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I've been to ATL a few times and I have a blast everytime I go.... but I couldn't live there. Downtown is horrible, its spread out way too much and feels like a ghost town compared to the early 90's when I lived there briefly.
I go to visit family a few times a year and the traffis is so bad it ruins your evening. When my brother comes upto visit he has a great time and loves how Charlotte has university, plaza midwood, south end, epicenter, nc music factory... and you can pretty much hit up all those spots on the same night. In Atlanta you better hope the first place is jumping because its last call by the time you get from lounge A to club B.
One other thing.... maybe its the fact that I'm at an age where partying is getting old but just about every friend I know in ATL talks like its at the end of its run. Not sure why it has to be one vs the other... I love that its 4 hours away.
To the guy who just gave me rep point, works at BOA, and is moving to Phoenix, can you post on here and tell the folks the same thing u told me about Charlotte. The clock is ticking....
To the guy who just gave me rep point, works at BOA, and is moving to Phoenix, can you post on here and tell the folks the same thing u told me about Charlotte. The clock is ticking....
Whoever that guy is who's moving to Phoenix, he has my sympathies. I lived there once. Talk about a sprawling, car-dependent city with no urban core and a dead downtown! Yuk. And on top of that, unbearably hot (as in 120 degrees) summers. I had to hold a towel to open my car door and to turn the ignition because if I made direct contact with my bare hand, I'd burn the skin off. Oh, and the ceiling inside my car melted and collapsed. Too insufferably hot. Phoenix, no thanks.
To the guy who just gave me rep point, works at BOA, and is moving to Phoenix, can you post on here and tell the folks the same thing u told me about Charlotte. The clock is ticking....
LOL!!! Ummm, let's see. Works at BofA? Moving to Phoenix? Gave you rep points because of something negative you said about Charlotte. I bet a million dollars that wasn't nobody but our old friend Westcoastbabe
LOL!!! Ummm, let's see. Works at BofA? Moving to Phoenix? Gave you rep points because of something negative you said about Charlotte. I bet a million dollars that wasn't nobody but our old friend Westcoastbabe
I was going to mention that Phoenix is no picnic so that just happens to be his choice. Would not be mine. You know I get a lot of flack on this board for stating truths. Some will say I bash Charlotte. I do not. I think it's a great new city, but I do think it will suffer some of the same issues as Atlanta. I am just a realist. That said, I would not take Phoenix over Charlotte.
Location: ๏̯͡๏﴿ Gwinnett-That's a Civil Matter-County
2,118 posts, read 6,372,905 times
Reputation: 3547
145 replies yet so little substance.
What a disappointing, useless thread with absolutely no help to anyone wanting to know the pros and cons of either city.
I live in the atlanta area. The last time I visited charlotte to scope it out as place to move, I didn't leave with a good impression. A number of things just rubbed me the wrong way. But here I am 10 years later and I want to be open minded and give charlotte another look. To someone like me, this thread had so much potential.
In the first page of replies someone boasts about atlanta having the world's busiest airport.
People drive from hundreds of miles because it's the closest airport but it doesn't serve the people of atlanta well. It's too far away, too busy, too much walking, and too confusing. One could say the charlottle airport, while also a major connection for dozens of other regional airports, everyone in the area can get there pretty quick. It's easy to understand and park at. You don't need to take a freaken train from one part of the airport to another. I don't think anyone stood up for your airport and they should have because it's clearly one of the city's strong points. As for the others, I'm still trying to figure that out.
I was going to mention that Phoenix is no picnic so that just happens to be his choice. Would not be mine. You know I get a lot of flack on this board for stating truths. Some will say I bash Charlotte. I do not. I think it's a great new city, but I do think it will suffer some of the same issues as Atlanta. I am just a realist. That said, I would not take Phoenix over Charlotte.
Yea just like New York City looks just like London. Yer not a realist, you are just not educated on the history of city planning. Atlanta was designed and has risen in the era of the freeway and cheap gas prices. Cheap gas prices have fueled sprawl by allowing people to live further away from the places they work. That era by all measures is coming to an end with the removal of prioritization towards an oil based economy. Even by most optimistic measures we will never return below 3 dollar gas and there is a more than 50% chance based on the US Maritime Energy report from 2011 that 100 oil is the new baseline of energy price that is the reality of the 21st century (this report was started in 2007 under the Bush Administration and has no political leaning, it is a future maritime transportation study independent of party affiliation by the US Navy).
That being said, we are already seeing a collapse of outer suburbs towards more traditional pre WWII locations, ie the true inner suburb dynamic of single family housing, which sells at a premium but saves between 10 to 20k dollars in transportation costs for residents. Also note that many states have over expanded their road networks and are now looking to devolution of maintenance requirements to the local counties as well as retroactive toll roads to help pay for these thousands of lane miles of roads in every state.
All of this paints a picture that communities, towns, and cities that are young and up and coming in the 21st century will differ very much from those who were young and up and coming in the mid to late 20th century. As different as the Washington Metro area and the idea of the skyscraper in the park is, to the standards created in NYC, Chicago (industrial age cities), and as much as those differed from empire cities like Paris and London, so too will the Charlottes of the world which have not becoming large enough to not be changed. Unfortunately the land around Atlanta, and the infrastructure in place already make it FAR to expensive to revert to the new 21st century model in a swift method. Charlotte's minimal size and reduced footprint leave open the possibility to do so without the need to buy up land that is already densely populated and or covered in massive freeways.
These are principals of land development, city planning, and engineering as well as grounded in historical context. Your statements are purely based on geographical proximity. Austin Texas is in the same state as Houston Texas, and I have never found a single person that thinks that they have anything in common. New York City is next to Newark, and Newark has far fewer people, yet far worse crime and traffic problems than New York City, all of which is due to their land use policies. The variance is entirely reliant on when these respective development eras began and the basis for their design focus (the user that was prioritized in the design, resident/worker vs resident/commuter).
Tysonsengineer, I'm curious as to why you think "Charlotte has started on a much better footing with infrastructure." No, the traffic is not as bad as DC or Atlanta, but at times it can be quite bad and that is mostly due to the infrastructure which could not keep up with the growth. Considering the size of those three metros, you'd think the traffic would be light years better in Charlotte, but instead of sitting in stopped traffic on four lanes of 495 around DC, you're sitting in stopped traffic on two lanes of 85 or 77. As a result, from what I can tell, most of the demand seems to be for widening the highways, not for more public transportation. Right now Charlotte has basically one rail line with two in the works, one of which has many people fighting hard to stop it.
Also, how can you call Washington DC a "massive freeway town"? Yeah the automobile traffic is horrendous, but so is the traffic on the Metro.
And how can you say "Charlotte has restrained suburban sprawl which has helped keep its city footprint very small"? The city limits of Charlotte are pretty large and a lot of "the city of Charlotte" is basically a suburb, in addition to the large amounts of sprawl outside the city (although I don't think sprawl is as evil as most do).
I like Charlotte and think it has a lot of things going for it, I'm just not sure I'd say "good infrastructure" and "restrained suburban sprawl" are any of those things.
Tysonsengineer, I'm curious as to why you think "Charlotte has started on a much better footing with infrastructure." No, the traffic is not as bad as DC or Atlanta, but at times it can be quite bad and that is mostly due to the infrastructure which could not keep up with the growth. Considering the size of those three metros, you'd think the traffic would be light years better in Charlotte, but instead of sitting in stopped traffic on four lanes of 495 around DC, you're sitting in stopped traffic on two lanes of 85 or 77. As a result, from what I can tell, most of the demand seems to be for widening the highways, not for more public transportation. Right now Charlotte has basically one rail line with two in the works, one of which has many people fighting hard to stop it.
Also, how can you call Washington DC a "massive freeway town"? Yeah the automobile traffic is horrendous, but so is the traffic on the Metro.
And how can you say "Charlotte has restrained suburban sprawl which has helped keep its city footprint very small"? The city limits of Charlotte are pretty large and a lot of "the city of Charlotte" is basically a suburb, in addition to the large amounts of sprawl outside the city (although I don't think sprawl is as evil as most do).
I like Charlotte and think it has a lot of things going for it, I'm just not sure I'd say "good infrastructure" and "restrained suburban sprawl" are any of those things.
Tysonsengineer does not live in Charlotte (according to his profile and posts). I believe he resides in the DC area has desires to move to Charlotte based on his belief that he can be a successful planner, engineer, or whatever. Best of luck. But he has never respnded to my posts about patterns of migration and sprawl in the suburb and outer suburbs of Charlotte based on school enrollment, acheivement, and demographic patterns. 25 years from now when Union County has a population 400K people and U City is a slum, West Charlotte (already a slum) and E. Charlotte becomes a slum give me call then.
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