Charlotte The Next Atlanta?

[teshadoh]

OE-305, I agree with a number of your points - but I certainly don't agree with your view that three of MARTA lines cover 'ghetto' areas, especially considering I live off of the East line. That line supports a number of affluent neighborhoods as well as middle income areas, the only 'ghetto' districts would be Old Fourth Ward, Reynoldstown, Edgewood, & Kirkwood - which all are quickly gentrifying, in fact significantly safer & more expensive to live in than 10 years ago. So, basically - don't call my hood a ghetto, b/c we spent a crap load of money to buy our home

Also, MARTA has 5 lines (north / northeast split) & we will ignore the 6th line that only serves one station.

Spartan - I agree with the difficulty Atlanta has with the numerous municipalities & counties (though still not as bad as metro Pittsburgh). But keep in mind when Charlotte does 'fill in' with the satellite cities - there will be a similar problem with city / county cooperation, though when this does occur in another 30 to 50 years their will hopefully be a regional agency with bite. Still, the rule of the game for suburban / exurban counties isn't to assist the primary city but to fight for development. Counties get out of the business of looking out for long time residents, but in making money - so sprawl is a fact of life for most of these counties - which unfortunately York is one of them.

atlvr - Bellsouth developed some infill in Midtown & anchored a 'TOD' at Lindbergh about 5 years ago. The TOD has been slow in taking off, not to mention it's not the best example of one. But since then MARTA has become engaged in the development business & promoting TOD's - which there are 4 or 5 planned.

[atlrvr]

TheBrad.....BellSouth is at 3 stations correct (or at least that was the plan) North Ave, Lindbergh and where else? I didn't know that Lindbergh wasn't booming. Am I correct that BellSouth didn't build enough parking spots at the offices to accomodate all the employees, but instead encouraging people to use the park and ride lots instead?

[teshadoh]

TheBrad.....BellSouth is at 3 stations correct (or at least that was the plan)  North Ave, Lindbergh and where else?  I didn't know that Lindbergh wasn't booming.  Am I correct that BellSouth didn't build enough parking spots at the offices to accomodate all the employees, but instead encouraging people to use the park and ride lots instead?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

BellSouth might have built too much parking at Lindbergh. But they have private parking decks at two MARTA stations. I'm not sure there is a third station though...

[Skyybutter]

Charlotte will grom slower and smarter. Charlotte is about 20 years behind Atlanta in terms of growth. Keep in mind the Atlanta metro area covers a larger area then Charlotte metro. I think at some point Charlotte will see alot of new residents actually moving from Atlanta to Charlotte.

The cities though similiar in some ways couldnt be more different. Atlantas central district is much more spread out then Charlottes. I think in the long run Uptown Charlotte will become a very dense urban playground of sorts. I can imagine uptown charlottes population reaching upwards of 40,000 people, especially if developers continue building up. When you get a concentration of people like that, growth just kind of takes on a mind of its own. No more will it be so important for huge projects such as EpiCentre. Imagine if you will, a huge NoDa type of environment.

As Ive said on this forum many times. Its VERY VERY important that center city provide housing for ALL income ranges. Otherwise it will be very boring and monotinous.

[monsoon]

Lots of opinions here, but I always say its the numbers that tell the real story.

Just to dispel this notion that Mecklenburg population is where Fulton was 20 years ago, we have these numbers from the US Census. Note that Fulton county is losing people now. If these growth rates hold (and they have been pretty constant for the last 5 years) then Mecklenburg will have more people and will be more dense than Fulton in less than 3 more years.

Fulton's population peaked out in 2001 and since then it has lost more than 6200 people. It looks to me that Atlanta better put some people in the car and send them up here to Charlotte to find out what we are doing right.

Fulton

Population - 814,438

Growth (2000-2004) - -1568

Density - 1539 people/sq mile

Mecklenburg

Population - 771,617

Growth (2000-2004) - 76,163

Density - 1467 people/sq mile

[teshadoh]

Lots of opinions here, but I always say its the numbers that tell the real story.

Just to dispel this notion that Mecklenburg population is where Fulton was 20 years ago, we have these numbers from the US Census.  Note that Fulton county  is losing people now.  If these growth rates hold (and they have been pretty constant for the last 5 years) then Mecklenburg will have more people and will be more dense than Fulton in less than 3 more years. 

Fulton's population peaked out in 2001 and since then it has lost more than 6200 people. It looks to me that Atlanta better put some people in the car and send them up here to Charlotte to find out what we are doing right. 

Fulton

Population - 814,438

Growth (2000-2004) - -1568 

Density - 1539 people/sq mile

Mecklenburg

Population - 771,617

Growth (2000-2004) - 76,163 

Density - 1467 people/sq mile

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But as long as the City of Atlanta is gaining in population - by all the census estimates - I could care less what is occuring in Sandy Springs or south Fulton. Nonetheless, though I'm pleased with Charlotte's growth I personally wouldn't care to model the city after Charlotte (we still have some historic buildings left - I would hate to see those torn down too )

[teshadoh]

What I would have hoped that some people got from this thread was how Charlotte was indeed following Atlanta's footsteps, rather than the boosterism attitude of how much better Charlotte was than Atlanta. It personally doesn't matter to me which is better, I made my choice 15 years ago to move out of Rock Hill (rather than move to Charlotte or Columbia). But rather than understanding what precautionary steps the Charlotte metro (not just Charlotte) should take this thread has degraded into pitiful boastful accolades of Charlotte's greatness.

It is important of course to understand how the Charlotte metro is taking steps not to replicate the mistakes of metro Atlanta or similar metros 30 to 40 years ago. But it is equally important to understand how or why none of these precautions may matter, or how Charlotte is indeed following Atlanta's steps. So far, the arguements why Charlotte will not become present day Atlanta are rather weak. Though I still mantain Charlotte metro will be better balanced than today's Atlanta metro, I can still see no difference in growth patterns that will not result in a sprawling low dense metro region, as it is now.

monsoon - I'm not intending to pick on you, but comparing Mecklenburg County & Fulton County is irrelevant to this discussion.

[monsoon]

monsoon - I'm not intending to pick on you, but comparing Mecklenburg County & Fulton County is irrelevant to this discussion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I really don't understand that. Atlanta is contained within Fulton and some of Dekalb. Charlotte is completely located within Mecklenburg. These are the core counties of each metro area.

It is a known fact that when the core counties experience negative or little growth relative to the metro, then you have unchecked sprawl occuring. When the core counties are growing faster than the metro, then you don't have this.

The point is Mecklenburg is already close to being as urban as either Fulton or Dekalb. We are not talking about 20 years in the future. But if you want to leave this discussion on the city limits instead then consider this.

Atlanta Population 450K, Metro 4.5M = 10% of the metro lives in the city.

Charlotte Pop. 700K, Metro 1.5M = 46% of the metro lives in the city.

You are entitled to your opinion of course, but the numbers tell the real story as to the differences between the two places.

[teshadoh]

Obviously any further conversation will only degrade further into an infantile city vs city debate, which is completely boring, fruitless & too time consuming. It doesn't provide me any real satisfaction to prove anyonewrong, so I will allow you your interpretation of data. Nor do I have any real heart felt attachment in defending Atlanta - my primary intent in this thread was to share some common values that Atlanta & Charlotte both have.

[Rickydavisfan21]

I would't have even brought up this topic, it pisses too many people off

charlotte has more people that atlanta within the city limits, thats what matters to me, atlanta is completely boxed in by its surrounding cities keeping it from really being able to grow. Between the late 80s and the early 90s atlantas population dropped from 414k to the lower 300s to me that says something bad about a city and of course they all flead to the surrounding cities. these surounding areas, marrietta, decatur, northlake, smyrna, norocross, stonemountain, roswell etc, regained all of the population.

Atlanta reminds me of a certain city in the midwestern united states, Detroit, MI. In 1950 Detroit was the second largest city in the nation with 1,849,568 people and then in 2000 detroit was trying to reach 1 million again in the census for government grant reasons. Where did the population go? Livonia, Birmingham, Bloomfield hills, pontiac, West Bloomfield, etc.

Why would charlotte ever want to be like atlanta anyways. Atlanta is the most confusing ass city on the planet, its just a complete mess. I hate it. I mean even the the skyline is mixed up and spread out for no apparent reason. I've been to 37 different states and only seen two cities worse than atlanta and thats detroit and houston

[atlrvr]

I'd like to point to a changing demographic profile is the main reason that Atlanta is losing population. Gentrification leads to much lower average household sizes, even if housing density is increasing. Also, having less school-aged kids in the county does help with budgeting, though it certainly shouldn't be a regional solution to only encourage childless couples, singles, gays, and elderly to live in the central county.

[monsoon]

Obviously any further conversation will only degrade further into an infantile city vs city debate, which is completely boring, fruitless & too time consuming.  It doesn't provide me any real satisfaction to prove anyonewrong, so I will allow you your interpretation of data.  Nor do I have any real heart felt attachment in defending Atlanta - my primary intent in this thread was to share some common values that Atlanta & Charlotte both have.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think so. We were asked for opinions and they were given. Please don't call us infantile if you don't like what you hear. And I've provided statistics that backup my point as well.

Charlotte is not like Atlanta and I don't think it will turn out to be like it either. There is nothing boring, furitless and time consuming about this subject.

[ryanmckibben]

A couple of things:

1) The City of Atlanta is not loosing population. The city has gained population every year since 1996.

2) There is not a single "core county" in the Atlanta area. Fulton county contains not only the center city, but also first, second, and third ring suburbs. DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinett and Clayton are just as much core counties as Fulton.

3) Comparing the present day city of Atlanta to 1950's Detroit shows a complete lack of knowledge with regards to history, economics, social policy and just plain common sense.

4) If I follow the logic here, the main criteria for comparing cities is population? If this were the case, cities like Mexico City, New Dehli, Johanasburg, and Sao Paulo would put New York, Paris, and London to shame. You guys completely miss the point.

5) There is in fact a reason the Atlanta skyline is so spread out. Atlanta's what is known as a linear city. It follows Peachtree Street from Downtown to Buckhead (with the exception of Perimeter and Cumberland...both of which are edge cities).

The skyline followed the the most desirable address.

6) monsoon, thank you for the urban planning lesson, but you take a far too simplistic interpretation of the definition of "urban sprawl". And while numbers do not lie, the person quoting them can spin them as he sees fit.

Back to the original thread, I hope Charlotte does not follow in the footsteps of the Atlanta metro area. Atlanta has at leat some defense of the predicament we find ourselves in. We (metro Atlantans) are a product of the first generation of cities growing up around the automobile instead of fixed rail transit. In essence, we didn't know any better. There were no case studies to learn from. Charlotte does not have that problem, you can study cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, LA, LV, or Pheonix. All of which grew up in the age of the auto. If you screw up, it's simply because your shortsighted and stubborn.

[Rickydavisfan21]

agreed sorry bout the detriot thing I just wanted to stir it up, but I don't think this thread should have ever happened. Charlotte doesn't want to be atlanta, charlotte will never be atlanta, they are two completely different cities. Granted they are both extremely poorly planned out, and confusing. Charlotte has been lucky so far we haven't made too many mistakes. Charlotte is also a very linear city, at least inside of the 277 loop, I understand all your points and very much so agree with them, can we just end this thread because its completely unneccessary, looking for the next atlanta is like looking for the next michael jordan, its a fruitless useless cause.

[teshadoh]

monsoon - somehow I figured you would insist on having the last word

But - I wanted to make clear I didn't call anyone 'infantile', you are either misunderstanding what I am saying or your are manipulating in order to satisfy your point. Additionally, my point has never been to suggest Charlotte is more sprawling than Atlanta, if I did suggest so then that is an error, but I believe again you mistook a statement I made and ran with it. The only assesment I had made was that Charlotte's metro was sprawling similarly to Atlanta's sprawling pattern of the 1960's - not some simplistic statement that Charlotte had more sprawl. Basically - don't consider any contrary comment to your own as an attack. But as it has been stated - using highly abstract definitions to define sprawl is too simplistic and results in conflicting data. A last point regarding your replies, which you managed to manipulate my intent was concerning 'irrelevant' - irrelevant to the purpose of this arguement & 'boring, furitless and time consuming', which was my own personal view of city vs city arguements. I had never suggested that this thread has previously degraded to that level, until you chose to. Yes, now I am being personal, because you have either misunderstood the intent or manipulated the true meaning to further your purpose. Otherwise I do hope this situation can come to a affirmative resolution.

But nonetheless, I didn't follow my own instructions and chose to goof off at work. I hope this will be of interest to everyone, I hope the information can perhaps illuminate some people, or at least lead to a more satisfying conclusion. How I developed this data was using the following data: census block group, census urban area, & 2004 CSA definition. Finding the central location of Atlanta & Charlotte - I measured a distance to the furthest point of the urban area farthest away within the CSA from the primary city. Then, buffering that distance to create quadrants which I found the population - all within the CSA of each city.

A key to the data:

20.5 MILE - the quadrant based on milage from primary city (the smallest number would be the innermost quadrant

2000 POP: 2336859 - 2000 population of census block group

2003 POP: 2487370 - 2003 population of census block group

1278.15922 SQ MILES - area of quadrant defined by block groups

2003/2000 GRTH 6.05% - growth from 2000 to 2003

2000 PRCT 51.43% - the percentage of 2000 population of quadrant from total population

2003 PRCT 49.48% 2003 PRCT - the percentage of 2003 population of quadrant from total population

Atlanta

20.5 MILE

2000 POP: 2336859

2003 POP: 2487370

1278.15922 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 6.05%

2000 PRCT 51.43%

2003 PRCT 49.48% 2003 PRCT

41

2000 POP: 1622875

2003 POP: 1901768

4016.76979 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 14.66%

2000 PRCT 35.72%

2003 PRCT 37.83%

61.5

2000 POP: 493019

2003 POP: 545817

4232.95727 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 9.67%

2000 POP 10.85%

2003 PRCT 10.85%

82

2000 POP: 90293

2003 POP: 91729

846.6015 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 1.56%

2000 PRCT 1.98%

2003 PRCT 1.82%

2000 POP 4543046

2003 POP 5026684

Charlotte

13

2000 POP: 703198

2003 POP: 771643

596.61635 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 8.87%

2000 PRCT 37.08%

2003 PRCT 37.71%

26

2000 POP: 565162

2003 POP: 619464

1449.54839 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 8.76%

2000 PRCT 29.8%

2003 PRCT 30.27%

39

2000 POP: 359585

2003 POP: 378924

2418.15192 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 5.1%

2000 PRCT 18.96%

2003 PRCT 18.51%

52

2000 POP: 268424

2003 POP: 276069

2162.01222 SQ MILES

2003/2000 GRTH 2.76%

2000 PRCT 14.15%

2003 PRCT 13.49%

2000 POP 1896369

2003 POP 2046100

Essentially, Atlanta's central core - the inner buffer based on 20.5 miles includes 49% of the metro area based on 2003 population estimates. Very much a sprawling metro - any typical metro with a strong urban core would include at least 75% of the population. Charlotte's wasn't that good either at 37%, due to the dominance of it's sattelite cities. From there you can measure how the half buffered areas are, with Charlotte being less than 70% & Atlanta less than 90%. But Charlotte's population growth within the primary quadrant is strong, stonger than Atlanta's - which is further worsened due to the second inner quadrant's far stronger growth rate.

Final conclusion: Both Charlotte & Atlanta have sprawling metros, with Charlotte currently sprawling a little less than Atlanta's. But that isn't anything anyone already knew is it?

But honestly monsoon - if you truly didn't understand what I was saying (based on your replies) then I do apologize.

[ATLman1]

Charlotte will never be like Atlanta, size or importance. These are two very different cities. Charlotte is 25-30 years behind Atlanta in everything. Charlotte is a great city, but it will never be anything like Atlanta. Charlotte should be compared more with Nashville, not Atlanta.

[teshadoh]

^

I don't think that is the point though - between Charlotte & Nashville, or most other southeastern cities - Charlotte does have a great liklihood of achieving the size & stature Atlanta presently has. I definitely think Charlotte has the potential of becoming an upper tier regional city.

Not all things are static though, it's hard to tell what situations will change in 50 or 100 years - by that time it is feasible that Charlotte may grow larger than Atlanta. Or both will be ghost towns as the oil pumps dry up

[monsoon]

If I were you teshadoh, I would be a lot less condescending in your remarks here and drop the insults.

You accuse me of spin but your analysis is anything but clear especially when you boil it all down to "Charlotte's wasn't that good either at 37%, due to the dominance of it's sattelite cities." You have already made the point that city limits are not compariable yet here you are doing just that. You can't just cherry pick numbers amongst CSA, city limits, etc.

I will repeat myself that Charlotte is not Atlanta. Nor will it become one as no one here would want that.

ATLman1. If you mean the sprawling Atlanta Metro, then I completely agree.

[atlrvr]

It took a bit to follow, but I got what you were saying (the term quadrant confused me, I think they are really equidistant rings) The encouraging thing for both cities is that the population percent in the outer-most ring fell in both cities.......though I do have to wonder if it is possible that the heavily northern bias of Atlanta accounts for this, if the southern portions has yet to sprawl into this ring......regardless, this does illustrate the point that Atlanta is denser at it's core, but that Charlotte is changing directions and seeing an increased momentum at it's core.

[ATLman1]

monsoon, I mean by everything that makes up Atlanta (importance, economy, population, etc.). Charlotte will never be able to catch up to Atlanta. I think Charlotte should continue what it's doing. Comparing these two cities is ridiculous IMO.

[monsoon]

monsoon, I mean by everything that makes up Atlanta (importance, economy, population, etc.). Charlotte will never be able to catch up to Atlanta. I think Charlotte should continue what it's doing. Comparing these two cities is ridiculous IMO.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well we have been through the importance thing before. Atlanta is important to Georgia,but not much else. Certainly not here in North Carolina.

[teshadoh]

If I were you teshadoh, I would be a lot  less condescending in your remarks here and drop the insults. 

You accuse me of spin but your analysis is anything but clear especially when you boil it all down to "Charlotte's wasn't that good either at 37%, due to the dominance of it's sattelite cities."  You have already made the point that city limits are not compariable yet here you are doing just that.    You can't just cherry pick numbers amongst CSA, city limits, etc. 

I will repeat myself that Charlotte is not Atlanta.  Nor will it become one as no one here would want that. 

ATLman1.  If you mean the sprawling Atlanta Metro, then I completely agree.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

monsoon, again if you view my comments as being condescending or negatory then I apologize, but if you need further instruction in regard to my findings then I will post them shortly. Nonetheless it did provide me with a new measure of sprawl, one that I originally did not consider, so I am grateful for this opportunity to 'test' it out. Nonetheless, I am puzzled by this statement: "You can't just cherry pick numbers amongst CSA, city limits, etc.", I used the CSA as a means to define the metro area, based on commuting as well as an understood measure of a primary city's economic influence as well as population patterns. Municipal boundaries were never considered - census designated urban areas (continuous census blocks exceeding 1000 p/sm).

Give me a second - I'll post some maps to explain the criteria used.

[Miesian Corners]

Well, you know, neither one are all that great. Both have sprawl, both are traffic nightmares, both suffer from boosterim gone mad, both have over the top pen*s envy (whose is bigger?) and both have a bit of an identity crisis.

I still like Charlotte better. It's home and more manageable for me. I think Atlanta is a fine city, too. Let's not beat a horse that's been dead for the past 20 years.

[JunktionFET]

Charlotte will never be like Atlanta, size or importance. These are two very different cities. Charlotte is 25-30 years behind Atlanta in everything. Charlotte is a great city, but it will never be anything like Atlanta. Charlotte should be compared more with Nashville, not Atlanta.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You, my friend, have not only negated yourself, but you've completely missed the point altogether. First you say Charlotte will never be anything like Atlanta, then you say that it is 25-30 years behind Atlanta in everything. Well make up your mind!

Also this is not a comparison of Atlanta and Charlotte, this is a thread about if Charlotte will end up turning out just like Atlanta--i.e. will Charlotte someday have the same political and growth management problems that Atlanta has today. Even the title gives that away! Did you miss it?

I believe there has been a bit of miscommunication going on here. I would like to add my two cents (or throw gas on the fire, whichever it may be).

Charlotte and Atlanta are very different on fundamental levels. The city of Atlanta is landlocked--it controls about 124 sq miles (?) of space and that's it. It is surrounded by umteen different municipalities. While Atlanta (the city!) may choose to adopt better policies for growth, transit, whatever, these other municipalities can choose not to cooperate, or to throw their own spin on it. You end up with inconsistentcies around the core of the metro.

Now, let's add in the 20 some odd metro counties surrounding Atlanta. The reason why there are so many is because Georgia has relatively small counties. This means that there are that many more governments and political interests to satisfy.

So instead of the region adopting a more consistent policy for growth, transportation, etc, you end up with a lot of bickering, comprimises, and just a general mess. Trying to get all of it to work in harmony is a real bear--and any objective Atlantan will testify this passionately. Heh, that sounds weird... anyway--

On the other hand the city of Charlotte occupies more than twice the land area than the city of Atlanta, which means that Charlotte's planning policies (et al) can be implemented consistently over a much larger area. Not only that, but NC counties are generally much larger, so there are far fewer individual governments to deal with.

Even when Charlotte metro gets to be around 4.5 million people, the growth and transportation will be much more consistent than Atlanta today. I doubt Charlotte's actual MSA will gain much in terms of land area because there is plenty of space in the MSA counties to fill. Add to the fact that Charlotte and its metro can learn a great deal about how to not do things, just by looking 4 hours down I-85 at Atlanta.

So is Charlotte following in Atlanta's footsteps? No. If you stretch the definitions and answer "yes" instead, then you could pretty much plug any two city names into that formula because when you start speaking in such generalized term, any city can apply.

Does this mean that Atlanta is a horrible city? No. Does this mean that Charlotte is a better city or (*gasp*) that Charlotte is perfect? No.

Charlotte has no desire to be like Atlanta, but Atlanta should not be so self obsessed as to think that is an insult. Whatever happened to celebrating differences?

[teshadoh]

The colors represent the quadrants (defined by miles from city center) defined. In bold outline are the CSA's & labeled are the primary city & the urban area / cluster that is within the CSA - that is farthest from the primary city. In order to measure the full limits of the primary city expanse.