Rock Hill is changing - for the better?

[erm1981]

Seeing all these great developements its easy to see why Greenville was knocked down a notch by Rock Hill as far as population growth. Rock Hill is growing like mad and has some very nice projects going on.

[rockhilljames]

Hmmm...talk about being late to the party!

St. John's UMC is where I go to church! The new building is going to be our new kids center. It will house the preschool, youth lounge, nursery, and children's Sunday School rooms. Just last year we had over 80 babies born to parents in the church, and we're rapidly running out of room. The current nursery/preschool area will be gutted out and the church offices will be expanded into that area. It's going to be a really nice place when done.

As for Millwood, I live near it and shop and eat there occasionally, but they really missed out on an opportunity with that one. The development is very nice, and the shops are a good mixture, but the connectivity between the shops and housing is almost non-existent. There is a single road leading from the "housing" side to the office/commerical side, and a high earthen berm separates the townhomes and the shops. Other than the sidewalk that fronts Herlong and the sidewalk along the connecting road, there are no walking trails that connect the two. Why they didn't do a gridded development and center the retail/office portion around a strolling district is beyond me.

The neighbors behind the development spurred serious changes when they nixed connecting roads being built. It would have still been nice to see something better though.

Clinton Jr. College is still running, but Friendship has been long-since closed.

[krazeeboi]

Hey, better late than never!

I'm impressed with the construction occurring at St. John's UMC.

Millwood is indeed a disappointment from an urban standpoint. I also hate how the houses don't front Heckle, instead being separated by the high earthen berm you spoke of. But there are a good mix of shops in the retail portion of the development. This "infill sprawl" syndrome permeating our cities really gets on my nerves. I'm thinking the new development along India Hook will be the same way, although I don't it will incorporate retail.

[krazeeboi]

It appears as though home sales in the Rock Hill area outpace the statewide average. With 345 homes sales last month, Rock Hill and nearby locales in the Piedmont region jumped 85% compared to a year before, according to the SC Association of Realtors. In contrast, the statewide average fell 10.7% in March compared to the same month last year, pulled down by the weight of slowing transactions along the coast.

[teshadoh]

I lost the article - but yesterday I read that a developer wants to build a 3000 home development on 1800 acres a few miles east of Rock Hill on the Catawba River. What concerned me, was that it was York County that was acting cautionary & stated at some point in time the development would make sense but not at this time. It was Rock Hill that was aggressively trying to annex the land in order for the development to occur.

I was definitely under the impression 10 years ago that RH was attempting - in some watered down form - some smart growth procedures in order to curb sprawl. Certainly in the 80's RH officials toured many suburbs to learn what not to do. It appears RH is completely throwing those lessons away & would want nothing more to be another Alpharetta, GA.

Really - 3000 homes on 1800 acres, which I am assuming would be east of the business park at the end of Dave Lyle. If these type of developments are to occur, at least promote contiguous urban growth rather than this type of leap frog growth.

[krazeeboi]

Hmmm, that's interesting. That part of Dave Lyle is definitely picking up steam, but I'm glad that somebody said, "Hold up, let's think about this." I'll try to find that article.

[teshadoh]

The article from the Herald about the 3000 home development: http://www.heraldonline.com/109/story/16104.html

Also, the location actually borders Lancaster County!

[krazeeboi]

A developer wants to turn hundreds of forested acres into a sprawling, upscale subdivision that eventually could have 3,000 homes several miles away from the edge of Rock Hill's city limits.

[g-man430]

Sprawl. I'm with the county too on this. Sounds like it might over-saturate the market in this area with homes if it gets built, which wouldn't be a good thing.

[krazeeboi]

I agree.

[winthropalum]

I agree.

[GvilleSC]

1st time poster here.. Just curious as to why Rock Hill does not have it's own sub forum on this board? It's population is higher than Gville, Spburg, and Myrtle Beach. The growth in RH is tremendous. Housing boom, median income, etc. It's a great time to be in and around the Rock Hill area....Gville for example, is losing people every year now. I believe it's the 4th the largest city in the state behind, Columbia, Charleston, and North Charleston correct?

[krazeeboi]

Hey winthropalum, good to have another fellow Eagle on board.

GvilleSC is right; there currently isn't enough demand to have a separate Rock Hill subforum. That may change at some point in the future, but for right now, that's how things stand.

One thing you'll learn by participating here is that in SC, municipal populations don't even come close to telling the whole story as to how an area is doing. In this state, it's not as easy for cities to annex new territory as it is in other states. Greenville's annexation strategy isn't very aggressive (which explains the city population figures), unlike Rock Hill's. However, Greenville County is the largest in the state and continues to add the most people annually as it has done for the past several years, and the metro area is growing very consistently as well.

[winthropalum]

It takes demand to warrant a subforum, I believe. Enough interest to keep it going. Perhaps your presence will assist in that?

You obviously don't know what's going on in the Upstate if you think that Greenville is strugglin'. Someone else can address that.

[winthropalum]

Hey winthropalum, good to have another fellow Eagle on board.

GvilleSC is right; there currently isn't enough demand to have a separate Rock Hill subforum. That may change at some point in the future, but for right now, that's how things stand.

One thing you'll learn by participating here is that in SC, municipal populations don't even come close to telling the whole story as to how an area is doing. In this state, it's not as easy for cities to annex new territory as it is in other states. Greenville's annexation strategy isn't very aggressive (which explains the city population figures), unlike Rock Hill's. However, Greenville County is the largest in the state and continues to add the most people annually as it has done for the past several years, and the metro area is growing very consistently as well.

[GvilleSC]

York county has grown at 15% from 2000-2005. And Greenville county is only at 7%..

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/45/45091.html

[winthropalum]

By percentage, Greenville County isn't the fastest growing. As Krazee stated, based on the number of people Greenville is one of the fastest growing. From 2000-2005, Greenville County added about 28,000, while York added about 26,000.

Also, Rock Hill has past Greenville in terms of municipality size, but I think it's no secret that Greenville is a much larger area...

[GvilleSC]

Greenville is larger in the fact that there is more there... that's b/c Greenville is not a suberb city. Rock Hill is in the Charlotte Metro, which I'm pretty sure is a little larger than Gville last time I checked.

[winthropalum]

Exactly. So, when Greenville ranks 6th in the state in size, you have to look at the fact that North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, and Rock Hill are all suburbs. Therefore Greenville is really just number 3, which is why it's a part of the "big three" as we refer to them: Columbia, Charleston, Greenville.

The Charlotte metro is at like 1.6 million. The old Greenville MSA designation was at 1.2 million before it was broken up. I'm not contesting that Greenville is as large as Charlotte because the two areas are set up differently, but just throwing this out there...

[krazeeboi]

To be a native, it seems as though you don't realize that Greenville has much more going for it than you'd like to give it credit for. And don't judge a city's strength by the number of buildings over a certain height. If you've ever been to DC, you'll know what I mean.

And by being "set up differently," I think GvilleSC was referring to the fact that the Upstate's 1.2 million residents are split between the three primary cities of Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson, whereas Charlotte is far and away the dominant city of its metro area.

[winthropalum]

To be a native, it seems as though you don't realize that Greenville has much more going for it than you'd like to give it credit for. And don't judge a city's strength by the number of buildings over a certain height. If you've ever been to DC, you'll know what I mean.

And by being "set up differently," I think GvilleSC was referring to the fact that the Upstate's 1.2 million residents are split between the three primary cities of Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson, whereas Charlotte is far and away the dominant city of its metro area.

[teshadoh]

Winthropalum, I would suggest chilling out about Greenville - I mean, you're talking about Rock fricking Hill. Sadly at this point, it's nothing but a suburb - albeit a major secondary city behind Charlotte along with Gastonia & Concord. But whatever beef you have with Greenville has been hashed over hundreds of times already.

But - nice to see other Rock Hillians around.

[Spartan]

I didnt say it did not have anything going for it. But to look at Greenville, you take away downtown, there is nothing, and I mean nothing here.

[winthropalum]

I disagree with that statement, and I think that most Greenvillians and South Carolinians would too, for that matter. Greenville has a lot going for it. You are trying to compare metro Charlotte to metro Greenville, which is not a fair comparison at all. Rock Hill is a suburb of Charlotte, but within the context of this discussion its not really a relevant fact. You need to define what it is you are talking about first, then make the comparison.

If you are comparing City of Rock Hill to City of Greenville, then the City of Rock Hill is indeed larger by population, but you also have to consider that Greenville is at the heart of an urban area with 300,000 people or so where as Rock Hill is at the center of an urban area of about 75,000. (Check out the Urban Area statistic from the Census)

On this forum we generally recognize that city population stats are meaningless. (Unless you think that Charlotte is larger than Atlanta)

I appreciate your enthusiam here, but UrbanPlanet asks that all of its members show a respect to eachother. If you think that Greenville, outside of its downtown, doesn't have much going for it then please elaborate and explain what you mean. Maybe you are right (I doubt it), but try to have an intelligent discussion about it rather than make statements like that.

Anyway, welcome to the forum!

[Spartan]

No worries. Nothing wrong with having an opinion. I'm just curious why you think what you do.