Triangle overtaking Metro Charlotte in population?

[krazeeboi]

The Sun City development is a 3,600-home retirement community in the Lancaster County panhandle, which to my knowledge is the county's largest residential development. Such a large amount of retired people living in Lancaster County will dilute commute patterns into Mecklenburg.

[Nostyle]

^commuting patterns aside, doesn't the sheer population get taken into account? You're talking about 6000 residents on 2.5 square miles of land, just over the state border. I would think that, commuting patterns aside, this would help Lancaster become part of the MSA rather than hinder it.

[krazeeboi]

Nope, MSA inclusion is based solely on commuting patterns.

[Nostyle]

Wow. Thought there were more criteria. There must be whole areas of Miami and Florida that aren't accounted for due to all the retirement activity down there.

[Richhamleigh, DC]

Wow. Thought there were more criteria. There must be whole areas of Miami and Florida that aren't accounted for due to all the retirement activity down there.

Great point. If you assume that a hefty chunk of the S. Florida / Arizona population is retired, what does that mean for "commuting" patterns? Whole counties adjacent to central cities would be excluded? Sounds fishy to me.

[monsoon]

Wow. Thought there were more criteria. There must be whole areas of Miami and Florida that aren't accounted for due to all the retirement activity down there.

Having lived in Boca Raton, I can tell you there is commuting on I-95 between the 3 counties of S. Fla not seen anywhere in NC. It's 12 lanes down there of bumper to bumper traffic, and they now have commuter rail linking the three counties to Miami. However because there are more than 2.5 million people in these 3 counties the census divides the area into Metropolitan Divisions.

In anycase the the Mami-Ft Lauderdale-W. Palm MSA consists of

• Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL Metropolitan Division

  Broward County, FL

• Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL Metropolitan Division

  Miami-Dade County, FL

• West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach, FL Metropolitan Division

  Palm Beach County, FL

Because of this, there is no CSA for the area.

A MSA is formed by a set of core counties where the there is a minimum urbanized area of 50,000 people with at least a total population of 100K people. In Charlotte's case that means the combination of Gaston, Mecklenburg, and York. Additional counties may be added to the MSA if there is a certain percentage of commuters coming into the core counties. In Charlotte's case that is Anson, Union, and Cabarrus.

Theoretically Iredell should be a part of the Charlotte MSA, but Charlotte's urbanized area does not reach up to Iredell and Iredell has it's own economy (NASCAR, Auto Parts Manufacturing, Furniture, Lowes HQ) so not many people commute from there into Mecklenburg. Because of that, it's in its on Micropolitian Statistical Area.

[ChiefJoJo]

Wake is growing like mad: link. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

[Tayfromcarolina]

Wake is definetly doing it's thing. And yes all projections do point to Wake overtaking Mecklenburg within the next decade or so. However, Mecklenburg is quite a bit smaller land wise so...

Raleigh is the Fastest growing city on the east coast. Yeah!!!

It will be a while before the metro catches up though.

[avery]

Wake is definetly doing it's thing. And yes all projections do point to Wake overtaking Mecklenburg within the next decade or so. However, Mecklenburg is quite a bit smaller land wise so...

Raleigh is the Fastest growing city on the east coast. Yeah!!!

It will be a while before the metro catches up though.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Raleigh metro surpass Charlotte metro in size one day either. It is pretty obvious that Wake will surpass Meklenburg given its room for growth. I find it more interesting to compare the two cities. Yes, Charlotte has a higher density in its core, but look at the rest of the city. In July 2004, Charlotte had a municipal population of 609,185 within 269 square miles while Raleigh sat at 325,213 within 128 square miles. If you doubled the land area and population of Raleigh, it would be bigger than Charlotte in a smaller area of land. What does it prove? Nothing really...just that these area really are similar in size. I think it is funny how so many people think that Raleigh is so much smaller than Charlotte when it really isn't.

http://demog.state.nc.us/

[sax184]

Wake is growing like mad: link. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

The question is not whether or not mad growth is good one way or another. The question is about the quality of that mad growth in terms of its functionality as urban space. 98% of the growth taking place in Wake County is pretty much crap. See the latest Below the Beltline post about Soleil/Crabtree for a prime example.

Seriously, just simple travel around Wake County in 10 years is going to be near impossible if present development and transportation trends hold.

[Damien]

Thought I would post this here since the thread that was started this morning by DCMetroRaleigh was closed due to too many threads on this topic. Charlotte is still growing, but Raleigh and the Triangle are growing faster. I doubt any of us will live to see Raleigh surpass Charlotte in city pop., but I think it is in the near future that we will see the Triangle metro overtake Charlotte metro in pop.

[MZT]

Here's an Excel sheet from the US Census

What I find kind of interesting is that Richmond, Savannah, and Gainesville are losing population. I'm not aware of the economies being all that bad there. I would expect to see the usual "sun belt boom" going on.

[krazeeboi]

But the metro areas are all growing. Understand that particularly in Virginia, due to their cities having "independent city" status, the municipal borders are pretty much fixed. Also I don't think we can necessarily equate municipal population loss with a struggling economy.

[AuLukey]

In July 2004, Charlotte had a municipal population of 609,185 within 269 square miles while Raleigh sat at 325,213 within 128 square miles. If you doubled the land area and population of Raleigh, it would be bigger than Charlotte in a smaller area of land. What does it prove? Nothing really...just that these area really are similar in size. I think it is funny how so many people think that Raleigh is so much smaller than Charlotte when it really isn't.

I'm not going to sit here and say one city is better than the other. But you contradicted yourself. Your stats may mean the densities of the two cities are similar. That also means Raleigh's density is larger.

However:

325,213 is smaller than 609,185. Charlotte is 1.87x larger

128 square miles is smaller than 269. Charlotte is 2.1x larger

That is why people think that Raleigh is so much smaller than Charlotte; because it really is.

Numbers speak for themselves. 300k people seems like a large number when comparing cities of CLT and Raleigh's size. However, if Chicago and NYC were only 300k people apart in population it would seem like they were pretty much the same size as they have much larger populations. For example: if one city were 10 million and the other was 10.3 million, they are perceived as pretty much the same. However, when a city of 300k were compared to a city of 600k, it seems to be a much larger difference.

This doesn't really have to do with anything other than a city's ego. It speaks very little about the metros themselves which are very similar.

[monsoon]

325,213 is smaller than 609,185. Charlotte is 1.87x larger

128 square miles is smaller than 269. Charlotte is 2.1x larger

I will point out that if these numbers are correct, the Raleigh does have a higher density than Charlotte. But the numbers are irrelevant. The populations bound by city limits are no indication of the size, urbanization, or density of a city. Remember that Atlanta is only about 450K.

[RALBOI]

I'm not going to sit here and say one city is better than the other. But you contradicted yourself. Your stats may mean the densities of the two cities are similar. That also means Raleigh's density is larger.

However:

325,213 is smaller than 609,185. Charlotte is 1.87x larger

128 square miles is smaller than 269. Charlotte is 2.1x larger

That is why people think that Raleigh is so much smaller than Charlotte; because it really is.

Numbers speak for themselves. 300k people seems like a large number when comparing cities of CLT and Raleigh's size. However, if Chicago and NYC were only 300k people apart in population it would seem like they were pretty much the same size as they have much larger populations. For example: if one city were 10 million and the other was 10.3 million, they are perceived as pretty much the same. However, when a city of 300k were compared to a city of 600k, it seems to be a much larger difference.

This doesn't really have to do with anything other than a city's ego. It speaks very little about the metros themselves which are very similar.

I hate to say it,but I agree with Aussie Luke on this one it's just a fact ,Charlotte is bigger that Raleigh,just like it is a fact that the Triangle is a very similar sized Metro area that is growing faster that Charlotte Metro that's the real topic of discussion here, it's not a city vs city comparsion without the metro area's involved, because if it was then Charlotte would be on a level by it's self. That's just a fact, and this is coming from me a guy that eat's, sleeps and breath's promoting Raleigh.

[DCMetroRaleigh]

In the density versus total population brouhaha, I don't think we should be extremist in our approach. Both density and population are relevant to accessing a city's size and clout. Density tells us about the urbanity of a city, how "New York City-like" a city is, if you will. But the total population of a city is relevant too. Even if a city like Phoenix isn't very dense, it is still important to realize that the corporate boundaries contain 1.46 million people, which means that 1.46 million people call this city home. Whether dense or suburban, 1.46 million within a corporate boundaries is a big, huge deal no matter how you slice them up or arrange them. That is why federal funds are based on total city population, not density.

[MR-2]

I will point out that if these numbers are correct, the Raleigh does have a higher density than Charlotte. But the numbers are irrelevant. The populations bound by city limits are no indication of the size, urbanization, or density of a city. Remember that Atlanta is only about 450K.

I don't know if they're correct, but from any year's set of population/city limit size data I find, Raleigh is always the more dense of the two. Winston-Salem has almost as much incorporated land area as Raleigh, and its population is 140,000 smaller. (289 to 299 km^2) Greensboro and Durham aren't far behind either.

And it's odd, because even Raleigh has huge open areas with no development at all in them, even inside the beltline (look at the future expansion zone for Centennial Campus, and the surrounding areas--nothing!). Granted 1100 people per square km isn't exactly impressive. Real cities have at least twice that.

[blburton]

Your mega subdivisions with 3-5 thousand residents help density in some spots because their McMansions sit on top of one another in many cases.

I don't know if they're correct, but from any year's set of population/city limit size data I find, Raleigh is always the more dense of the two. Winston-Salem has almost as much incorporated land area as Raleigh, and its population is 140,000 smaller. (289 to 299 km^2) Greensboro and Durham aren't far behind either.

And it's odd, because even Raleigh has huge open areas with no development at all in them, even inside the beltline (look at the future expansion zone for Centennial Campus, and the surrounding areas--nothing!). Granted 1100 people per square km isn't exactly impressive. Real cities have at least twice that.

[Nostyle]

^anyone have density data on specific tracts within Raleigh (or even Durham) and Charlotte city limits? That would be a better way to determine density, rather than just looking at giant city land area measurements that include sprawling suburban developments and large swaths of undeveloped land.

This is the closest thing I could find (based on 1990 to 2000)...

Density:

Triangle

Charlotte

Growth:

Triangle

Charlotte

[AuLukey]

I'm not sure how accurate those density maps are as I can think of two examples of large areas in charlotte with extremely high densities that are depicted as white (as in low density) in that map. One easily seen is the University area (the pitchfork looking area in the top right of the clt map) has had an enormously dense population for the last decade.

Anyway, this isn't a debate of city over city as stated before. it's meaning is to discuss the possibility of the triangle overtaking charlotte's metro. not their core's.

[avery]

Anyway, this isn't a debate of city over city as stated before. it's meaning is to discuss the possibility of the triangle overtaking charlotte's metro. not their core's.

You guys are right. I didn't post those numbers earlier to start anything. I actually posted it on another forum topic related to city size, not metros, and someone pasted it over here. I realize that it has no bearing on the discussion on this topic.

I agree witth you that the metros are a better indication of comparing the size of the areas, which I feel are very similar in size. I guess that I was just trying to elaborate that I do not think it is far-fetched to assume that Raleigh could one day be bigger than Charlotte. If Raleigh ever annexes to the point that Charlotte has and the two have maxed out their annexation, I could envision Raleigh being larger. Granted, it will probably be years from now.

The metros of both areas will probably always be very similar in size. Both areas are growing phenominally. Even if the Triangle is growing at a higher percentage, I bet that the Charlotte is probably growing by close to the same number of people. I'm sure the growth rates will fluctuate over the next 15-30 years anyhow.

[Nostyle]

^Annexation plays no role in comparing metro versus metro, and if you're talking city versus city again, I don't think Raleigh has land left to annex. Charlotte only has about 50 square miles left, from what I recall.

And earlier in the thread we already determined that, based on census MSA estimates, Charlotte is still growing faster than the Triangle in terms of raw growth, while the Triangle holds a slight advantage in terms of growth percentage.

[avery]

^Annexation plays no role in comparing metro versus metro, and if you're talking city versus city again, I don't think Raleigh has land left to annex. Charlotte only has about 50 square miles left, from what I recall.

You're right. I wasn't trying to compare metros to metros based on annexation. Just trying to explain why I posted earlier on the city itself. Again, I did not post it in this forum topic...somone moved it here. Maybe I will go in and erase the post...I'm catching too much grief over it

Unfortunately NoStyle, Raleigh does have land left to annex towards Johnston to the east and south of the city as well. Maybe it is a blessing if Raleigh can develop it smart! With so many municipalities within the county, it becomes difficult to create a consensus on proper growth. Hopefully, Raleigh will develop it better than another community would or hold off all together until infilling is maximized.

[metropolitan]

I'm not understanding the statements that the Raleigh and Charlotte metros are similar in size. Charlotte still has a > 600K lead on Raleigh, CSA v. CSA. Wil nearly equal absolute #s of people being added per year, this lead is not going to evaporate anytime soon.