sandlapper]

Already happened...

2003 Census Population Estimates:

Greenville  55,926

Rock Hill  56,114

Also Mount Pleasant is 54,788

When Mount Pleasant jumps over Greenville, that will make Greenville only the 6th largest city in the state.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This may sound like a dumb question but did you get this from the census site and if so where? Just curious, I'd like to see the Columbia 2003 population.

[Spartan]

Despite what the census says. Everyone knows that Rock Hill or Mount Pleasant are nowhere near as big a Greenville. This is just government drawn lines. Not a true indicator of a cities size.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Some of you were quite concerned about this in another thread.

In light of all of this, can we get a Rock Hill subforum? LOL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Rock Hill needs to see a significant increase in activity (posts & discussion) around here before a subforum could be warranted. That said, I can arrange to have a subforum created if it becomes necessary (which I would like to see). I have noticed alot of Rock Hillers (Rock Hillites, Rock Hillians, whatever you call yourselves) joining up lately.

I am also surprised that Myrtle Beach's population is not growing even without any annexations.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not. Everyone wants to visit MB, but nobody wants to live there. I realize that is not entriely true since the area is growing, but I can see MB becoming like the Strip in Las Vegas- a tourist oriented place that the locals generally avoid.

This may sound like a dumb question but did you get this from the census site and if so where? Just curious, I'd like to see the Columbia 2003 population.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That is not dumb at all.

Census: http://www.census.gov/popest/estimates.php

Other: http://www.oliviadrab.com/bradblog/2003pop...003Rankings.htm

[The_sandlapper]

From Spartan: "I'm not. Everyone wants to visit MB, but nobody wants to live there. I realize that is not entriely true since the area is growing, but I can see MB becoming like the Strip in Las Vegas- a tourist oriented place that the locals generally avoid."

That's exactly how it is. When I living there I would very rarely ever travel to Myrtle Beach Proper unless I had too. Tourist traffic there is rediculous all year long, and they arel all from NC too. I saw just as many NC tags in Myrlte as I did SC tags if not more. Traffic is only gonna get worse when Hard Rock's theme park gets completed, 501 & 17 are already a mess.

Thanks for the links by the way.

[vicupstate]

Already happened...

2003 Census Population Estimates:

Greenville  55,926

Rock Hill  56,114

Also Mount Pleasant is 54,788

When Mount Pleasant jumps over Greenville, that will make Greenville only the 6th largest city in the state.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These estimates are often off quite a bit, when the real census is actually taken, but I was not aware that Rock Hill had reached the 50,000+ mark.

Greenville will probably gain population for the first time in decades when the 2010 census is complete, but I doubt it will be enough to keep from falling to 6th place.

I expect Charleston will be the new largest SC city when the 2010 census comes out. They are only about 6,000 behind, with 5 more years to close the gap.

BTW, the only reason Columbia has so many square miles is because of the vast area of Ft. Jackson. Otherwise it would be in the 35-40 square mile range. Charleston's is high because of the vast Berkley County area (Daniel Island) that is only recently starting to develop in a big way.

[waccamatt]

LMAO....If Greenville had 125.2 square miles like Columbia I bet it would be bigger....Persons per square mile for the 4 biggest cities in SC...

1. Columbia - 928.6 Persons Per Square Mile (125.2 Square Miles)

2. Charleston - 996 PPSM (97 Square Miles)

3. N. Charleston - 1360.6 PPSM (59 Square Miles)

4. Greenville - 2,148 ppsm (26 Square Miles)

Rock Hill will over throw Greenville as the 4th biggest city though in the 2010 census

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Columbia's figures are skewed because of Fort Jackson. 90 of Columbia's 125 square miles are Fort Jackson, which is mostly uninhabited.

[sonofaque86]

Columbia's figures are skewed because of Fort Jackson. 90 of Columbia's 125 square miles are Fort Jackson, which is mostly uninhabited.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wow...

[Charleston native]

Despite what the census says. Everyone knows that Rock Hill or Mount Pleasant are nowhere near as big a Greenville. This is just government drawn lines. Not a true indicator of a cities size.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think it's necessary to draw comparisons between Mt. Pleasant and Greenville's population because of one important fact: Mt. Pleasant is merely a big suburb of Charleston. It is not a county seat, does not have a central downtown, and consists mostly of bedroom communities and shopping centers.

It is deplorable that a suburb is competing in population rank with the primary city of the Upstate region of this state, though. Greenville really needs to start aggressive annexation to counter this situation. Greenville should at least be around 80-90k in terms of city limits. And that is still a relatively low number!

[GvilleSC]

Back to one of the original topics.... DOWNTOWN REVITILIZATION. There is no doubt that Greenville's efforts are the most well planned and the work has payed off. There is no other downtown in the state that offers such quality of everything. Greenville has been nationally recognized and received the "Great American Main Street Award" in 2003. I think we compare well in that topic...

[UrbanSoutherner]

Back to one of the original topics.... DOWNTOWN REVITILIZATION. There is no doubt that Greenville's efforts are the most well planned and the work has payed off. There is no other downtown in the state that offers such quality of everything. Greenville has been nationally recognized and received the "Great American Main Street Award" in 2003. I think we compare well in that topic...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would agree that Greenville has the best all-around downtown of the major cities in the state. It has a very pleasant "small town" feel to it. Charleston has a great downtown too and King Street is nice, but it is more tourist-geared rather than resident-geared. I think Greenville benefited from having a relatively smaller intown area and all efforts geared towards the Main Street-West End corridor. Columbia has really suffered I think from trying to revitalize too much at once. The focus on the Congaree Vista has produced some great results, but Main Street has probably been somewhat neglected because of it. And now they want to revitalize the West Columbia side of the river across from the Congaree Vista. It may be too broad a net being cast.