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Columbia area growth

waccamatt

By waccamatt
in Columbia

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waccamatt Town

waccamatt

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For most of the last 30 years, Lexington County has been the growth leader in the Columbia MSA, but that trend has turned around since 2000. The State reports today that from 2000-2005, Richland County's number of households grew by 12%, with 3% of that (3909) occuring from 2004-2005. That would work out to approximate growth of 10,000 people in the last year, which isn't too shabby. During the same 5 year period, Lexington County's households grew by 9% from 2000-2005 and Kershaw County by 8% from 2000-2005. I think we all knew that Richland County's growth was accelerating, but I don't think we knew it was accelerating that quickly. Certainly household growth is not always on a 1 to 1 basis with total population growth, but it is a good indicator. Household sizes are slowly shrinking over time, so total population growth will be slightly less than household growth. If Richland kept last year's 3% growth rate for the rest of the decade we would end up with 27% household growth, which would almost certainly mean over 20% population growth. Any thoughts on this trend of accelerating growth?

Midlands growth

The 3 core MSA counties

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CorgiMatt Town

CorgiMatt

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For most of the last 30 years, Lexington County has been the growth leader in the Columbia MSA, but that trend has turned around since 2000. The State reports today that from 2000-2005, Richland County's number of households grew by 12%, with 3% of that (3909) occuring from 2004-2005. That would work out to approximate growth of 10,000 people in the last year, which isn't too shabby. During the same 5 year period, Lexington County's households grew by 9% from 2000-2005 and Kershaw County by 8% from 2000-2005. I think we all knew that Richland County's growth was accelerating, but I don't think we knew it was accelerating that quickly. Certainly household growth is not always on a 1 to 1 basis with total population growth, but it is a good indicator. Household sizes are slowly shrinking over time, so total population growth will be slightly less than household growth. If Richland kept last year's 3% growth rate for the rest of the decade we would end up with 27% household growth, which would almost certainly mean over 20% population growth. Any thoughts on this trend of accelerating growth?

Midlands growth

The 3 core MSA counties

I've been watchin this as well. Gone are the days when everyone goes on and on about Lexington, Lexington, Lexington ("Everybody wants to live in Lexington." How many times have I heard that?). Richland's quality of life is catching on. You can't beat garbage pickup and an award-winning sheriff's department. But I noticed than in the article in The State, they changed horses in mid-stream as usual and talked about rate of growth for some counties and increase in the actual number of people in others. I don't put much weight on rate of growth. I you have two people and get a new one we all know that is 100% growth. I like comparing the actual number of new bodies in each MSA over several years and from one year to the next without having to do too much extrapolating.

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Chi2Midlands Unincorporated Area

Chi2Midlands

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One thing I will speculate on is that Richland probably has a wider variety of household types in its growth profile. While Lexington County's growth is probably mostly suburban young families with some retirees/empty nesters gravitating toward Lake Murray, in Richland you will find the full spectrum of age and life stage from students to young professionals to young families to middle agers to empty nesters to retirees. Whereas one can imagine singles, young couples, and families everywhere from Shandon to Forest Acres to Garners Ferry to Northeast Richland, I don't quite see the same happening to the same extent in, say, West Columbia, Cayce, Lexington, and Chapin. Outside the "border burbs", Dutch Fork/Chapin and Lexington, which are almost completely suburban in character, are basically the engines of growth in Lexington, with wide swaths of areas in the county's south and west (think Swansea, Gaston, Pelion, etc.) that have barely entered the orbit of Columbia's urban and economic growth. With the exception of north-central Richland and the extremeties of Lower Richland, virtually no part of Richland seems to be untouched by growth and development.

Also, because of Lexington's more suburban/rural character, I would not be surprised that it is closer to or even exceed's Richland's population growth, even though it's household growth is less.

I believe the statistic also reflects Northeast Richland as being the current "hot spot" of growth, while not forgetting that most of Dutch Fork is in Richland (being in the Lexington-Richland 5 school district, I think some people forget that much of the I-26 suburban corridor is actually in Richland even though it's across the river), plus emerging growth in Lower Richland. Each area has it's "golden growth age" - Irmo had it in the 70s and 80s, Lexington in the 90s, and now it's other areas' turn, which happen to be in Richland.

Another thing - I think Irmo and Lexington benefited from transplants largely from the Midwest and Western Pennsylvania, especially as those industrial areas were economically shrinking in the 70s in 80s. Not that everyone was a blue collar worker from a closed steel mill in Erie, but the overall economies in those areas was shrinking, forcing everyone of all classes from janitors to doctors, to look for opportunities. In Northeast Richland today, I see the phenomenon more as skilled workers (especially knowledge workers) with young families moving in from overpriced areas in the Northeast (US) and Florida, pursing better quality of life (especially for young chilren) and lower cost of living. Of course there is also the recent growth in Fort Jackson's operations, which is bringning in Army-related folks to Northeast.

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CorgiMatt Town

CorgiMatt

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That's quite an in-depth analysis, but the article in The State did say that Richland County gained the most households and the most population in the Columbia metro area. It did not get specifically into percentage growth vs. number of people. Perhaps percentage-wise Lexington County edged Richland, but number-of-people-wise Richland outgained Lexington. If that continues, and I stongly suspect it will, Richland will continue to increase its lead over Lexington in population.

A few years ago I overheard a man at a West Columbia restaurant say that before long Columbia was going to be a suburb of Lexington County. I bit my tongue. If he read the article in The State, I wonder what he is saying now.

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waccamatt Town

waccamatt

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That's quite an in-depth analysis, but the article in The State did say that Richland County gained the most households and the most population in the Columbia metro area. It did not get specifically into percentage growth vs. number of people. Perhaps percentage-wise Lexington County edged Richland, but number-of-people-wise Richland outgained Lexington. If that continues, and I stongly suspect it will, Richland will continue to increase its lead over Lexington in population.

A few years ago I overheard a man at a West Columbia restaurant say that before long Columbia was going to be a suburb of Lexington County. I bit my tongue. If he read the article in The State, I wonder what he is saying now.

He's wondering how to keep from paying for any services yet find a way to gripe about how long it takes to get a sheriff's department or fire department response in Lexington County.

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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

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A few years ago I overheard a man at a West Columbia restaurant say that before long Columbia was going to be a suburb of Lexington County. I bit my tongue. If he read the article in The State, I wonder what he is saying now.

How can a city be a suburb of a county? Even if Lexington were to somehow edge out Richland in terms of people (which I doubt), Columbia is by far the largest city in the metro area.

:rofl:

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Chi2Midlands Unincorporated Area

Chi2Midlands

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Simpsonville is a city and a suburb of Greenville County, is it not?

Well, there's the municipal government definition of "city" (under which Forest Acres also falls), and the notional definition of "city", which is the true urban core/hub of a metropolitan region. I mean, the City of Des Plaines, pop. ~50,000, sits very near the City of Chicago, pop. ~3,000,000, but no one thinks of Des Plaines as "The City" - it is a true suburb of Chicago. This is like the definition of an "international airport" - lots of airports have "International" in their name, but much fewer are truly international in their flight offerings. So a lot of "cities" are just municipalities that are just suburbs (so are more accurately perceived as "towns" or "villages").

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CorgiMatt Town

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How can a city be a suburb of a county? Even if Lexington were to somehow edge out Richland in terms of people (which I doubt), Columbia is by far the largest city in the metro area.

:rofl:

He was just talking about the migration to Lexington County that was taking place seemingly at the expense of Richland County's growth at that time. It was more perception than reality, but loosely interpreted I saw what he was saying.

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803metlife Hamlet

803metlife

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For most of the last 30 years, Lexington County has been the growth leader in the Columbia MSA, but that trend has turned around since 2000. The State reports today that from 2000-2005, Richland County's number of households grew by 12%, with 3% of that (3909) occuring from 2004-2005. That would work out to approximate growth of 10,000 people in the last year, which isn't too shabby. During the same 5 year period, Lexington County's households grew by 9% from 2000-2005 and Kershaw County by 8% from 2000-2005. I think we all knew that Richland County's growth was accelerating, but I don't think we knew it was accelerating that quickly. Certainly household growth is not always on a 1 to 1 basis with total population growth, but it is a good indicator. Household sizes are slowly shrinking over time, so total population growth will be slightly less than household growth. If Richland kept last year's 3% growth rate for the rest of the decade we would end up with 27% household growth, which would almost certainly mean over 20% population growth. Any thoughts on this trend of accelerating growth?

Midlands growth

The 3 core MSA counties

I didn't know Richland's growth was succeding Lexington's growth. For so long they made Lexington look like a boom county when all along Richland was the booming county. I wonder when parts of lexington down I-26 on Hwy 1 and exit 61 are going to experience more urban growth?

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Spartan Gigalopolis

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If Richland has a higher percentage of growth than Lexington, then it also has a higher real number of growth too. Avg family size is relevant, but you cant assume that Richland's is significantly smaller given where 95% of that growth is taking place.

Its not incovievable that Lexington could become the largest city in the region. Its the only one that has a chance in hell of surpassing Columbia... if that ever happened it would be in the distant future, the annexation laws in SC would have to be changed, and Columbia would have to stop annexing.

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waccamatt Town

waccamatt

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If Richland has a higher percentage of growth than Lexington, then it also has a higher real number of growth too. Avg family size is relevant, but you cant assume that Richland's is significantly smaller given where 95% of that growth is taking place.

Its not incovievable that Lexington could become the largest city in the region. Its the only one that has a chance in hell of surpassing Columbia... if that ever happened it would be in the distant future, the annexation laws in SC would have to be changed, and Columbia would have to stop annexing.

That is extremely unlikely, given that the city of Columbia is about 9 times the size of Lexington. Lexington would have to annex half of Lexington County to reach the size of Columbia.

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superjack Unincorporated Area

superjack

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Lexington will never pass Columbia. It doesn't have the physical layout or infrastructure to support such growth. I work over in Lexington, and it's already bursting at the seams with no hope in the near future for workday traffic relief. Columbia, on the other hand, has the potential to become a major city in the future. Not sure if or when this may happen, but it has all the ingredients in place. Compare the layout of DT Columbia to other SC cities. I can't think of another one that compares. It's all there. I mean there are plenty of wasted, even undeveloped blocks in Cola's 12 x 12 grid. Sure, some improvements in infrastructure will have to happen as growth increases, but there's a TON of potential!! Trust me.

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803metlife Hamlet

803metlife

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Here's a article in today's paper saying that Richland is being overbuilt. Twice as many homes are going up as people are moving into them

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/15664538.htm

Interesting article....Now that the housing bubble has burst or slowed down it has effected most markets. I think things will pick back up but not at the astonishing speed as the last 5 or 6 yrs.

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lifer Unincorporated Area

lifer

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Interesting article....Now that the housing bubble has burst or slowed down it has effected most markets. I think things will pick back up but not at the astonishing speed as the last 5 or 6 yrs.

The article says Richland had 6% growth since 2000. I wish what we knew what to do to get double digit growth like Wake, Mecklenburg, Greenville?, etc

I think our best hope is to ramp up the amount of companies the USC incubator spits out. We need to increase by 5X the amount of companies produced there. We need to increase the amount of organic growth in general, through the incubator or not. I don't see any big economic development breakthroughs coming from outside the area.

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803metlife Hamlet

803metlife

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I don't see any big economic development breakthroughs coming from outside the area.

I don't either. Columbia always had to fend for itself. Lacking the passing threw of major highways like 95 and 85 would've helped more. Being located in the middle of the state is a double edged sword. Things will definetly pickup once innovista starts but how long will that take 20-30 more yrs? Most of the young generation is not going to wait that long. S.C. will lose it's most brightest to G.A. or N.C. for more yrs to come before it's all said and done. :cry:

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The_sandlapper Burg

The_sandlapper

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The article says Richland had 6% growth since 2000. I wish what we knew what to do to get double digit growth like Wake, Mecklenburg, Greenville?, etc

I think our best hope is to ramp up the amount of companies the USC incubator spits out. We need to increase by 5X the amount of companies produced there. We need to increase the amount of organic growth in general, through the incubator or not. I don't see any big economic development breakthroughs coming from outside the area.

I understand Wake, & Mecklenberg counties but since when did Greenville ever have double digit growth?

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