2004 Municipal Population Figures for SC

[GvilleSC]

^ Where did you get those numbers?

Greenville does annex from time to time, but it is never anything major.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From the city of Greenville's website. There's a page about "Downtown Demographics"

[sonofaque86]

Columbia needs to start doing some big time annexing. They need to get Richland Northeast before Forest Acres or Blythwood gets it. I mean, Fort Jackson is like bordering all that so it can't be hard to extend the limits. And can the city grow more into the St. Andrews area on the Lexington side which is unincorporated? I mean its basically considered Columbia

[teshadoh]

^ Keep in mind - municipalities do not annex strictly for the purpose of increasing population. It depends on the city of course - some have expressed a desire to include more people, but typically annexations are based on tax revenue.

So - annex large amounts of land that includes a large number of people would mean increasing the budget to provide services as well as posibly building new parks, fire stations & libraries to make those citizens happy. That can be very expensive - so most often cities are far more likely to annex property for a shopping center or office park than a subdivision. ESPECIALLY if lower income residents live there.

The big problem is when there is a disporportionate amount of poor people compared to wealthier people. That may or may not be Greenville, Spartanburg, Florence or Anderson's problem - cities that do not annex often. Rock Hill & others have attempted to keep a balance between low & middle income as well as having a large percentage of office / retail to tax. The other side of this method of annexation could be viewed as racial - it could be argued that Rock Hill or other similar cities are trying to annex more newer suburban lands to mantain a white majority government - if the city hadn't annexed in the past 20 years, the city might likely be a Black majority by now. But that is hard to say....

[krazeeboi]

That's interesting Teshadoh. Doesn't SC law state that the property value of the land attempting to be annexed into the city limits must be assessed at a certain percentage of the actual worth of the property?

[teshadoh]

^ Honestly, I'm not sure - I'll leave that to someone smarter (or who lives in SC)

[vicupstate]

As the author of the 6th place comment, I completely agree with UrbanSoutherner.

On the other hand, the rumor mill has it that Greenville is about to seek annexaton of a significant population. It remains to be seen if it will be successful, but maybe it will. It would have to be quite large to prevent Greenville from falling to 6th place, but at least there is some hope now.

As for Atlanta, you make a valid point. The latest numbers show ATL lossing about 200 people. However these census estimates are often wrong, but in numbers and trends. Given the growth I've seen there, it hard to believe the city's population is not rising.

[monsoon]

What I find interesting about the list is that is misses a large number of people in the Myrtle Beach area. Socastee, Surfside Beach, Garden City, Murrells Inlet, are all missing and they only list 140 people in Pawleys Island! I think there are a lot more people living in the area than the numbers would suggest. Myrtle Beach for example is certainly much larger than Mt. Pleasant, yet there are only 25K people reported for MB while MP has 56K.

[teshadoh]

What I find interesting about the list is that is misses a large number of people in the Myrtle Beach area.  Socastee, Surfside Beach, Garden City, Murrells Inlet, are all missing and they only list 140 people in Pawleys Island!  I think there are a lot more people living in the area than the numbers would suggest.  Myrtle Beach for example is certainly much larger than Mt. Pleasant, yet there are only 25K people reported for MB while MP has 56K.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But I'm sure they are likely counted elsewhere - even though residents may likely live in these towns the majority of the year, often they are counted (or estimated in this case) in their 'home' city. It becomes a bit arbitrary of course - but it's hard to determine which home is these residents 'real' home.

[Spartan]

The counts are based on where people were living on April 1, 2000. The Census Bureau just extrapolates based on what they know from the last census. That number for MB would likely be higher in say July or August.

Don't forget that the figures are city populations and that we are in SC....

[teshadoh]

The counts are based on where people were living on April 1, 2000. The Census Bureau just extrapolates based on what they know from the last census. That number for MB would likely be higher in say July or August.

Don't forget that the figures are city populations and that we are in SC....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Duly noted - good job on making me look like an idiot

(especially since I worked for the census in 1990)...

[Exile]

I don' t know about other SC cities/big towns, but hasn't Greenville made a conscious effort to annex commercial property, and to some extent to de-emphasize residential annexations? Kind of a stadium skybox mentality: while the population may be smaller, commercial brings in more revenue. And commercial developers tend to be more friendly to annexation anyway, right?

While it would be cool, to an extent, to see Greenville, Columbia, and Charleston listed in all the reference works with city populations in the multiple hundreds of thousands, lets not forget that, to achieve that, city governments sometimes run roughshod over individual property owners. And I don't think these fairly subjective ways of massaging the population figures affect the growth rates.

The reality is that Greenville has suburbs that are historically hostile to annexation, and a city and county council that don't usually see eye to eye. That is not likely to change, and probably makes consolidation a moot point.

Despite all this politicking, I think G-town has done an admirable job attracting the right kind of growth--"dancin with the date what brung her," as they say, as are Colatown and Chas-ton.

[Spartan]

You are right. Many cities do this, but particularly in SC. That is why Columbia annexed Columbiana Mall and not Irmo.

Also, to somehow instantly add the entire UA to any city would be a logistical nightmare. It needs to be done slowly. Places like Charleston have an incentive to annex like other places in SC do not.

What most of us seem to agree on is not a super high population figure, but a better representation of what the populaiton is. If Greenville were over 100,000 it would give the city a better image IMO.

[krazeeboi]

Also, to somehow instantly add the entire UA to any city would be a logistical nightmare.

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Great point. I don't really think it would be possible anyway; it certainly isn't feasible. I believe this is demonstrated in the case of Winston-Salem. According to city population, it's the 5th largest city in NC, but as far as its UA goes, it's the 3rd largest (according to the 2000 figures). And this is in a state with liberal annexation laws.

But I also agree that it would be REALLY nice to at least see Greenville's municipal population over 100K.