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What's the most dense urban city in SC?


City-man

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Yeah, Greeenville's CDB is smaller...

Indeed, several people here have implied that Myrtle Beach is just a bunch of hotels on Ocean Blvd and nothing else. The aeral above proves that it has a CBD that is fairly significant when compared to other cities in SC. Although it is not shown on that map, just west of there is the Intercoastal waterway which effectively makes Myrtle Beach an Island with just a few bridges that cross over to the west. The end result of that fact and the high cost of land there is that it is forcing MB to develop in a very dense manner.

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Indeed, several people here have implied that Myrtle Beach is just a bunch of hotels on Ocean Blvd and nothing else. The aeral above proves that it has a CBD that is fairly significant when compared to other cities in SC. Although it is not shown on that map, just west of there is the Intercoastal waterway which effectively makes Myrtle Beach an Island with just a few bridges that cross over to the west. The end result of that fact and the high cost of land there is that it is forcing MB to develop in a very dense manner.

The area at the top of the picture looks rural from the air. Lots of fields... using the two photos, I'd say that Greenville's is denser in Population. I know you're going to say 'but in the summer...', but you take summer at MB, and I'll take this coming September's daytime population in Greenville (during the US Pro Cycling tourney).

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The area at the top of the picture looks rural from the air. Lots of fields... using the two photos, I'd say that Greenville's is denser in Population. I know you're going to say 'but in the summer...', but you take summer at MB, and I'll take this coming September's daytime population in Greenville (during the US Pro Cycling tourney).

The season never ends in Myrtle Beach now. It is always packed with people. As the direct comparison of Myrtle Beach shows above, the CBD of Myrtle Beach is larger in land area than Greenville and there is a lot more gridding. It is a very dense packed area.

The fields you are referring too are all developed now. For example in the section that is denoted as Broadway at the Beach, it looks like this now. BTW, this is 15 blocksfrom the Ocean.

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I thought we were talking about urban developments. Broadway is not much more than a glorified outdoor mall. What it between that and Ocean Blvd? You probably wouldn't want to walk that.

I dont think anyone is denying Myrtle Beach's urban qualities... but to the same note you can't deny that much of it is only one block wide. I stayed at a rather crappy hotel a couple of blocks back form the strip (and in what you would call the CBD i guess), and there was nothing there worth looking at. But hey, maybe that's changed.

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I thought we were talking about urban developments. Broadway is not much more than a glorified outdoor mall. What it between that and Ocean Blvd? You probably wouldn't want to walk that.

It is all gridded neighborhoods and sidewalks and more pedestrian friendly than 95% of the rest of SC. I am not sure why I would not want to talk about that.

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All I have to say is Myrtle Beach is awesome. They might not be the biggest or the most dense in the state, but they have lots of things no other city in this state has. :thumbsup:

One element that is lacking more than anything else in Myrtle Beach is business beyond the tourism industry, though I know it is beginning to change, as Metro.m has explained in the recent past. Businesses there have always needed to be geared toward the tourism industry to survive, as one might expect of any major beach resort community. While Greenville has no coastal beach to capitalize on, it has always contained a dense mass of businesses related to other industries. Sure, you'll probably not find as many visitors on the streets of downtown Greenville as you would on the beaches of Myrtle Beach, but it can't be forgotten that Greenville does bring in about 200,000 daily, excluding the "massive" (in proportion) suburban daytime population.

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I don't understand why there is a bias against an economy based on tourism vs one based on manufacturing. A manufacturing based economy does not have good long term prospects in this country whereas the economy continues to attract huge amounts of investment.

Also, concerning the 200K that travel into Greenville everyday. That is why it is not particularly dense and urban compared to Myrtle Beach. People come in to work and leave when business is closed. There is no incentive to build dense walkable places. In the case of Myrtle Beach, they are having to build as if 450K live right on the island because that is how many people will be there 24 hours/day.

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I don't understand why there is a bias against an economy based on tourism vs one based on manufacturing. A manufacturing based economy does not have good long term prospects in this country whereas the economy continues to attract huge amounts of investment.

Also, concerning the 200K that travel into Greenville everyday. That is why it is not particularly dense and urban compared to Myrtle Beach. People come in to work and leave when business is closed. There is no incentive to build dense walkable places. In the case of Myrtle Beach, they are having to build as if 450K live right on the island because that is how many people will be there 24 hours/day.

I am not at all saying Myrtle Beach (or any other tourism-focused city) is less desireable. I simply made a comparison on a different level that I thought would be interesting. Manufacturing has been the leading industry in Greenville for a few decades now, but I assure it is not at all the only strong one here either. Greenville is also home to the largest SC-based financial institution, as well as home to the largest number of SC-based financial institutions. Research and Development is becoming more a key to the state economy as well, and Greenville is already on the cutting edge in that industry. Anyway, not to argue over a simple misunderstanding, I wasn't at all trying to belittle Myrtle Beach's successes, just provide a different angle to counter the argument against Greenville's urban density. ;)

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Like it or not, Myrtle Beach has done a great job of attracting tourists from out of state. It's always been funny to me how people drive from places like Ohio and Michigan to vacation in Myrtle Beach, yet many South Carolinians view Myrtle Beach as somewhat of a redneck destination.

The major drawback to a tourist-heavy place is that many businesses struggle in the off-peak times. There is a reason why a lot of places close during fall and winter (or worse, go out of business because the summer demand does not offset the lack of people during the cold months). It is obviously working in Myrtle Beach, as construction continues to occur and more retail offerings become available.

Historically, manufacturing tends to be more stable, but tourism is certainly something every city desires. For a healthy economy, however, it is probably best for tourism to be a piece of the puzzle rather than the whole puzzle entirely.

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Like it or not, Myrtle Beach has done a great job of attracting tourists from out of state. It's always been funny to me how people drive from places like Ohio and Michigan to vacation in Myrtle Beach, yet many South Carolinians view Myrtle Beach as somewhat of a redneck destination.

The major drawback to a tourist-heavy place is that many businesses struggle in the off-peak times. There is a reason why a lot of places close during fall and winter (or worse, go out of business because the summer demand does not offset the lack of people during the cold months). It is obviously working in Myrtle Beach, as construction continues to occur and more retail offerings become available.

Historically, manufacturing tends to be more stable, but tourism is certainly something every city desires. For a healthy economy, however, it is probably best for tourism to be a piece of the puzzle rather than the whole puzzle entirely.

While I agree with you on most of your points, having 60-miles of wide, beautiful beach will continue to help MB thrive as a tourist destination.

It would be interesting to know exactly how many of the new MB residents are coming from Florida. I know that there is a trend starting to grow because of so many hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires down there, not to mention the absurdly uncomfortable heat.

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Well, its a myth that Myrtle Beach's only industry is tourism. Two of the state's largest local financial institutions are located there, Coastal Federal and Conway National Bank. In addition, Wachovia and Bank of America have significant operations there. There is a lot of money pouring into the Myrtle Beach area and there are a lot of finance industry jobs there to handle it.

There are several manufacturing firms there including the North American HQ and manufacturing operations for AVX Ceramics. I just checked their website and they have a number of technical and engineering jobs open for hire. There are other manufacturing operations there such as Wolverine Brass Works, Brick manfuacturing, and a number of firms that supply parts to the auto and high tech manufacturing industries in NC, SC and elsewhere. And of course the metro includes Georgetown Steel and International Paper. Both hire plenty of engineers, do research and are fairly high tech.

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Well, its a myth that Myrtle Beach's only industry is tourism. Two of the state's largest local financial institutions are located there, Coastal Federal and Conway National Bank. In addition, Wachovia and Bank of America have significant operations there. There is a lot of money pouring into the Myrtle Beach area and there are a lot of finance industry jobs there to handle it.

There are several manufacturing firms there including the North American HQ and manufacturing operations for AVX Ceramics. I just checked their website and they have a number of technical and engineering jobs open for hire. There are other manufacturing operations there such as Wolverine Brass Works, Brick manfuacturing, and a number of firms that supply parts to the auto and high tech manufacturing industries in NC, SC and elsewhere. And of course the metro includes Georgetown Steel and International Paper. Both hire plenty of engineers, do research and are fairly high tech.

I don't think anyone actually believes that MB's ONLY idustry is tourism. But it is King of the economy down there and is a large percentage of the work force.

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