Metro Atlanta struggling to regain lost momentum (Gainesville, Dallas: chapel, transportation)

[Tryska]

Originally Posted by Carolina Blue

Umm, so Charlotte makes front page news in the AJC. And it’s a story proclaiming the two cities are “rivals”. Let’s memorialize this for all those ATL posters who used to claim otherwise.

This is cool and all, but Charlotte's gonna need another $168 Billion in GDP and an additional 3-4 Million in population growth for that to be close to legitimate. Not saying it might not happen. It just hasn't happened as of yet.

List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[AtlantaIsHot]

Originally Posted by Carolina Blue

Umm, so Charlotte makes front page news in the AJC. And it’s a story proclaiming the two cities are “rivals”. Let’s memorialize this for all those ATL posters who used to claim otherwise.

I think the citizens of Atlanta react that way due to the fact that Charlotte sometimes has an "in-your-face" attitude at times. Most Atlantans are aware that the cities are economic competitors in terms of attracting business and investment. But competitors in terms of economic size? Certainly not. Charlotte is doing well, and it is likely to keep growing, but it also has to compete with Raleigh now too. Raleigh-Durham is growing faster and is likely to overtake Charlotte one day soon. Wake county is about to overtake Mecklenburg as the largest county in the state. Raleigh's metro area is growing faster too. Raleigh-Durham CSA is only slightly smaller and is adding more people than Charlotte's CSA. Charlotte's attempts at arrogance are a little misplaced and feeble given that it won't likely remain the dominant region in the Carolina's for much longer.

[Tryska]

Originally Posted by AtlantaIsHot

I think the citizens of Atlanta react that way due to the fact that Charlotte sometimes has an "in-your-face" attitude at times. Most Atlantans are aware that the cities are economic competitors in terms of attracting business and investment. But competitors in terms of economic size? Certainly not. Charlotte is doing well, and it is likely to keep growing, but it also has to compete with Raleigh now too. Raleigh-Durham is growing faster and is likely to overtake Charlotte one day soon. Wake county is about to overtake Mecklenburg as the largest county in the state. Raleigh's metro area is growing faster too. Raleigh-Durham CSA is only slightly smaller and is adding more people than Charlotte's CSA. Charlotte's attempts at arrogance are a little misplaced and feeble given that it won't likely remain the dominant region in the Carolina's for much longer.

Right - focus on keeping Raleigh in check, before attempting to outpace Atlanta at this point.

Then again - dream no small dreams.

[residinghere2007]

I also thought the article was well researched and for some reason I actually did see where they mentioned momentum over the past 18 months:

Originally Posted by jpk1292000

I read it too and it's incomplete. Many of the article's point are based on statistics ending in 2012 or 2013. It largely glosses over Atlanta's progress (Buckhead Atlanta, Ponce City Market, Krog Market, Avalon, the Beltline, the exodus of the movie industry from NC to Atlanta, etc) in the past 18 months. Does Dallas or Charlotte have those feathers in its cap? And to argue that the medical industry is flocking to Nashville over Atlanta?? Does Nashville have CDC or Emory?

The article is mostly a pile-on of Atlanta and the author made almost no effort to include the events of the past 18 month in his argument.

All of that said, I agree 100% with his argument about the transportation issue. If the Atlanta region spends another three years doing nothing about transportation, then his article WILL ring true.

The article mentioned the bolded items above along with the new Falcons stadium and the new Braves stadium in Cobb and the move of NCR to midtown, etc.

A lot of current happenings were mentioned in the article.

I agree with basically everything that was written in the article, which was not an Atlanta bash IMO by any means. It was mentioned the area was really hard hit by the recession, but FWIW, the entire country was hard hit by the recession.

Other points that I find interesting and that many eye-glazed-over Atlanta cheerleaders never want to mention is how many poor people live in metro Atlanta. How lots of people who lost jobs during the recession have never been able to find similarly paying positions as to those they lost even if they are still employed and even if they are in the same industry, which brings me to the quote below:

Originally Posted by hautemomma

Another issue, and I agree with much of what you said, is the Metro Atlanta pay rates. For some reason, it seems like Atlanta companies pay less than even similarly situated companies (even within the same industry) in other southern cities. That, too, can be a variable causing educated and talented people to move elsewhere - better to live in Nashville on $80K than in Atlanta on $55K.

The above is very true. I'm sure that many of you will use your google-pedia to disprove it, but I have personally known way to many people in metro Atlanta who cannot find a job making more than $35K to $40K. I have known people with master's degrees in business and finance who chose to work customer service because they would make more money doing that with added commissions versus what they were really trained to do. Many people I know have moved away from Atlanta due to the stagnant wages there. FWIW, I don't have anything against the metro and enjoyed living there for the most part, but I recently moved away too due to this issue. I made decent money in the metro but I moved back to my hometown in Ohio and make about $15K more per year doing the same job I did in Atlanta. I was asked to interview by someone I met at another entity and they are offering about $25K more than what I made in Atlanta to do a similar job (same duties with a little extra).

There are lots of poor people in metro Atlanta and even with all the new job relocations, I don't see how that is benefitting people if they aren't going to be compensated with a livable wage and I'm not talking about fast food jobs. I remember having to interview people for an admin/receptionist at an old company of mine and they wanted to only pay them $9 an hour even though the company wanted them to have a bachelor's degree. This company was based out of Chicago and in Chicago the same job category made $15 an hour and did less work since there was more staff due to it being the corporate office. Our VP was fine with that since "you can pay people less in Atlanta" was their motto for practically all the jobs outside of management (and when managers/directors were let go, they paid the new Atlanta managers/directors less too, one in particular was paid about $50K less than the previous director).

Poverty is a huge issue in Atlanta that people don't want to talk about.

APS is a huge issue that people want to blame on blacks and apartment dwellers.

The lack of alternatives to traffic messes is an issue that people just don't want to pay for. And on that, I agree with many posters that Atlanta traffic is bad but is similar to other larger metropolitan areas but one that was mentioned - Chicago has many side streets where you don't have to rely so much on freeways and due to that you can by-pass a lot of the traffic if you know your way around. This method is somewhat impossible in regards to traversing metro Atlanta due to only one or 2 major streets going to specific areas.

But I do think Atlanta is rebounding well from the recession. I think the area has a lot going for it, but I don't think it is swinging as much as it used to. That is my personal opinion and no google master will convince me otherwise either.

[bigstick]

Originally Posted by Carolina Blue

Umm, so Charlotte makes front page news in the AJC. And it’s a story proclaiming the two cities are “rivals”. Let’s memorialize this for all those ATL posters who used to claim otherwise.

LOL, Please do not let it go to your head. Atlanta has multiple huge skylines to Charlotte's one.

[JoeP]

LOL, Please do not let it go to your head. Atlanta has multiple huge skylines to Charlotte's one.

You just can't help yourself.

[sonofaque86]

Originally Posted by Tryska

Right - focus on keeping Raleigh in check, before attempting to outpace Atlanta at this point.

Then again - dream no small dreams.

The fact that NC has two economic engines at full speed will pay off for the state in the long run versus just one...even if both of them combined are the size of that one....

Plus Charlotte is where atlanta was decades ago, but I'm sure it's different since its newer 21st century growth (light rail etc) versus 1960s growth....

[Tryska]

Originally Posted by sonofaque86

The fact that NC has two economic engines at full speed will pay off for the state in the long run versus just one...even if both of them combined are the size of that one....

Plus Charlotte is where atlanta was decades ago, but I'm sure it's different since its newer 21st century growth (light rail etc) versus 1960s growth....

Ok. That's great. And don't forget there was that plan bandied about to connect all 3 up together via High Speed Rail and make one big Mega Region.

I think this city versus city competition is dumb, flat out. None of us will ever come close to the powerhouses that are NYC, Tokyo and London.

How about we all just strive to be the best cities we can be with what we have, and shut the rest of the noise down?

It's not a freakin' SEC rivalry. lol

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by sonofaque86

The fact that NC has two economic engines at full speed will pay off for the state in the long run versus just one...even if both of them combined are the size of that one....

Plus Charlotte is where atlanta was decades ago, but I'm sure it's different since its newer 21st century growth (light rail etc) versus 1960s growth....

Actually, the three combined (Triad, Triangle, Metro Charlotte) roughly equal the size of Metro Atlanta.

[chuckshere]

Originally Posted by Tryska

Ok. That's great. And don't forget there was that plan bandied about to connect all 3 up together via High Speed Rail and make one big Mega Region.

I think this city versus city competition is dumb, flat out. None of us will ever come close to the powerhouses that are NYC, Tokyo and London.

How about we all just strive to be the best cities we can be with what we have, and shut the rest of the noise down?

It's not a freakin' SEC rivalry. lol

Here's an article I read recently that talks about the future of "mega-regions" and how "Char-lanta" has a GDP about the size of South Korea. The GDP of Charlanta would put it in the top 15 economies in the world.

'Mega-Regions' Produce 75 Percent Of US GDP

I think in the future, people will be thinking in terms of regions, the megalopolis, and that's why the economic health of Charlotte can help Atlanta and vice versa. Being in a healthy region helps.