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Charleston Among the Top 100 Fastest-Growing Areas

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Charleston native Burg

Charleston native

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This might be surprising for some people, but not many Charlestonians, native or current residents. According to the article link below, Chas is one the top 100 fastest-growing areas in the country. Chas placed 67th overall, ahead of all the cities in SC except Cola (which has far more land). Greenville was 79th, Myrtle Beach was 81st, and "land-rich" Columbia was 62nd.

With the list of developments still expected to be built adding 135,000 homes to the Chas area, the city could find itself in a higher place in this category in the future.

Naturally, some interviewees from James Island were actually quoted as despising developers. :rolleyes:

They just keep coming ...

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Charleston native Burg

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It is just more expensive to live in Chas County. As real estate prices stabilize and decrease a bit, I'd expect the urban core numbers to go up more. Many planned developments are still being built such as Carolina Bay in West Ashley. Also, keep in mind that the growing numbers in Berkeley County include large areas in the city of Chas: Daniel Island and Cainhoy.

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Infinite1 Whistle-Stop

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I would speculate that a large percentage of the growth in the City of Charleston is occuring on Daniel Island, which is in Berkley County. Westcott and the faster growing areas of North Charleston are in Dorchester County. Mount Pleasant growth is stymied by the permit cap, as well as rapidly rising insurance premiums. With all that said, I still think the #s for Charleston County are off. However I think the should focus on rate of growth rather than sheer numbers of new residents. Looking at it this way, it is quickly understood that Myrtle Beach, with a 21% increase over 6 years, is the real boom town of the state. Charleston/NC at 9.9% is not bad, followed by Columbia at 8.9% and Greenville at 7.5%. The 3 flagship metros are growing at healthy, sustainable rates.

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SimCity Whistle-Stop

SimCity

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This is definitely good news for Charleston and all of our metros. Myrtle Beach is really on the move and I believe that SC will be a "Big Four" state in the near future. The growth there looks to be phenomenal.

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CorgiMatt Town

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This might be surprising for some people, but not many Charlestonians, native or current residents. According to the article link below, Chas is one the top 100 fastest-growing areas in the country. Chas placed 67th overall, ahead of all the cities in SC except Cola (which has far more land). Greenville was 79th, Myrtle Beach was 81st, and "land-rich" Columbia was 62nd.

With the list of developments still expected to be built adding 135,000 homes to the Chas area, the city could find itself in a higher place in this category in the future.

Naturally, some interviewees from James Island were actually quoted as despising developers. :rolleyes:

They just keep coming ...

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Charleston native Burg

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Corgi, if you understood the geograhy of the Chas area, you would know that "land-richness" means that you can build practically anywhere in the Cola area. However in Chas, many parts of Chas County especially are marsh areas and rivers, which cannot be built on. Developable land is more plentiful in Cola, and there is no debating that. Some of the counties you've mentioned are not even considered in Cola's MSA, yet.

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CorgiMatt Town

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Corgi, if you understood the geograhy of the Chas area, you would know that "land-richness" means that you can build practically anywhere in the Cola area. However in Chas, many parts of Chas County especially are marsh areas and rivers, which cannot be built on. Developable land is more plentiful in Cola, and there is no debating that. Some of the counties you've mentioned are not even considered in Cola's MSA, yet.
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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

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I don't think land richness has as much to do with Columbia's growth as the article makes it seem; Florence is just as land rich, but it's rate of growth wasn't anywhere close to Columbia's. Places don't just grow because there is a lot of land; there have to be things that draw people there.

While Charleston County in particular saw a slowdown, that is not the case for Dorchester and Berkeley counties, where most of the growth in the Charleston metro area has been occurring for some time now.

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Charleston native Burg

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I don't think those last two counties as well as Calhoun are in Cola's MSA, Corgi. If they are, Cola reps have done a fine job of trying to amass every county in the entire central part of the state. You guys are missing the point with land-richness. It is not the impetus for growth, but it is a great facilitator of it. Florence hasn't experienced this growth merely because it is not a hub for jobs. Cola has the location for a number of firms, state agencies, and corporations, yet Florence does not have these. So, if you want to locate in Cola, which you will be more inclined to do with ample more jobs than Florence, you've got the land to do it.

Chas County's numbers are still off, IMO. I've been visiting there the past few weekends, and the WA and north areas have more people there than ever. We'll see in the next census...

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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

krazeeboi

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I don't think those last two counties as well as Calhoun are in Cola's MSA, Corgi. If they are, Cola reps have done a fine job of trying to amass every county in the entire central part of the state. You guys are missing the point with land-richness. It is not the impetus for growth, but it is a great facilitator of it. Florence hasn't experienced this growth merely because it is not a hub for jobs. Cola has the location for a number of firms, state agencies, and corporations, yet Florence does not have these. So, if you want to locate in Cola, which you will be more inclined to do with ample more jobs than Florence, you've got the land to do it.
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Charleston native Burg

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...I think you got at the heart of the matter, which is jobs, not land-richness. Scarcity of land isn't a major factor at all in any metro area in SC like it is in places like NYC, the Bay Area, etc. While the Charleston metro area may have less land for development than the Columbia metro due to wetlands and such, it isn't significantly so...
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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

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I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't think that there is significantly more available land in greater Columbia as there is in greater Charleston, so I don't think that can be cited as a major reason for Columbia's growth, which was mostly concentrated in just Richland and Lexington counties. The writer of the article missed the big picture, which is that both metros have added roughly the same amount of people since 2000 (with the Charleston metro actually growing at a faster rate), so scarcity of land in metro Charleston isn't really as big of a reason as its being implied (the big industrial park project planned for the Jedburg area shows us that).

While it is true that Richland County doesn't have the abundance of geographical features that Charleston County does, you have to factor in Fort Jackson (80+ square mile) and the Congaree National Forest (30+ square miles) for Richland, which are big chunks of land not available for development. I'm just guessing, but all things considered, Richland would probably be on par with Charleston in terms of the amount of land for development, as Charleston County is larger than Richland County.

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Charleston native Burg

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I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't think that there is significantly more available land in greater Columbia as there is in greater Charleston, so I don't think that can be cited as a major reason for Columbia's growth, which was mostly concentrated in just Richland and Lexington counties. The writer of the article missed the big picture, which is that both metros have added roughly the same amount of people since 2000 (with the Charleston metro actually growing at a faster rate), so scarcity of land in metro Charleston isn't really as big of a reason as its being implied (the big industrial park project planned for the Jedburg area shows us that).

While it is true that Richland County doesn't have the abundance of geographical features that Charleston County does, you have to factor in Fort Jackson (80+ square mile) and the Congaree National Forest (30+ square miles) for Richland, which are big chunks of land not available for development. I'm just guessing, but all things considered, Richland would probably be on par with Charleston in terms of the amount of land for development, as Charleston County is larger than Richland County.

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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

krazeeboi

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I know that in the Lowcountry, looks can be deceiving if you're trying to get a "feel" for how big a county is based on a map. For instance, Berkeley County is the state's largest in terms of total land area, but Horry County is the largest in terms of total land area. Plus, Charleston County just has a funny shape/orientation to it to begin with, and a significant portion of it is already developed, as you mentioned.

I don't think anyone is denying that Columbia doesn't have plenty of land, but I wouldn't put it in the top five reasons as to why growth is occurring there. Look at the land-richness of the Greenville area and all of the big projects it has landed as of late (projects that need a lot of land), but as of now, the growth rate there isn't quite as fast as it is in Columbia (although that could change in the near future). I think that the most significant factors influencing Columbia's growth is the stability and growth of the local economy, its size, and its location. Land-richness falls somewhere further down the list. I would cite the same reasons for Charleston as well, although its location can be both a positive and a negative, particularly if we see more active hurricane seasons in the near future. I think it's possible that we might see suburban mini-skylines popping up around Charleston in the near future. The implementation of citywide height restrictions was a mistake.

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Amapper Unincorporated Area

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Long term there are a few factors that very well may act as impediments to Charleston's growth that have not been specifically mentioned here.

Available land for expansion faces three major limitations which are 1. the Francis Marion National Forest to the North, 2. the ACE Basin to the South and 3. the Atlantic Ocean to the East.

In addition there are at least four major rivers coursing through the area: the Ashley, Cooper, Wapoo and Edisto, as well as two huge lakes, Moultrie and Marion. When you factor in thousands of acres of wet lands and large historically important plantations the amount of land adjacent to the current urban core is quickly becoming scarce. Most of the land for future expansion is located miles away in Northwestern Berkeley County, Western Dorchester County and further out into Colleton County.

Metro Charleston's foot print could very well resemble a mushroom. I narrow corridor along I-26 past Summerville and then a canopy arching from Moncks Corner down to Walterboro. So yes, land is a factor in Charleston growth.

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