Dual Employment Centers

[DBR96A]

In the Pittsburgh area, there are two emerging "edge cities" (although not quite on the scale of, say, Atlanta's edge cities): Cranberry and Southpointe.

Cranberry is in southern Butler County, where I-79 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike intersect, so it makes sense that this area would develop pretty rapidly. Southpointe is in northern Washington County, and straddles I-79 as well. Development began in this area in the early 1990s, but hasn't yet reached Cranberry-esque levels of growth. Methinks Southpointe will explode once the South Beltway gets built between the Mon Valley and Pittsburgh International Airport.

Both areas are barely across the border from Allegheny County. Allegheny County should try to lower its taxes a bit so that they can get in on a piece of the inevitable development near both Cranberry and Southpointe.

[Mr Downtown]

Charlotte has 2 Major employment centers, with 2 more developing rapidly into major ones. Of course there is Downtown, with around 50-55,000 workers, and the Southpark area... with roughly 35-40,000 employees. The up and coming centers would be the University City Area, as well as Ballantyne in southern Meck. Im not 100% certain, but I think that all 4 centers reside within the city limits of sprawling Charlotte.

The interesting thing about Southpark is that it is one of the few Edge Cities in the South that didnt development along a major interstate/highway, or near a major freeway interchange.

In my native Piedmont Triad I would say that there are 3 major cores within the metro area. Downtown Winston-Salem, Downtown Greensboro, and the area around the Interstate 40 and 68 interchange.

[FromCityToRural]

Tyler doesn;t really have a concentrated employment area. We have a couple office buildings downtown, but also on the loop there exist a few. Retail is centered on the southern part of highway 69 leading out of town, as well as the eastern and southern parts of the Loop. There's two hospitals in the central part of town a little south of downtown which employ many, many folks. There really is no substantive concentration of employment here.

The Bay Area, where I'm originally from, has San Francisco, of course, but also the cities of the South Bay, including San Jose, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale to mention the major ones. Oakland has more than a few major employers as well, and it seems like Emeryville and the far East Bay like Pleasanton and Dublin are really moving up in this regard too.