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Well, for some unrelated news, Western North Carolina is expected to lose influence by the next census in 2020:

Population trends may reduce WNC's political power

This isn't just good news for Charlotte, but also the other urban centers in the state. This means less power from rural politicians, and more representation from major cities like Charlotte. Now if we can get the Supreme Court to sort out our gerrymandered districts, then NC might have a bright future.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Mecklenburg Quality of Life dashboard has been updated for the 2015 estimates (county's estimates):

http://mcmap.org/qol/?m=m47&n=

Uptown Charlotte has grown by 3,000 since 2010. Charlotte has a 2015 estimate of 860k people, but that figure also includes areas that are within Charlotte's ETJ. Mecklenburg's population is slated at 1,029,228.

Edited by Third Strike
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 What is the total population of Uptown Charlotte currently?  I've seen estimates for Uptown / Center City ranging from a low of 15,000 to a high of 25,000, but often the estimates appear to include not just Uptown Charlotte but adjacent areas outside the 277 loop including the South End along the rail trail and South Blvd.   I also saw an Uptown / Center City figure approaching 40,000 in a Charlotte Agenda story recently, but it appears that the area counted included parts of Midtown and South End.  What's the population that lives inside the 277 belt loop?

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15 minutes ago, QCxpat said:

 What is the total population of Uptown Charlotte currently?  I've seen estimates for Uptown / Center City ranging from a low of 15,000 to a high of 25,000, but often the estimates appear to include not just Uptown Charlotte but adjacent areas outside the 277 loop including the South End along the rail trail and South Blvd.   I also saw an Uptown / Center City figure approaching 40,000 in a Charlotte Agenda story recently, but it appears that the area counted included parts of Midtown and South End.  What's the population that lives inside the 277 belt loop?

This interactive map allows you to zoom in to the tract level.  The tracts don't line up with 277.  For tracts mostly within 277, I get 12,489.  Adding 3 more tracts that are partially inside 277 and thus partially cheating, you get up to 14,299.  Then there's a tiny piece of a N Tryon tract that's inside 277...that whole tract would add 1,531 but that definitely feels like cheating.

Those are 2010 numbers.

http://www.census.gov/2010census/popmap/

(standard disclaimer for my math or clicking errors)

 

 

Edited by grodney
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On 2/3/2016 at 8:36 AM, grodney said:

For zip code 28202, which matches 277 pretty well, this pdf from the charlotte chamber says 2010 was 10,995, 2015 was 12,351, and 2020 estimate of 13,509.

Chamber doc: http://charlottechamber.com/clientuploads/Economic_pdfs/Zip_Demographics/CLT_basic_demos.pdf

Interactive zip code map: http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm

Just for fun I ran a report from Popstats (a major demographic data vendor used by companies such as the esteemed Family Dollar  Dollar Tree and Bank of America) for the area inside 277 (the 28202 excludes some significant office towers near the square according to google maps). The numbers are pretty close to yours

Current Pop: 13,334 (3,165 people are reported as living in "Group Quarters" (the jail), so Popstats says that only 10,169 people are voluntarily living inside 277)
2019 est pop: 15,523
Households: 6,617 (HH size is larger than I would expect due to the group quarters issue)
Projected annual growth rate: 4% (this is low IMO)
Median HH income: $71,130
46% of the pop is between 25 and 45
Population with a bachelors degree or higher: 66%
Housing units: 7,543 (33% owner occupied)
Median home value: $320,880
56% of the pop drives to work alone
9% of HH don't own a vehicle

They also say that only 57,831 people work inside 277 -- I do believe that number is much higher in reality

Demographic data for sub-county areas for inter-census years is generally of awful quality, and significant disagreement between sources is inevitable. Long story short, no one knows exactly how many people live inside 28202 (or anywhere else) and the person who compiles the data for the city would tell you that there is nothing magic about their numbers that make them more accurate than anyone elses.  Data sources at this level of detail (census tract or zip code) commonly vary by as much as 30%. There is more variation in neighborhoods that are transitioning (like uptown) and less variation in stable suburban areas (like Bollywood) and this systematic inconsistency makes it more difficult (meaning risky) for developers / lenders / tenants to create intown retail.

 

Edited by kermit
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Grodney writes: For zip code 28202, which matches 277 pretty well, this pdf from the charlotte chamber says 2010 was 10,995, 2015 was 12,351, and 2020 estimate of 13,509.

Chamber doc: http://charlottechamber.com/clientuploads/Economic_pdfs/Zip_Demographics/CLT_basic_demos.pdf

Interactive zip code map: http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm

Charlotte's population in 1890 was 11,557.  At that time, presumably, most of the population lived within Charlotte's original 4 wards (i.e., within the 277 loop).  Compared to the 1890 population, why is it that just 794 more people live in Uptown / Center City as of 2015, especially in view of the fact that Charlotte's total population has increased exponentially and as of 07/01/2014 exceeded 800,000 people?   

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6 minutes ago, QCxpat said:

 

Grodney writes: For zip code 28202, which matches 277 pretty well, this pdf from the charlotte chamber says 2010 was 10,995, 2015 was 12,351, and 2020 estimate of 13,509.

Chamber doc: http://charlottechamber.com/clientuploads/Economic_pdfs/Zip_Demographics/CLT_basic_demos.pdf

Interactive zip code map: http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm

Charlotte's population in 1890 was 11,557.  At that time, presumably, most of the population lived within Charlotte's original 4 wards (i.e., within the 277 loop).  Compared to the 1890 population, why is it that just 794 more people live in Uptown / Center City as of 2015, especially in view of the fact that Charlotte's total population has increased exponentially and as of 07/01/2014 exceeded 800,000 people?   

Here are a few reasons:

  • Because office towers displaced residences until very recently.
  • Because Charlotte has a geographic footprint of nearly 300 square miles and people spiraled ever outward until very recently.
  • Because the return of residences to uptown is also a fairly recent event and even now, many are single person households. Families with children still prefer living outside the I-277 loop.

 

Edited by Silicon Dogwoods
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On 2/3/2016 at 9:39 AM, Silicon Dogwoods said:

Here are a few reasons:

  • Because office towers displaced residences until very recently.
  • Because Charlotte has a geographic footprint of nearly 300 square miles and people spiraled ever outward until very recently.
  • Because the return of residences to uptown is also a fairly recent event and even now, many are single person households. Families with children still prefer living outside the I-277 loop.

 

Mecklenburg County covers 546 square miles (including 22 sq. miles of water), and Charlotte covers 303.4 square miles or 55.56% of the county.  What impact(s), if any, has the 2012 Annexation Reform Act had on Charlotte's population and future growth prospects, and on the stability of its municipal finances?

The census bureau's schedule of new estimates indicates that metropolitan statistical area (MSA) populations will be released in March 2016, and that estimates for incorporated city and town populations will be released in May, 2016.  Does anyone know the precise dates in March and May when the MSA and City estimates will be published (following the usual 48 hour embargo period)?

 

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10 hours ago, QCxpat said:

Mecklenburg County covers 546 square miles (including 22 sq. miles of water), and Charlotte covers 303.4 square miles or 55.56% of the county.  What impact(s), if any, has the 2012 Annexation Reform Act had on Charlotte's population and future growth prospects, and on the stability of its municipal finances?

The census bureau's schedule of new estimates indicates that metropolitan statistical area (MSA) populations will be released in March 2016, and that estimates for incorporated city and town populations will be released in May, 2016.  Does anyone know the precise dates in March and May when the MSA and City estimates will be published (following the usual 48 hour embargo period)?

 

1) There has been no study I've seen that speaks to those issues, though they were initially of great concern. Charlotte's growth has powered ahead, fed by job seekers, new jobs in-city and greater density. Long-term, given the great desire to live close-in, the (I think it was 2011) act may have no impact on Charlotte's growth. One other thing: the new development at Providence and 485-Waverly, Golf Links, etc.- was annexed into the city at the developers' request, if I'm not mistaken. Someone else here-Jayvee, RDF-probably knows better than I do. Annexation at landowner request is still permitted under the new annexation law. Mecklenburg Co. recently reported a surplus for this year but I don't recall seeing anything about Charlotte's finances. In a booming city, there should be a surplus, IMO.

2) Can't say for sure but I think those numbers are released later in the month, say around March 20-25.

Edited by Silicon Dogwoods
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2 hours ago, southslider said:

Fortunately, just when annexation became difficult, urban infill and redevelopment really took off.  The City's capital improvements are also increasingly focused on reinvestment. The rural and exurban interests behind the annexation "reform" may have inadvertently done center cities a huge favor.

Pardon my schadenfreude.

Edited by Silicon Dogwoods
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4 hours ago, Silicon Dogwoods said:

1) There has been no study I've seen that speaks to those issues, though they were initially of great concern. Charlotte's growth has powered ahead, fed by job seekers, new jobs in-city and greater density. Long-term, given the great desire to live close-in, the (I think it was 2011) act may have no impact on Charlotte's growth. One other thing: the new development at Providence and 485-Waverly, Golf Links, etc.- was annexed into the city at the developers' request, if I'm not mistaken. Someone else here-Jayvee, RDF-probably knows better than I do. Annexation at landowner request is still permitted under the new annexation law. Mecklenburg Co. recently reported a surplus for this year but I don't recall seeing anything about Charlotte's finances. In a booming city, there should be a surplus, IMO.

2) Can't say for sure but I think those numbers are released later in the month, say around March 20-25.

Good catch!  The annexation bill was passed in 2011, not 2012.

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Population summary below.

As of 7/1/2014:

City = 809,958 (rank=17th)

County = 1,012,539 (41st)

MSA = 2,380,314 (22nd)

CSA = 2,537,990

Primary Statistical Area = 2,537,990 (24th)

As of March 2015:

Charlotte Region = 2,754,985 (http://charlotteusa.com/business-info/charlotte-usa-overview/)

As of 2010:

Urban Area = 1,249,442 (38th)

 

*Source is wikipedia except for Charlotte Region which is cited separately above.

 

 

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59 minutes ago, grodney said:

Population summary below.

As of 7/1/2014:

City = 809,958 (rank=17th)

County = 1,012,539 (41st)

MSA = 2,380,314 (22nd)

CSA = 2,537,990

Primary Statistical Area = 2,537,990 (24th)

As of March 2015:

Charlotte Region = 2,754,985 (http://charlotteusa.com/business-info/charlotte-usa-overview/)

As of 2010:

Urban Area = 1,249,442 (38th)

 

*Source is wikipedia except for Charlotte Region which is cited separately above.

 

 

There has been speculation that the QC's annual growth rate may have declined slightly in the past couple of years.  What recent data do we have regarding Charlotte's rate of growth?

Why is it that Charlotte's per capita income ($41,645) appears to be lower than many of its peer cities (e.g., Austin ($44,760); Jacksonville ($43,149); Miami ($45,377); Nashville ($45,759); Raleigh ($43,947); Richmond ($46,118); and OK City ($44,280))?  (N.B.. figures as of 2013 from The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2016)  

 

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^Because a lot of the QC's population growth is in larger working-class families with children, or childless singles working service-sector jobs or even temporary contracted corporate jobs.  That's a trade-off of the high-growth city in the least unionized state. And since Charlotte already has lower educational attainment than many of those peers, it doesn't bode well for the future that the state is investing less in education. While household size can drag down per capita income, educational attainment is directly correlated to income.

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The annexation law won't affect Charlotte that much. Partly this is because the City has already annexed most of its ETJ. Plus, the City is still able to annex because developers want the city to take over maintenance of their streets and other infrastructure (ie: Waverly on Providence Rd). The only difference is that we'll probably see annexation more frequently in smaller geographies whereas before it was large tracts of land every two years.

What you'll start to see over time in this state is the South Carolina-style spiderweb annexation process that makes convoluted city limit boundaries that skip parcels and make managing cities incredibly difficult. This will be a bigger issue to the smaller cities and towns in North Carolina that lie near the major metro areas. I also think this will make for less healthy cities financially in the long run (as in multi-decades). Again, South Carolina is a prime example of this. Even in economically thriving regions like the Upstate, there are cities that struggle to make ends meet because they are not able to annex the tax bases that they should be providing services to.

If/when that happens, you can thank the Tea Party for making government less efficient. The irony is that by making government less efficient it creates more fodder for the Tea Party types to complain that government needs to be fixed with their bad ideas.

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21 minutes ago, QCxpat said:

There has been speculation that the QC's annual growth rate may have declined slightly in the past couple of years.  What recent data do we have regarding Charlotte's rate of growth?

Why is it that Charlotte's per capita income ($41,645) appears to be lower than many of its peer cities (e.g., Austin ($44,760); Jacksonville ($43,149); Miami ($45,377); Nashville ($45,759); Raleigh ($43,947); Richmond ($46,118); and OK City ($44,280))?  (N.B.. figures as of 2013 from The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2016)  

 

Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, and Oklahoma City have lower median incomes than the Charlotte Metro Area, but have higher per capita incomes. This indicates those four metros have a wealthier group at the very top of the socio-economic class that bring up the total income in the region and thus the average when it is divided among all residents. Miami has more millionaires than Charlotte and I would guess their top 5% is far wealthier than Charlotte's top 5%. This is going to make everybody look far wealthier on a per capita basis, when in reality it is held by the top 5%. Thus Miami is actually last among these cities for metro median income.

Household median income, U.S. metros, 5 year estimates:
Raleigh: $61,919
Austin: $59,646
Richmond: $58,577
Charlotte: $54,152
Jacksonville: $52,881
Nashville: $52,779
Oklahoma City: $49,534
Miami: $48,582
 

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And here are the education statistics for those metro areas vs. Charlotte, for adults 25 years and older, 5 year estimates. Charlotte ranks third for % with a bachelor degree, after the engineering/science/college cities of Austin and Raleigh.

Metro: % That Have Attained a Degree from high school, % That Have Attained a Bachelor's

Austin: 88% high school, 40% Bachelor's
Charlotte: 87% high school, 33% Bachelor's
Jacksonville: 88% high school, 27% Bachelor's
Miami: 83% high school, 29% Bachelor's
Nashville: 87% high school, 31% Bachelor's
Oklahoma City: 88% high school, 28% Bachelor's 
Raleigh: 90% high school, 42% Bachelor's
Richmond: 86% high school, 32% Bachelor's

Edited by CLT2014
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RE Population Growth:

Per the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (their regional economic stats) the Charlotte MSA (with consistent 2014 boundaries) has grown by 2.3% per year since 2000 (the CAGR is for 2000-2014)

Moody's produces regional economic forecasts for each metro area quarterly. They use publicly available data for past figures and apply that data to proprietary models for their growth forecasts. Their numbers for Charlotte metro population growth rates are as follows (numbers show population growth against the preceding year)

2009: 2.0% (employment DECLINED by 6.1%)
2010: 1.3% (employment declined by 0.4%)
2011: 1.5% (employment grew by 2.3%)
2012: 1.7% (+2.8% employment)
2013: 1.8% (+2.5% employment)
2014: 1.8% (all of these numbers match what is reported by the BEA)

(keep in mind the numbers above are for the metro area and the outlying counties did not grow as quickly as Mecklenburg during the post-recession period.

Moody's projections for future population growth are: (take these with a grain of salt -- forecasting the future is never precise)

2015: 1.8%
2016: 1.9%
2017: 2.1%
2018: 2.5%
2019: 2.6%
2020: 2.6%  (Moody's has a habit of inflating long-term projections and they reign those numbers back later)

So from the perspective of the metro Charlotte's growth has slowed in the post-recession era -- this is not a surprise given the magnitude of the economic shock to the region. What is a surprise is that Charlotte continued to grow during a period of steady employment declines that were significantly worse than many other metros in the region. The City or county level data is likely to tell a different story. I might pull those numbers together if I feel a strong need to procrastinate today. If someone else is motivated to do that the BEA data can be obtained here: http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm

 

 

Edited by kermit
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And here are the population growth rate figures for Mecklenburg County from the BEA http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm  (numbers show population growth against the preceding year) all numbers in %

2000: 2.7
2001: 2.8
2002: 2.3
2003: 2.4
2004: 2.5
2005: 3.3
2006: 4.1
2007: 3.7
2008: 3.0
2009: 2.3
2010: 1.6
2011: 2.4
2012: 2.5
2013: 2.4
2014: 2.0

Given the numbers above it seems fair to say that the Metro growth has slowed but Mecklenburg County has not (too early to tell if the 2014 number is anything more than noise)

 

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It's clear that we import a lot of people who may not be ready to compete successfully in the labor market.

Charlotte may seem more welcoming to these people than Raleigh, with its very high level of educational attainment and higher cost of living.

By nearly every measure, Raleigh grows more quickly than Charlotte. I attribute this to the kind of jobs that the national economy creates. More of them can be found in Raleigh than in Charlotte, which points to the critical need for Charlotte (the state will not even hear of doing it) to develop UNC Charlotte into something more, much more than the nice regional university that it is.

It's not that Charlotte is in danger of 'becoming Detroit,' as the right-wing likes to shriek. It isn't. It's that places like Raleigh will do so much better because of the concentration of higher education. Over time, that builds enormous wealth and intellectual capital that won't get built here.

Charlotte's ace in the hole in CLT. Charlotte's Achilles' heel is the lack of a major national research university and seemingly no urgency to create one.

I probably wouldn't swap CLT for the Triangle universities. Education may be done very differently in the future than it is today and with 2 of the three Triangle universities funded by the public in a parsimonious, low-brow state and deep-in-debt nation, having these public institutions in the future may not be the boon that it is today. And that would be too bad.

But it's a very close call.

Edited by Silicon Dogwoods
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6 minutes ago, Silicon Dogwoods said:

It's clear that we import a lot of people who may not be ready to compete successfully in the labor market.

Charlotte may seem more welcoming to these people than Raleigh, with its very high level of educational attainment and higher cost of living.

By nearly every measure, Raleigh grows more quickly than Charlotte. I attribute this to the kind of jobs that the national economy creates. More of them can be found in Raleigh than in Charlotte, which points to the critical need for Charlotte (the state will not even hear of doing it) to develop UNC Charlotte into something more. much more than the nice regional university that it is.

It's not that Charlotte is in danger of 'becoming Detroit,' as the right-wing likes to shriek. It isn't. It's that places like Raleigh will do so much better because of the concentration of higher education. Over time, that builds enormous wealth and intellectual capital.

Charlotte's ace in the hole in CLT. Charlotte's Achilles' heel is the lack of a major national research university and seemingly no urgency to create one.

I couldn't agree more.  Sitting here in Cambridge, with Harvard and MIT minutes away, I believe nothing is more important for the future growth, prosperity and reputation of the City we all love, Charlotte, than what Silicon Dogwoods just said.  If the QC wants to be an attractive and respected global city, UNCC must have the funding and support required to become a renowned university.    

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