If our four largest were gone...

[sunshine]

If Dallas, Hosuton, Atlanta & Miami are gone...

Then it will be Charlotte, Orlando, Austin, New Orleans.

[Memphis10]

If Dallas, Hosuton, Atlanta & Miami are gone...

Then it will be Charlotte, Orlando, Austin, New Orleans.

[Aporkalypse]

LOL...at Orlando.....before Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham or Jacksonville?....rrriiiggghhhttt

[TheSuperPope]

^For those that have never been there nor really paid it any attention, Orlando is absolutely booming. It seems every time I go there, there is a new tower up that wasn't there three months ago. I mean the whole skyline is nothing but cranes.

So, if the big four were gone, I would have to say it would be Austin, Nashville, Orlando, and Charlotte.

[TheSuperPope]

Miami, almost all but like a dozen towers are not residential, EVERYTHING else is residentialy oriented. In Atlanta, its also much condominium, but with more duel hotel with condo on top towers and a few office buildings. BUT BUT Both cities are teetering on complete saturation to over saturation in the condominium market due to price points being higher than the everyday middle class family, which i proclaim i am upper class btw. Your best buys in the SE are Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando, and The Emerald Coast of FL(Panama City to Destin to Pensacola), you can start to look at Birmingham joining the group shortly as well. Overall, in America in general, looking at high rise construction, residential far outpaces office/commercial and hotels and such.

[sunshine]

LOL...at Orlando.....before Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham or Jacksonville?....rrriiiggghhhttt

[sunshine]

Overbuilding in Atlanta's condo market has been greatly exaggerated. Condo building has been at a peak in the last few years but at this point demand is keeping pace with the supply. Obviously many times more condos are being built in Maimi than Atlanta.

[DaltonGA]

Eliminate the 4 largest and which cites emerge in their place, I think more than 4 would emerge and that even 2 midwestern cities would have benefited.

Without Houston, New Orleans stays the largest in the Deep South and becomes much larger than it is today but not as large as Houston. The oil and bay are still in the Houston area, so the mouth around Galveston and Texas City still develops with overflow into Brazoria County. Beaumont-Port Arthur don't enter the stagnation/decline that has happened since the mid-60's and Corpus Christi becomes much larger. Im presuming Buffalo Bayou is never dredged into what is now known as the Houston Ship Channel, so Houston exists, but is a sleepy exurb of Galveston.

Without Miami and I'm presuming the coastal development in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Cos., the Tampa-St Petersburg area and Jacksonville step up to plate. I'm presuming that an enviromental activism to preserve the Everglades and the SE Florida mangrove swamps results in Flagler's railroad not being finished throught the region to connect Key West to the mainland, though a major hurricane could have had the same results. Jacksonville gains the banking and finance and business centers that are in Miami and the population of the area is more than double its present level. Tampa-St Pete becomes a little larger, taking the tourism, immigration, and cruise ship lines. Ybor Cty Tampa is a Cuban neighborhood and Tarpon Springs is a Greek enclave. The post-Castro Cuban migration and northeastern retirement would have gravitated here. Pinellas County has the highest percentage retired residents of any county. Orlando and Central Florida, except Lakeland/Polk Couty, development is driven by post-WW II events, and gets a boost from Tampa spreading eastward. The Central Florida region becomes less dependent on phosphate mining, citrus groves, and dairy/beef cattle earlier and less on tourism in the recent era. Savannah, Charleston, and Hampton Roads line up more port activity on the east coast as well, but not anything spectacular, as the distance from the Carribean mitigates this.

Altanta is a little more difficult, as any Southern Piedmont industrial city and some upper South cities could fill the role Atlanta plays in the Southeast. The Georgia, Carolina, and Virginia Piedmont are filled with cities that grew up on the fall line power, Macon, Columbus, Augusta, Columbia, Richmond,etc. Also the steel industry centered in Birmingham, AL also included Atlanta, Chattanooga, TN, and Gadsden and Anniston, AL.

Also, Atlanta prominence is shaped by the Civil War, a major railroad nexus and Union target for ending the war. It is chosen for the southeastern center for reconstruction, which ultimately means Fort McPherson, the Federal Reserve, IRS regional offices and CDC are here for those reasons. Birmingham is a later city, than Atlanta, but had the potential to be much of what Atlanta has become. It serves as the Central South's banking and finance, industrial, transportation and distribution, medical and industrial center. All of which would benefit from the absence of Atlanta. It would be a natural for the CDC to be there and GM and Ford would have probably located in Birmingham or Chattanooga. Lockheed, originally Bell Bomber plant would be in Warner Robins or Augusta/Fort Gordon or Columbus/Ft Bennning. Nashville, Louisville and Cincinnati,OH would have grown larger to serve the Upper South. Richmond and the Carolina Cities would be too close to Washington to be the southern regional center for the Federal government, Birmingham has a more central location as well. Charlotte would have emerge as a major city sooner, but I think the Triad and Richmond would be the bigger cities of the upper Southern Piedmont. They gain much of what ended up going to Charlotte and the Triangle. Greenville-Spartanburg and Columbia also are larger.

Dallas is a lot like Atlanta, so it becomes difficult to pinpoint any one city. If the entire Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex doesn't arise, then I say San Antonio-Austin form the business and financial capital of the Southwest. Waco, Tyler, Abilene, Wichita Falls and Shreveport, LA grow larger as does Oklahoma City. Memphis uses its location on the Mississippi between St. Louis and New Orleans to become a major land and air distribution center which is now becoming. St. Louis and Kansas City also boost their role in the Central US. If there is a Fort Worth, but no Dallas, a large metro still forms, Cattle, Crude and Cotton built the region and a present-day Fort Worth could have emerged that is a large as present-day Houston, provided the progressive leadership that Dallas had that promoted and developed the city allowing it to overtake Ft. Worth had migrated a few miles westward. The geography of the metroplex is ideal for the development it has had. Auto and airplane assembly, DFW airport, and center of the oil industry all have no reason to go further.

[watnow1425]

I'd take it above any of those save Nashville right now in terms of size, regional influence and national importance.

Its growth rate

Here are the MSA growth rates from 2000 to 2005 for the cities he mentioned and those you did:

Austin 1.25 million (12.7%), Charlotte 1.52 million (14.3%), Orlando 1.64 million (17.6%), New Orleans 1.316 million (0.2%)

Birmingham 1.05 million (3.2%), Memphis 1.26 million (4.6%), Nashville 1.42 million (8.4%), Jacksonville 1.25 million (11.2%).

I guess you could replace New Orleans with Jacksonville or Nashville on his list but it looks to me that Orlando is the strongest of the eight we mentioned.

[krazeeboi]

Just because a city is booming right now doesn't mean that it would replace the 4 largest if they never existed. Geography has to also be remembered because that is what made used to make a city before modern technology.

[Aporkalypse]

One scenario is what if the Big Four just vanished into thin air; I think that would make a case for some of the current boomtowns (e.g., Orlando) replacing them.

[bobdreamz]

you can't replace Miami with Orlando because out of the 4 Miami is the only one that is on the ocean and its port is a major factor to its economy. Perhaps Tampa?

[Justiceham]

you can't replace Miami with Orlando because out of the 4 Miami is the only one that is on the ocean and its port is a major factor to its economy. Perhaps Tampa?

[davidzLA]

One scenario is what if the Big Four just vanished into thin air; I think that would make a case for some of the current boomtowns (e.g., Orlando) replacing them.

[reednavy05]

Sorry for the double post, but I just really read through this one. Do you really think that the emerald coast is going to be that great in the next few years. Both of my parents are from Pensacola, and in over twenty years of going there I really haven't seen that much growth. Don't get me wrong, in my opinion the most beautiful beaches in the nation are there and I love the area leaps and bounds beyond the rest of Florida (my 2nd favorite state), but I just don't see the growth really taking off anytime soon in the next few years between PC or Pensacola. It just seems like all the growth are small neighborhoods/subdivisions along Santa Rosa and the Bay in Pensacola in particular.

[Memphis10]

Sooo....condos and a new airport?......Almost every city in the south.... If the big 4 were gone.....i still say Memphis, Charlotte, Nashville, New Orleans (no particular order) would be the top dogs. Orlando is kool but i dont think it could compete with 4 of the 5 cities mention. Almost every southern city is experiencing a condo boom so you can not base your answer solely on that...If u take away the "Big 4" today and leave everything as is...then the cities mention above would be the souths top dogs..

[AmandaHugginkiss]

I think either of these could have a solid shot in being the South's largest.

My lady is from Memphis and I like it there so call me biased.

Nashville is looking very impressive too and should be considered.

[reednavy05]

Orlando is growing and in leaps and bounds, but you gotta take into the scope of things, shear economic base. Close to 75% of Orlando's economy revolves around tourism or tourism themed/serviced industries. Take away Disney and Universal, and Orlando will almost die off, granted it is starting to widen its economic base, it can't compete at this time with Nashville, Charlotte, Birmingham, and New Orleans. Nashville is probably like number 7 in the South as a whole, with such a broad range of economic industries, ranging from music, automobiles, finance/banking, real estate, construction, large medical industry, and so forth. Orlando is great and all, but it's overall economic base is not that great, yet budget wise, it is better off than many American cities.

[tombarnes]

It's odd to consider economic bases in some places. Fort Lauderdale, for instance, has a relatively small economic base outside of snowbirds, tourism and some banking and financial institutions. Maybe this explains why the city is always at the ready to raise property taxes!

[fortyniner]

I think Birmingham, AL has suffered more from Atlanta's tremendous growth than any other city. About 1950, Birmingham was about the same size as Atlanta and poised to possibly become the leading city in Dixie. At that time both Nashville and Charlotte were considerably smaller than Birmingham. Had Birmingham been aggressive and built the leading airport in the southeast, it's possible that the tremendous growth would have been in Birmingham, rather than Atlanta and Birmingham might have become the leading city in the Southeast.