The Good News Report

[kermit]

12 hours ago, Windsurfer said:

Well, if everyone else is doing it.....

If we had poured half the money of the total cost of I-485 into improving 77 and 74, don't you think going directly through town wouldn't be such a pain?  I had a state DOT planner tell me one time many moons ago, "It's a little secret among us planners that development follows roads, not usually the other way around".  Developers know this and encourage roads that bust apart family farms and enable their quick-buck schemes. It's their model. We all know it. 

You are exactly right about the massive opportunity cost of 485. 485 certainly sapped money away from investment in less-sprawling parts of town, and it has also pulled people away from the city, making uptown and surrounding neighborhoods less active. In essence, I485 cancelled out some of the densifying and development effects of transit investment.

Edited December 9, 2022 by kermit

[rancenc]

Good new for various localities around the state.

https://www.commerce.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2022/12/08/governor-cooper-announces-additional-grants-rural-communities-concluding-record-year-funding-rural

[rancenc]

NC Commerce Department announces another round of grants to various towns throughout the state.

https://www.commerce.nc.gov/media/6443/download?attachment

[Richhamleigh, DC]

On 12/9/2022 at 5:20 PM, rancenc said:

Good new for various localities around the state.

https://www.commerce.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2022/12/08/governor-cooper-announces-additional-grants-rural-communities-concluding-record-year-funding-rural

Thanks Coop!  Cooper for President.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Phillydog

[rancenc]

NC Dept of Commerce announced another round of grants yesterday to various municipalities throughout the state.

https://www.commerce.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2022/12/19/27-north-carolina-communities-receive-423-million-neighborhood-revitalization-grants

[KJHburg]

Since I started talking about rolling power outages I thought I would share this.  Even Duke Energy can not steal my joy this time of year.  

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!  

Enjoy some photos from across our state in the last 6 weeks in this holiday season.  Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Photo descriptions:

1. CLT airport 

2-5 NC Chinese Festival Cary 

6. Flag at Fort Macon

7.8. Historical Beaufort NC like the lamp

9.10 Wilmington 

11. Tree at Truist Tower Charlotte

12.13.  Old Salem decorations here very simple 

14. NC Chinese Festival Cary 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by KJHburg

[Windsurfer]

All  those creative and beautiful decorations and we have traffic cones.

[KJHburg]

watch Kannapolis shine on national TV tomorrow. 

Beginning Christmas Day ESPN2 will air the AKC Disc Dog Challenge. These amazing dogs competed at Atrium Health Ballpark in Kannapolis earlier this Fall. Watch at 4:30 p.m. or stream online. 

[rancenc]

Let's see if 2023 translates into a great year for statewide job creation!

https://wraltechwire.com/2023/01/02/nc-business-recruiters-aim-for-record-100k-jobs-112b-in-investment-for-2023/

[Take2]

On 12/24/2022 at 3:55 PM, Windsurfer said:

All  those creative and beautiful decorations and we have traffic cones.

Good lord I thought the exact same thing!!.  That's Charlotte for yam... NO city can shine like Charlotte while keeping it a "little on the trashy side"...

[kermit]

Not really the right thread for this but...

about once a year I get the Moody's metro growth forecast for Charlotte for work purposes.  They are relatively coarse projection models, so don't put too much faith in these (and they always miss economic transitions). Anyway, here is an excerpt of the quantitative 5 year forecast for Charlotte. What I found interesting was projected population growth remains relatively weak (in comparison to the past), but projected GMP growth looks OK, marginally lower than Raleigh and significantly higher than what is projected for Nashville.  Income growth looks good at a glance, but it is largely driven by inflation. If the Moody's projections pan out, then we are looking at a pretty blah stretch for the next 5 years.  

While the specific numbers shown here are pretty unreliable, this is a good representation of what corporations see when making expansion decisions.

Edited January 5, 2023 by kermit

[Reverie39]

Hm. I would have expected Charlotte metro to be approaching or at the 3 million park close to 2030.

[Vitamin_N]

2 minutes ago, Reverie39 said:

Hm. I would have expected Charlotte metro to be approaching or at the 3 million park close to 2030.

It's growing by about 30k per year in that table so if you extrapolate that 3 more years you're at 2.96MM, give or take

[DonkeyKong]

Where are all of the bold Charlotte 2023 Economic Development predictions?

[KJHburg]

Business Facilities an econ development publication names NC State of the Year in 2022 for its business expansion.

https://businessfacilities.com/2023/01/north-carolina-is-business-facilities-2022-state-of-the-year/

some may think these don't matter but they do.  consistently ranking at the top of such lists makes NC get noticed for all kinds of business expansion. 

these are good local economic indicators from the Charlotte Region Business Alliance

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiYjc5OGJmNmYtZTk2OC00Yzk2LWIxMmYtNWRjMDQ3ZDI2NTYwIiwidCI6ImE0Yzc0NjYxLTU4ODItNDU4YS05NTQwLTkwYTEzYTAzZTQ1ZSIsImMiOjJ9&pageName=ReportSectionc73f32b9a682d3a366f2

Edited January 5, 2023 by KJHburg

[KJHburg]

Saw this in the Business NC daily email about job growth in NC

""North Carolina statewide numbers can sometimes have a weak connection to how your corner of the state is doing. The number above 4.2%  is the percentage growth in the number of jobs, statewide, between November 2021 and November 2022. But North Carolina is a large state, with very different regional economies and challenges. The overall job growth reflects the outsized influence of Raleigh and Charlotte.  

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released jobs data by metropolitan statistical area for November. The data looked at job growth by MSA.  MSAs are regions defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget. 

The greatest percentage year-over-year growth was in the Raleigh MSA  (5.6%) and the Charlotte MSA (5.3%). These are also the two largest metro areas. The sprawling Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia MSA, which runs from South Carolina border counties north to Iredell County, has 2.7 million people and the Raleigh-Cary MSA, which takes in Wake, Franklin and Johnston, has more than 1.4 million.  The two MSAs make up around 39% of the state’s population.

The Wilmington MSA, which includes New Hanover and Pender counties, has around 291,800 people, and its year-over-year job growth was 3.4%. That was slightly better than the Greensboro-High Point MSA, 3.3%, which takes in Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham counties, and has more than 778,800 people. 

In fact, Wilmington’s job growth rate was better than five other MSAs that are more populous: Durham-Chapel Hill (which runs from Chatham County up to Person and Granville) 3.1%, Fayetteville (the counties of Cumberland, Harnett,and  Hoke) 3%, Asheville (the counties of Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Madison) 2.6%, Winston-Salem (Davidson County to Stokes) 2.3%, and Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton (the Unifour counties of Alexander, Burke, Caldwell and Catawba), 2.1%.

Jacksonville (2.7%) and Burlington (2.6%), the next smallest MSAs, also outperformed several larger ones.  The next smallest MSAs by population, all in Eastern North Carolina, are Greenville (1%), Rocky Mount (-2.1%), New Bern (1.5%) and Goldsboro (0.7%). ""

 

[Third Strike]

Got the heads up that a new Best Buy distribution center will be opening up in July. It will be located near the Amazon warehouse near the airport, next to the I-85/485 interchange. Best Buy currently has a smaller warehouse located near NC 160 and Shopton, next to I-485. I’m guessing they’ll close this location once the new warehouse is open. 

[sclark]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendarichardson/2023/01/12/zillow-picks-charlotte-north-carolina-as-2023s-hottest-housing-market/?sh=784103f72baa

Zillow has named Charlotte as the hottest residential real estate market for 2023. 

[KJHburg]

The good news is Charlotte is near the BOTTOM of this list.  The dirtiest cities in America.  Out of 152 looked out Charlotte is #141 the bottom 10%.

that is a good thing. 

https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/dirtiest-cities-in-united-states/

watch out for those rats in Boston, Philly and Baltimore 

and why so much trash per resident the other queen city of Cincy? 

[turbocraig]

31 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

The good news is Charlotte is near the BOTTOM of this list.  The dirtiest cities in America.  Out of 152 looked out Charlotte is #141 the bottom 10%.

that is a good thing. 

https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/dirtiest-cities-in-united-states/

watch out for those rats in Boston, Philly and Baltimore 

and why so much trash per resident the other queen city of Cincy? 

Durham at 100 and Raleigh at 83.  Nasty. 

In all seriousness, they must not have driven around 485 or (insert any) on/off ramp in this entire city…

[KJHburg]

9 minutes ago, turbocraig said:

Durham at 100 and Raleigh at 83.  Nasty. 

In all seriousness, they must not have driven around 485 or (insert any) on/off ramp in this entire city…

I get that but anybody I bring around Charlotte from out of town or out of the country they remark how clean the city is.   Roadside trash is a big problem in NC for sure. 

[CLT2014]

A lot of the trash along the interstates here are hidden under all the weeds / over growth nobody can access in the spring - fall, so everything looks fine during those seasons because the interstates just look like walls of green bushes.  Then the bushes die back in the winter and all the areas that were covered in kudzu are suddenly visible and you see all the trash all at once. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by CLT2014

[turbocraig]

3 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

A lot of the trash along the interstates here are hidden under all the weeds / over growth nobody can access in the spring - fall, so everything looks fine during those seasons because the interstates just look like walls of green bushes.  Then the bushes die back in the winter and all the areas that were covered in kudzu are suddenly visible and you see all the trash all at once. 

485 from 77 to Johnston Rd looks like you're driving through a landfill.  My aunt and uncle from SF came to stay with my parents a couple weeks ago and I drove out there for dinner one night while they were here and I thought, my God.  This is their first impression of the city right from the airport.  I know it's a state highway and their responsibility, but good God it's atrocious. 

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

I added this in the Light rail thread in a somewhat off topic post, so apologies for also adding here. Charlotte had the largest y/y % increase in office space in 2022 and second highest % under construction. The report of course manipulated statistics to drool over Austin, but Atlanta and Charlotte out punch their weight over almost everyone else. 

 

 

[15895]

Hmmm… #13 in foot traffic of metropolitan areas goes to Charlotte. I’d say that’s good news. I’m surprised, at least. At least above Denver is surprising (obviously it’s per this source and entire metro area.)