2010 urbanized area figures

[B&R]

Does anyone have a quick breakdown of how much growth in UAs is from increase in the older areas and how much is from the addition of new areas to the older ones?

Some of the maps I've seen make the urban areas look like an old lava lamp with globs of urban areas attached by a thin thread of highway to the main center.

[Spartan]

^You didn't think it would happen this Census given your previous posts on the subject in this thread, but I definitely saw the handwriting on the wall.

It's funny that everyone predicted that Charleston would widen the gap between it and Columbia, but Columbia wound up sneaking past Charleston by about 1,000 people; in 1990, Charleston's UA was bigger by about 65K people. And no one predicted that most of the UAs would be as high as they are.

In 1990, the UAs of Augusta, Chattanooga, Jackson, MS, and Shreveport were all bigger than Greenville's, and Greenville's has surpassed them, not even counting Mauldin-Simpsonville. Without looking at the numbers, I'm sure this happened by the 2000 Census, but the gap has definitely widened since then.

In 1990, Raleigh's UA was actually less than Charleston's and Columbia's. In 2000, it was bigger by about 120K people and now it's bigger by about 340K.

I just have trouble believing that many people actually wanted to live in Myrtle Beach.

I firmly believe that Raleigh's success is directly tied to North Carolina's investment in all levels of education, though most notably higher education.

[erm1981]

Since I moved from Anderson to Charleston for my job 2 years ago Ive heard some people from Myrtle Beach talk about how its so much bigger than Charleston. I dont see how they have this view and if they had our traffic here I think they would think otherwise. I used to complain about Woodruff road traffic after living in the upstate for 28 years but Charleston's traffic is another animal!

[erm1981]

Under the current rules, recognized urbanized areas remain independent entities, although we know that by this time, it's pretty much one with Greenville. Combined, the two did indeed register the highest growth rate. The Big Three all grew well over 100K. Can't say I was really expecting that.

True. We have two large highway contracts now we are working on in Charleston County. One is Johnnie Dodds in Mount Pleasant, and the other is a widening of Bees Ferry Rd. which lies on the outskirts of West Ashley. DOT doesnt have the money to fund these projects so the county stepped up and raised the sales tax to pay for it. The county is so much easier to work with. I can recount on some of our smaller previous projects that they would have 10 DOT inspectors watching one small task.....what a waste of tax payer money!

[Spartan]

Since I moved from Anderson to Charleston for my job 2 years ago Ive heard some people from Myrtle Beach talk about how its so much bigger than Charleston. I dont see how they have this view and if they had our traffic here I think they would think otherwise. I used to complain about Woodruff road traffic after living in the upstate for 28 years but Charleston's traffic is another animal!

Size is a perception in that instance. If you don't know better Myrtle Beach appears larger at a superficial level because it has more high-rises and, during the summer, more apparent people on any given day. It also has lots of chain restaurants and stores (in malls) that are typically found in much larger cities. But it's all due to a tourist population during the summer.

So from a practical standpoint, Myrtle Beach, by all measures is smaller than Charleston (geography, population, density, GDP, etc).

Here's a question for thought: if a city is built for a certain population that is much larger than the indigenous population, should the transient population be considered as part of the city since they directly contribute to the culture, economy, and life of the city itself?

[thehappysmith]

Has anyone done any reading on WHY precisely pre-defined UAs won't be combined? Looking at the maps, the Greenville and Maulding-Simpsonville UAs share a border running along I-85 from 14 down to 385 and then more or less along Mauldin city limits as far as the Conestee area. That is a substantial shared border. Greenville and Spartanburg also share direct contact through much of Greer. I have some difficulty understanding why it's more appropriate to retain separate names for areas that by the Census Bureau's own maps clearly lack any defined boundary, particularly in the Mauldin-Simpsonville case. It strikes me as unhelpful to discuss Greenville as consisting of two separate urban areas. Keeping Greenville and Spartanburg separate might make more sense given the centers of gravity of the two; I suppose it does the Mauldin and Simpsonville chambers of commerce good to retain the name but I have more trouble justifying it on practical grounds than I do keeping Spartanburg and Greenville separate.

Furthermore, Greenville now includes the Williamston-Pelzer area, which was previously rated as a separate urban cluster. So the bureau has no trouble wrapping preexisting UCs up into UAs, but won't combine UAs. That policy was written by a bureaucrat rather than a planner (or even a statistician).

Also, the Clemson-Seneca UC was split in two, with the Pickens County side migrating over to the Greenville UA while the Oconee side is now listed as Seneca UC (which has itself absorbed the old Walhalla UC).

Incidentally, in looking at the slow growth in the Anderson UA, you have to consider that Belton, which was a part of the Anderson UA under the 2000 definition, has been split off into its own UC, with a population of 5400. Given the loss of Belton's 5k+ people, the fact that the Anderson UA was up by just over 5k itself means that Anderson really added about 10k to the urbanized area.