I-485

[reverbandwhiskey]

485 isn't good for urbanization, but it is good for the city. The fact is, 90%+ of the 50k people per year moving to this region are looking for the suburban life, and 485 provides the stereotype model for suburban development to come.

[dubone]

(Joke or slam, I can't tell?)

The urban section of this city is not adding 5000 people a year from outside the region, so it is getting less than 10% of this migration, so 90%+ are going to the suburban parts of the region. But I didn't do a statistical analysis, so, um, touche.

[monsoon]

It depends upon what is defined as the "urban" area. If this is the CBD inside the inner loop, then it has been averaging about 3% of the county population growth over the last 5 years, and about 1% of the metro growth.

A comparison and I only present these numbers because I know them off the top of my head.

In 1990 the CBD population was about 6000 and Huntersville's population was 3500. In 2000, the CBD population was about 6000 and Huntersville's population was about 29,000. To be fair the reason the CBD population did not grow was due to gentrification. For every new condo buyer that went downtown, a low income person was driven out. These numbers are verified at the US Census.

In 1996 Huntersville put into place some pretty severe measures to limit growth. These were revised a couple of times since then to focus residential growth along the transit corridor and to drive more businesses into the city.

Despite these restrictions, Huntersville's population has grown to somewhere around 35,000 while the CBD population is about 8500 (according to the Charlotte Observer). The point here is that even with Huntersville's attempts to stop growth, it is still adding far more people than the CBD. Huntersville's restrictions are unique for the area with only Davidson being tougher. In the rest of the county where these restrictions don't exist, and that includes all of the Charlotte EJT, sprawl continues unabated, and its even worse in Cabarrus, York and Union counties near the border.

As further proof of this, Charlotte is now working on a development plan for the area around NorthLake mall. This is one of the largest tracts of undeveloped land left in the city's jurisdiction and once it is built out, it will have several times the population of the present downtown Charlotte. Downtown's biggest problem in attracting people these days is that is simply costs too much for people to afford or they don't see the worth in it if they can afford it. This is why growth isn't higher there.

[ChiefJoJo]

^ I don't see how that meshes with the Centers and Corridors plan, although I could be mistaken.

[monsoon]

^ I don't see how that meshes with the Centers and Corridors plan, although I could be mistaken.