Is Atlanta the most Important City in the South

[DHall]

O.K. Because I don't know how to break and open up the quotes, I am going to put all of my answers in brackets [].

I suppose it depends on priorities.  Let's assume I must stay in the southeast my entire life.  Here would be my answers to the following questions:

Where would you move...

...to have the best opportunities at making money?  Atlanta. [No. Dallas]

...to have the best domestic travel connections (i.e. non-stop flights)?  Atlanta.

...to have the best international travel connections?  Depends on the destination(s)-- if across the Atlantic or to Asia, Atlanta.  If south, Miami. [No. Dallas]

...to live in the prettiest neighborhoods?  Downtown Charleston. [No. Savannah]

...to have the best natural scenery?  Asheville. [i definately agree]

...to have the best shopping?  Atlanta. [No. houston, by far.]

...to have the best food?  New Orleans. [i definately agree]

...to find the most educated workforce?  Either Raleigh or Atlanta.

...for the best medical care?  Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill or Atlanta. [No. houston, by far.]

...to enjoy the strongest cultural establishment?  Atlanta. [No. New Orleans]

...for the best entertainment options?  Atlanta or New Orleans. [No. Oklahoma City, by far]

...for the most diverse population?  Atlanta.

And so on.  You get the drift.  Atlanta doesn't answer every question, but it answers many of them (and I'm really not trying to slant things...).  These are the things that I think define a 'capital' in a non-political, regional economic sense.  They're also big factors in location decisions.  People want to locate where people want to live.

Actually, I find airports to be an excellent indicator of a city's true economic weight. [i don't, look at Newark.]  Look at Atlanta's airport.  Busy, in constant competition with O'Hare for the World's Busiest title. [i don't really think it's a competition] Look at Charlotte's-- it's a hub, but for a smaller airline with a decidedly more East Coast concentration.  Then look at Nashville's or Tampa's.  And for God's sake, look at Tulsa's [Tulsa does not use Tulsa's airport, they use OKC, which still isn't that busy] (one of the old-moniest cities in the country?  Please...). [Define old money] True, New York is a bit of an exception, but its region has three major airports, all equally busy and all lacking any room for expansion.

In terms of urbanism and what are truly great Southern cities, Atlanta cannot compete with its predecessors in the South: Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans.  These cities have all lost their economic advantage and owe most of their present prosperity (which is arguable in New Orleans) to tourism.  Yet businesses do not want to locate there: these cities are dying, or at best keeping their heads above water and generating ungainly New South development around their edges. [Charleston city limits alone grew by about 15,000 last year, from around 75,000] Businesses want to locate in a place that is on the move, and impostors aside (hurumphCharlottecough) [i definately agree], Atlanta has more momentum than any other Southern city.

By the same token, HP recently reneged on a deal for a $1B expansion of an Atlanta facility citing concerns that Atlanta was becoming 'unlivable.' [i definately agree] The economics of firm location is fickle; if an area is victim to traffic congestion and the attendant air pollution causes it to lose federal funding for highway construction, problems only worsen in the absence of a clear vision for solution.

Again, I do not count Texas cities. [You should, because Texas is a powerhouse, Georgia is NOT] Texas is its own beast.  If it were to secede from the US, it could survive independently. [And it actually can] If any other Southern state(s) were to, they would be considerably poorer. [i disagree. Alabama. Yes. Miss. Yes. but not Arkansas, not Oklahoma, not Tennessee, not even Georgia. They would have to a standard of living to adopt that is higher than the nations.]

And there should be no argument that Washington is NOT a southern city. [i definately agree] Neither is Miami.  I draw this distinction on a cultural basis.  The demographic of DC and its suburbs is different from that of Richmond, 100 miles down the road.  DC's business sphere of influence projects north, not south.  Its transportation ties are overwhelmingly to northeastern cities.  The IKEA in Woodbridge (at the Potomac Mills outlet mall on I-95) is the end of the Northeast.  IKEA is another good indicator of places that are regionally important, [No. It is not. Ikea will never enter an old money city, because they don't want their stinkin' poc furniture, and you must account for old money, because w/o it the se is poor] even if it has left out a few spots in its location strategies over the years (Boston?).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, I hope that answered some questions about where I stand.

[DHall]

Would be nice to see some numbers to back up those opinions.

[monsoon]

[DHall]

It is better than Charlotte, but not even near as well employed as either Dallas or Houston.

[mrh3]

monsoon,

I understand your statement regarding the qualitative factors of "capital." I can only deal with absolute facts, which can be proven in numbers.

This is the link for the Fortune 500's

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/subs/fortune500/state

As for as the Federal Reserve, I would have to do more research, but I think that we can dismiss Richmond because its district is relatively small, but Dallas would certainly be included, however, its terriory includes Oklahoma and New Mexico, which aren't traditionally considered Southern states.

The influence of the Olympics, a feat only dreamed of by other Southern Metro's plays a significant roll in Atlanta's place as the Capital.

[monsoon]

[DHall]

No. Oklahoma is under some district, where the capitol is Kansas City.

[mrh3]

I stand corrected. OKC is under the 10th District out of KC, MO.

[mrh3]

I just checked out the Federal Reserve Website. There is a map with all 12 districts.

[monsoon]

[DHall]

Uhh... So?

If Atlanta has had an Olympics, that makes it even more liekly important.

[monsoon]

[monsoon]

[benjamin]

I noticed you guys talking about the federal reserve. Well Atlanta is also a federal reserve HQ, does that make any difference? The lympics does make a difference because it means that it is an important major city. In reagrds to Lake Placid, that is because those are the winter olympics. If you go to the olympics websitew, youll see that everywhere that there was a summer olympics is in a major city. Ok lets list all the information that we have and then evaluate. Atlanta, site of the 1996 olympics, home of the busiest airport in the world, HQ of Coca-Cola, UPS, TBS, Delta, CNN, and in addition, more than four-fifths of the nation

[bobliocatt]

Also, how can anyone include houston or dallas as the south. It's just not the same culture at all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The same way New Orleans is located in the south. Because it doesn't have anything in common with cities like Atlanta and Charlotte, either. The south is a region of the US, not an overriding culture.

[bande_originale]

First, a little fire with fire. I read an article somewhere that described Charlotte as 'a truck stop masquerading as an international city.' The description applies to Atlanta more, as Atlanta has a shot at pulling off being recognized in the global economy, but Atlanta has over three times the population and considerably more affluence. Charlotte's bank towers are figureheads: they put bank executives in the city but do not provide a robust middle class on their own. Your insistence on cleverly parsed statistical figures really does not win me over to your argument. I lived in Charlotte briefly and am currently doing work on projects there. Its airport is poorly connected to the rest of the city. In an especially auto-dependent region of an auto-dependent nation, not having direct freeway connections from airport to downtown hurts. Its airport is overwhelmingly dominated by one airline, making it an expensive destination with little opportunity for price competition. Its absence of monuments, public buildings, or large civic works leaves it without any civitas or sense of identity. If you can't see the jewel-crown Bank of America tower on the skyline, you have no idea where you are. And, as I implied above, it is a one-trade town. A boyfriend I had there had to sell his condo at a loss when he got transferred to DC-- the Wachovia/First Union merger had just happened and 4,000 employees were laid off. That alone caused the condo/luxury townhouse market in Charlotte to plateau (and even fall off a little). Don't tell me this place can remotely be considered the 'capital of the south.'

Second, in my list of Q and A, I never once said Atlanta is the best place to get a job. The questions I was asking were as much motivating factors in a firm's or agency's location decision as the motivating factors in a potential employee's decision on where to move.

I have noticed that monsoon gets very hot under the collar about any stray comments on Charlotte. Perhaps it's because I haven't mentioned where I live that he hasn't started personally attacking it (it's not Atlanta).

Third, SimCity's comment about IKEA not opening in old money urban areas is just plain silly. The claim that Tulsa is one of the most old-money cities in the country is bad enough. Chicago, San Francisco, and New York were building Beaux-Arts libraries and opera houses while the brothel patrons on Tulsa's muddy main street still had oil under their fingernails. Sure, from what I understand, it made money in the oil booms, spent it all in the early 1980s (as new money is wont to do), but has retained its status as the financial seat of Oklahoma. But I use IKEA as an indicator of sophistication: its target market is young, creative single professionals, students, and families, the savvy, usually well educated lower- and middle-income consumers who demand good style and design as well as value in what they buy. Tulsa does not attract these types: it's the larger, more dynamic urban areas with diverse economies and a sizeable sophisticated middle class that do. IKEA's market sheds are huge, but it doesn't seem to have a problem saturating markets once it opens-- the DC/Baltimore area now has three stores (as many as New York); LA has five. It will be interesting to see how its ten-year expansion plan plays out: right now, one can detect patterns of location in 'creative class' urban areas of around at least 3 million people. I wonder how it will help draw people in once Tampa and (gasp) Charlotte have them.

How many Vermeers does Tulsa have? When was the Tulsa Philharmonic's last performance at Carnegie Hall? Where is the Cartier store? These are signs of cities with old money. The closest you'll find these things to Tulsa is Dallas.

And for the last bleeding time, I am not counting Texas cities. End of story. It does not win me over to keep plunking down Houston and Dallas in my quotes. They are not southeastern in the same historic and economic sense. Dallas owes its initial prosperity to railroad expansion that came through Chicago and Kansas City, not New Orleans. Houston was a spot on the map until a hurricane destroyed Galveston. Neither of these cities lost its wealth and status after the civil war. Neither figured prominently as a strategic location then.

Also, I think of Tampa and Orlando as southeastern, but not the South Florida conurbation that encompasses Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. It is its own bizarre hybrid of northern cultural transplants and Latin American capital investment.

[monsoon]

[bobliocatt]

And for the last bleeding time, I am not counting Texas cities.  End of story.  It does not win me over to keep plunking down Houston and Dallas in my quotes.  They are not southeastern in the same historic and economic sense.  Dallas owes its initial prosperity to railroad expansion that came through Chicago and Kansas City, not New Orleans.  Houston was a spot on the map until a hurricane destroyed Galveston.  Neither of these cities lost its wealth and status after the civil war.  Neither figured prominently as a strategic location then.

Also, I think of Tampa and Orlando as southeastern, but not the South Florida conurbation that encompasses Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach.  It is its own bizarre hybrid of northern cultural transplants and Latin American capital investment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You contradict yourself. Houston isn't southern, because it didn't lose wealth & status after the Civil War, but Tampa and Orlando are southeastern? Just about every city, not in the Panhandle of Florida, including Jacksonville, were only pissing stops during the Civil War era. Orlando? Tampa? Jacksonville? Nothing significant about the Civil War happened this far south and none of these towns suffered during the war, because they were nothing more than trading posts and small villages at the time.

[bande_originale]

Touch

[bande_originale]

I will also admit that Atlanta faces serious problems. Its water and sewer infrastructure are near collapse. The city proper represents slightly more than 10 percent of the metro area population, and the lily-white suburbs refuse to adopt public transit (or allow MARTA extensions into their jurisdiction). Since the suburbs control the state government, they reject regional planning solutions to Atlanta's increasing traffic and air pollution problems. It is also beginning to face water supply problems-- northern Georgia and Alabama both draw water supply from the Chattahoochee River, which is the springbed of environmentally sensitive lands in the Florida panhandle. Florida is beginning to assert greater conservation priorities, which leaves Atlanta in a potential bind for meeting water demand. Nowadays, the out-and-out swindles that allowed Los Angeles to drain the Owens Valley dry and cause damage to Mono Lake are nearly impossible to engineer. Atlanta could be stuck.

Personally, I'm just trying to be objective. I try to avoid slinging mud, but it's hard to take other contributors to the thread seriously when they post nothing but blind boosterism. I detest Atlanta and have no desire to live there. I've only even been twice in the past five years. It's a little Los Angeles with the Faulknerian Southern fatalism. And it's so overrated. But it is the primate city of the South, if there is one.

[bobliocatt]

Interesting breakdown. I'll add a few things about the Florida cities. Their booms had little to do with what occurred in the rest of the south. Tampa began to boom in the late 1880s as a cigar manufacturing city. It owe's its existance to Key West and Havana, Cuba, from the events in those cities that caused hundreds of manufacturing companies to relocate. Orlando was just a small citrus town, until Disney took off. Jacksonville's growth comes directly from Shipbuilding and militarty installations and we all know about Miami beginning as a tourist destination.

[monsoon]

[wolfdawg54]

Atlanta is an important city but definitely is not the capital of the south. There are too many other cities that offer a lot to the south. I was there last night just before the population reached 4.5 million. Sorry for the late post.

[Brickell]

I know Atlanta has a big black population but to say it leads either Miami or Houton in diversity is a stretch. I would also think that DC would have a better educated workforce.

So to the interesting question and way of looking at things. My southeast region would include Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina. I'd make the capitol Jacksonville in repsect to Florida having the highest population in the new region.

edit: I apologize.

[bande_originale]

When I was in grad school in Chapel Hill two years ago, the state had a $2.2B budget deficit. I left just after Isabelle cut one of the Outer Banks in two and submerged Highway 12, so I only imagined the damages would worsen the fiscal crisis. UNC and all the other state schools faced 10 percent across-the-board cuts. The state-run schools for the disabled were being shut down. Glad to see those things did what legislators hoped they would and that that much of a deficit has been turned around.

I'd be interested in your answer to my question: what if the South had to choose a capital? First of all, how would your 'south' be defined? What would its capital be? I'm genuinely curious.