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South Carolina's population growth


CorgiMatt

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According to this article in the Daniel Island News from Nov 21, 2017,  Daniel Island is nearing build out.  From a standpoint of residential units,  5,200 units out of a planned total of 6,350 units have been completed.  That's 83%, build out on the residential front.  Most of the remaining planned residential developments are now under construction. 

http://thedanielislandnews.com/news/island-development-nearing-end-says-di-company-president

 

 

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On 6/13/2018 at 5:15 AM, vicupstate said:

One interwsting thing is Greenville  has about 70k inside a 28 sq. mile boundary. Charleston is just about double in population but has 112 sq. miles.  The disparity is even greater between Greenville and Columbia.  That disparity will stay largely in place as the Columbia disparity is from Ft. Jackson's large acreage.  The same is not true of Charleston though.  Daniel Island and Cainhoy are largely vacant but will eventually be developed for the most part.   

The density aspect of growth is certainly worth paying attention to. As you indicated, the context for each city's boundary is unique. This fact makes it difficult to objectively compare the true density of the cities as a whole. 

Much of Greenville's growth seems to be tied to its investments in downtown, and I don't get the impression that it's annexing many residential areas (Verdae notwithstanding). The rapid rate of infill along with the general demand to live near downtown has helped boost the residential population of downtown and nearby neighborhoods, respectively.  Columbia and Charleston have managed to annex more aggressively, and while they have larger populations they annexed very low density development to do so. It's interesting too because a significant portion of Charleston's area is marsh and water, and Charleston has - by far- the most dense and walkable urban core of any city in the Carolinas. It would be interesting to do the math to see how much of Charleston's area is developable land versus marsh and water.

I think the larger challenge is that with the exception of the urban cores of our largest cities, the vast majority of the growth is unsustainable sprawl.

 

On 6/14/2018 at 9:46 AM, ZUMAN2 said:

According to this article in the Daniel Island News from Nov 21, 2017,  Daniel Island is nearing build out.  From a standpoint of residential units,  5,200 units out of a planned total of 6,350 units have been completed.  That's 83%, build out on the residential front.  Most of the remaining planned residential developments are now under construction. 

http://thedanielislandnews.com/news/island-development-nearing-end-says-di-company-president

While your statement is correct, 1000 units is nothing to scoff at. That's a major development on its own.

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1 hour ago, Spartan said:

I think the larger challenge is that with the exception of the urban cores of our largest cities, the vast majority of the growth is unsustainable sprawl.

I'm no fan of sprawl, but what constitutes "unsustainable"? That suggests a breaking point. Atlanta seems not to have hit it (at least, not according to the proud Atlanteans I know). Is there an example of sprawl gone past the breaking point, and what is/are the breaking point(s)?

I ask because I wonder whether sprawl will eventually force a coalescence around various nodes within a big metroplex, kind of like the way galaxies are supposed to have formed (as I understand it) according to the Big Bang model. If so, then sprawl gets mitigated to some degree. I've seen something that seems kind of like that in various older large cities.

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20 hours ago, Spartan said:

The density aspect of growth is certainly worth paying attention to. As you indicated, the context for each city's boundary is unique. This fact makes it difficult to objectively compare the true density of the cities as a whole. 

Much of Greenville's growth seems to be tied to its investments in downtown, and I don't get the impression that it's annexing many residential areas (Verdae notwithstanding). The rapid rate of infill along with the general demand to live near downtown has helped boost the residential population of downtown and nearby neighborhoods, respectively.  Columbia and Charleston have managed to annex more aggressively, and while they have larger populations they annexed very low density development to do so. It's interesting too because a significant portion of Charleston's area is marsh and water, and Charleston has - by far- the most dense and walkable urban core of any city in the Carolinas. It would be interesting to do the math to see how much of Charleston's area is developable land versus marsh and water.

I think the larger challenge is that with the exception of the urban cores of our largest cities, the vast majority of the growth is unsustainable sprawl.

 

While your statement is correct, 1000 units is nothing to scoff at. That's a major development on its own.

The 112 sq. mile figure I quoted for Charleston excludes water. It probably includes marsh, but I don't know for certain. 

You are correct that most of Greenville's growth is infill. Probably close to 90% or better.  Even Verdae was annexed a long time ago (30+ years).      

The urban core of Charleston is very dense and while the area South of Broad has lost density over the last few decades, the Midtown area and above toward the city limits is adding density very rapidly.    

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20 hours ago, Exile said:

I'm no fan of sprawl, but what constitutes "unsustainable"? That suggests a breaking point. Atlanta seems not to have hit it (at least, not according to the proud Atlanteans I know). Is there an example of sprawl gone past the breaking point, and what is/are the breaking point(s)?

I ask because I wonder whether sprawl will eventually force a coalescence around various nodes within a big metroplex, kind of like the way galaxies are supposed to have formed (as I understand it) according to the Big Bang model. If so, then sprawl gets mitigated to some degree. I've seen something that seems kind of like that in various older large cities.

It's an unsustainable growth model from both a financial standpoint and an environmental/health standpoint. It costs more for local governments to provide and maintain infrastructure and services to low density development. The short term results aren't a big deal, but in the long run it means that developed areas will either not be maintained or have to have tax increases to fund the work needed to maintain or upgrade the facilities. I would argue Atlanta is well past the breaking point. The traffic there as a result of poor planning  is an absolute nightmare, and the options to live in a place that has some semblance of walkability are few and far between.

Being from the Upstate, the growth there is the most personal to me. It's a very high growth area, and a significant majority of it is occurring outside of any municipal jurisdiction. This fact is important because counties are not set up to manage growth. It's not to say that they can't, it's just that they haven't shown any interest in doing so. I'm not opposed to growth, but I think it's important to set up development regulations that make it easier for developers to create walkable, highly connected development. Infill development is wonderful, but its still a very small percentage of total growth, even if it's the most visible and interesting to discuss.

Beaufort County is the only county that has implemented any sort of meaningful ordinances to this regard. They adopted a form-based code a few years ago that is making some noteworthy and positive impacts on the county's growth. The only other place of any size I'm aware of that has a form-based code in South Carolina are the City of Beaufort and Spartanburg, whose code covers the greater downtown area. If anyone knows of other places, please share.

 

1 hour ago, vicupstate said:

The 112 sq. mile figure I quoted for Charleston excludes water. It probably includes marsh, but I don't know for certain. 

You are correct that most of Greenville's growth is infill. Probably close to 90% or better.  Even Verdae was annexed a long time ago (30+ years).      

The urban core of Charleston is very dense and while the area South of Broad has lost density over the last few decades, the Midtown area and above toward the city limits is adding density very rapidly.    

Ah ok. I didn't look it up. My only point was that density is important to consider as long as its understood that it's a somewhat arbitrary statistic. Downtown Charleston has lost considerable density compared to 150-200 years ago too, but health codes and zoning play a role in that change from a historical perspective. 

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Having trouble sleeping this am, thought I would look at few things. This isn't the census.gov release (which won't come out until May), but the site seems to be pretty accurate. Here are their estimates for SC city populations for 2018.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/south-carolina-population/cities/

Chas 138,247

Cola 134,969

N Chas 110,828

Mt Pleas 89,968

Rock Hill 75,825

Gville 74,813

Summerville 50,213

If accurate for Gville though, it would have grown by a whopping 6600 in one year, so not sure. We'll have to see what census says in May!:shok:

 

Edited by distortedlogic
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On 1/3/2019 at 2:16 AM, distortedlogic said:

Having trouble sleeping this am, thought I would look at few things. This isn't the census.gov release (which won't come out until May), but the site seems to be pretty accurate. Here are their estimates for SC city populations for 2018.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/south-carolina-population/cities/

Chas 138,247

Cola 134,969

N Chas 110,828

Mt Pleas 89,968

Rock Hill 75,825

Gville 74,813

Summerville 50,213

If accurate for Gville though, it would have grown by a whopping 6600 in one year, so not sure. We'll have to see what census says in May!:shok:

 

Low Country growing like crazy as usual. 

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On 1/3/2019 at 2:16 AM, distortedlogic said:

Having trouble sleeping this am, thought I would look at few things. This isn't the census.gov release (which won't come out until May), but the site seems to be pretty accurate. Here are their estimates for SC city populations for 2018.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/south-carolina-population/cities/

Chas 138,247

Cola 134,969

N Chas 110,828

Mt Pleas 89,968

Rock Hill 75,825

Gville 74,813

Summerville 50,213

If accurate for Gville though, it would have grown by a whopping 6600 in one year, so not sure. We'll have to see what census says in May!:shok:

 

This website updated their numbers - it now shows population for 2019. Year for year numbers seem pretty similar to census.gov, but this site seems to have more current numbers. If corrrect, Chas continues to distance itself from Cola and Greenville makes another big jump, surpassing Rock Hill. Perhaps their estimates are made at the beginning of the year instead of July? 

 

Chas                     140,178

Cola                      135,299

NChas                 111,593

Mt Pleasant       92,867

Greenville           78,493

Rock Hill              77,269

Summerville       50,268

 

Crazy to see that Greenville lost population gradually for 40 years b/w 1960 and 2000, remained about the same till 2010, then has grown by nearly 20,000 over the last decade (again, if these are accurate), and it has been done without massive annexation. 

 

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The 2010 census had Greenville at 58k. The census estimate has Greenville at 68k for 2017.  Yet it has gained another 10k in just two years??   Obviously without any significant annexation.  Albeit the development of Verdae is the expansion of population for an area annexed in the '80's that was dormant since then.  

 

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Yeah, I agree, 10,000 in two years seems like it would be way too high. As mentioned above, their 2018 estimate was 74k+, or a one year gain of over 6000. I dont know about how they get their numbers but the numbers for all the other cities seem very reasonable based on what we've seen from the census numbers and trends the last few years. I dont think census.gov will release city estimates until may and by that time, their 2018 numbers they will be releasing will already be a year old. Even if we are at 74 or 75 by the 2020 census that would be a very respectable gain in ten years considering  no real new annexation. But if these are fairly accurate  we could be close to 80k, which would be like 40% gain!

Also lists SC  population now at 5,153,463.

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On February 4, 2019 at 10:59 PM, motonenterprises said:

City population in this state is tricky when determining the size of a place. I like to use other numbers myself. I can believe Greenville has made this jump in it's small city limits though. There is lots of infill development going on. It's changing rapidly.

The numerous apartments/condos is the  (obvious) catalyst for dramatic population increase for the  city. Does anyone know the count of new apartments that have have added to downtown/vicinity  from 2015 to present? Amazingly, It doesn't seem to  be slowing down with many more planned. Greenville is certainly a growing vibrant city in the southeast...

 

 

 

 

 

 

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43 minutes ago, motonenterprises said:

Is this link the only website that has these numbers? I figured I would've heard more by now.

Census.gov will release their updated estimates in May. But those will be for July 1, 2018, so almost  a year old. I'm very interested to make a comparison to the 2018 numbers from this site and those from the census bureau. 

Not sure why it takes so long, they released state estimates back in December,  I'm sure they had county and city estimates by then as well; and probably well before.

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4 hours ago, distortedlogic said:

Census.gov will release their updated estimates in May. But those will be for July 1, 2018, so almost  a year old. I'm very interested to make a comparison to the 2018 numbers from this site and those from the census bureau. 

Not sure why it takes so long, they released state estimates back in December,  I'm sure they had county and city estimates by then as well; and probably well before.

Yep. I know the census site is at the same time. I was just curious where this other site gets its numbers from.

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While almost a year old, metro population growth from the census for 2010 - 2017:

Myrtle Beach + 23.32% to 464k

Charleston + 16.73% to 775k

Charlotte - + 13.91% to 2.5mm

Greenville + 8.7% to 895k

Columbia + 7.5% to 825k

Spartanburg + 6.74% to 334k

The metros seem to be clustering into hyper growth camps above 13% and solid growth areas between 6 and 9%.  A good showing for SC.  Based on recent activity, Charlotte will continue to dive deep into SC towards Lancaster and Columbia.  

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7 hours ago, GvilleSC said:

:sick: That's unfortunate. 

While not ideal, I don’t see it as unfortunate.   MCMaster was recently promoting the extension of light rail from South Charlotte into Rock Hill (who would have ever thought that Rock Hill would see the first light rail in SC).  The new Panthers’ HQ will create a lot of development if the Cowboys and Vikings HQ centers are good models.  And, They  are working on or have assembled a super site in Chester which will transform Southern York and Chester Counties.  From there, you are one county away from Richland.  Metro Charlotte will be over 3mm residents in the near future with a lot of the growth heading south.

The ship has sailed for Lancaster, growth below Ballantyne  is almost into Lancaster.

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21 minutes ago, CLT_sc said:

While not ideal, I don’t see it as unfortunate.   MCMaster was recently promoting the extension of light rail from South Charlotte into Rock Hill (who would have ever thought that Rock Hill would see the first light rail in SC).  The new Panthers’ HQ will create a lot of development if the Cowboys and Vikings HQ centers are good models.  And, They  are working on or have assembled a super site in Chester which will transform Southern York and Chester Counties.  From there, you are one county away from Richland.  Metro Charlotte will be over 3mm residents in the near future with a lot of the growth heading south.

The ship has sailed for Lancaster, growth below Ballantyne  is almost into Lancaster.

I don't see these areas as being prepared to handle the growth, or manage it well in the present moment. Rock Hill getting an extension of light rail is one thing. Sprawling all the way to Richland County is NOT something to celebrate.

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2 hours ago, GvilleSC said:

I don't see these areas as being prepared to handle the growth, or manage it well in the present moment. Rock Hill getting an extension of light rail is one thing. Sprawling all the way to Richland County is NOT something to celebrate.

I don’t see it as a celebration, I just see that is where growth is headed.  But, for counties like Fairfield and Chester, this certainly will help economically.

i honestly have seen the latest population growth stats for metro CLT, but something close to 4mm in the not too distant future is not unrealistic.   Immigration alone get the area to 3.5mm in about 15 years.  Considering how aggressive SC is in getting companies into metro Charlotte today, York, Lancaster and Chester stand to grow.  Columbia is also trending towards CLT.

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Population growth slows inCharleston County and soars inHorry, Berkeley

Population growth has slowed rather dramatically in Charleston and Dorchester counties — falling by more than 50 percent since 2015 — while Berkeley has become the second-fastest-growing county in the state. The three counties together represent the Charleston metro area.

In 2015, the Charleston metro area was gaining 50 new residents every day, and Charleston County accounted for more than half the growth. By, 2018 that slowed to an average gain of 34 people each day, with half of those tri-county population gains going to to Berkeley County.

While growth in some areas speeds up, then slows, the Myrtle Beach area has been an exception. It’s been growing rapidly without pause. In 2018, it once again was the second-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the nation. Only the Midland, Texas metro area grew faster.

Through mid-2018, the Spartanburg metropolitan area was the 19th-fastest-growing in the nation out of 383 total. Spartanburg County accounted for all of that growth, and the county was the fifth-fastest-growing in the state.

South Carolina’s York and Lancaster counties are now considered bedroom communities for Charlotte, a metro area that was the nation’s 47th-fastest-growing. York and Lancaster were also South Carolina’s third- and fourth-fastest-growing counties.

The only other counties that saw population growth greater than the state as a whole were Jasper, Greenville and Lexington.

Twenty of South Carolina’s 46 counties lost population during the most recent year; most of them were rural counties facing the double-whammy of a negative birth rate and more residents leaving than arriving.

Combined, those 20 counties lost an estimated 4,348 residents, while the remaining 26 counties gained 67,256.

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