Charlotte/Raleigh vs Kansas City/St.Louis (population, Atlanta, people)
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^ I have spent a lot of time in Raleigh and Metro Raleigh is NOT more dense than metro KC. Jesus. Spend five minutes with google maps if you have not actually been to KC. They have very similar suburban sprawl. KC's MSA just covers a much larger area, but it does not add that many more people. I would even assume that KC's urbanized population is still considerably larger than Raleigh's even if their MSA population is closing in on KC's.
All I'm saying is that the urbanized portion of the KC metro is generally pretty built up. It's not a dense city, but it's not near as low density as the stats would make it seem.
KCMO city limits alone is full of land that can't be developed due to rivers and their flood planes. There are large gaps in the city's urbanized areas because of this. KCMO also has a massive city park (swope park) and the airport is one of the largest in the world as far as how much land it uses. Not to mention all the annexed land on the extreme north and south ends of the city.
But when you are in the city or any of its suburbs, it's an average upper midwestern city. Pretty much no difference between driving around the office parks and subdivisions and strip mall so suburban KC vs suburban Raleigh.
It's data, not a personal attack. I'm sorry if it's getting old to you. It's just illustrative.
Even if we removed 140 square miles of farms and woods from K.C., as was suggested earlier, that still leaves K.C. with 175 square miles of developed city. Now, to be fair, I'd also remove 9 square miles of Raleigh that is wholly a state park within the city limits. I could argue to remove more, but that 9 square miles isn't nuanced; it's a huge park. So, removing that 9 square miles puts Raleigh at 134 square miles of developed city for this comparison. K.C. would therefore have 41 more square miles and 24,000 more people than Raleigh. Raleigh's adding more people and will likely pass K.C. in 5 to 7 years. You do the math.
That said, there is NO DOUBT that K.C.'s legacy core is larger than Raleigh's because it was a much larger city when we primarily developed cities that way. But, if we are to believe that the larger core houses more people than Raleigh's (and there's no reason not to believe that), then one can only presume that the rest of K.C. outside that core is way less densely populated and suburban than it is outside of Raleigh's core.
KC’s urbanized area is denser than Raleigh’s, too, by no small amount. I means, every city has parks, man. Kansas City has 28 square miles of parkland in its city limits.
KC’s urbanized area is denser than Raleigh’s, too, by no small amount. I means, every city has parks, man. Kansas City has 28 square miles of parkland in its city limits.
I think thats what he was saying.He just thinks that will change soon based on the growth trajectory of Raleigh
Outside of the Andy Griffith Show I've never heard of Raleigh.
I don't care or ever will visit Raleigh, who does? Must be a college town or something.
Charlotte has the urban life of a large suburb. The live music scene sucks, overpriced, franchised douchey restaurant chains on every corner and no historical building or street walls.
I felt like I was in suburban Atlanta [which is literally hell on Earth] when I was in Charlotte.
I did enjoy the beautiful new towers - have to applaud all the new construction.
People are moving there in droves, but they are all vanilla, white collars.
There's nothing Charlotte [or wtf Raleigh?] is known for. It has no music history, food reputation, etc.
KC and STL are light years above Charlotte in real, urban city living and experience.
Unless you like douchey, franchised restaurants and 3 chord garage bands from hell.
KC and STL are unique cities with great history; civil war, mafia, political, food and music culture.
And outside of "uptown' in Charlotte you never feel like you're even in a real city.
Outside of the Andy Griffith Show I've never heard of Raleigh.
I don't care or ever will visit Raleigh, who does? Must be a college town or something.
Charlotte has the urban life of a large suburb. The live music scene sucks, overpriced, franchised douchey restaurant chains on every corner and no historical building or street walls.
I felt like I was in suburban Atlanta [which is literally hell on Earth] when I was in Charlotte.
I did enjoy the beautiful new towers - have to applaud all the new construction.
People are moving there in droves, but they are all vanilla, white collars.
There's nothing Charlotte [or wtf Raleigh?] is known for. It has no music history, food reputation, etc.
KC and STL are light years above Charlotte in real, urban city living and experience.
Unless you like douchey, franchised restaurants and 3 chord garage bands from hell.
KC and STL are unique cities with great history; civil war, mafia, political, food and music culture.
And outside of "uptown' in Charlotte you never feel like you're even in a real city.
That's why I have a preference for established cities. They don't have the rapid growth of sunbelt cities but they do what they do very well.
I live in a city that's even older and more established than any of the ones we're discussing here - the birthplace of our nation and home to one of the country's first man-made UNESCO World Heritage Sites. (FTR, the others I can think of right off that fall into this category are New York's Statue of Liberty, the University of Virginia and Monticello in Charlottesville, Cahokia Mounds in Illinois and the Alamo in San Antonio.)
But tbh, I think it might actually be interesting if I could cryogenically freeze myself, have them thaw me in 100 years, and return to these newer cities to see how gracefully they have aged.
The first Levittown is now 72 years old, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission organized an interesting exhibit when the second one turned 50 in 2002. The "little boxes made of ticky-tacky" have been altered by their owners over the years to where they now display distinct personalities, and the mature trees have lent an aura of permanence to the place. I suspect we may see a similar patina develop over these newer boomtowns after a while as well.
^ I have spent a lot of time in Raleigh and Metro Raleigh is NOT more dense than metro KC. Jesus. Spend five minutes with google maps if you have not actually been to KC. They have very similar suburban sprawl. KC's MSA just covers a much larger area, but it does not add that many more people. I would even assume that KC's urbanized population is still considerably larger than Raleigh's even if their MSA population is closing in on KC's.
All I'm saying is that the urbanized portion of the KC metro is generally pretty built up. It's not a dense city, but it's not near as low density as the stats would make it seem.
KCMO city limits alone is full of land that can't be developed due to rivers and their flood planes. There are large gaps in the city's urbanized areas because of this. KCMO also has a massive city park (swope park) and the airport is one of the largest in the world as far as how much land it uses. Not to mention all the annexed land on the extreme north and south ends of the city.
But when you are in the city or any of its suburbs, it's an average upper midwestern city. Pretty much no difference between driving around the office parks and subdivisions and strip mall so suburban KC vs suburban Raleigh.
Here we go again with this CD obsession with density
Outside of the Andy Griffith Show I've never heard of Raleigh.
I don't care or ever will visit Raleigh, who does? Must be a college town or something.
Charlotte has the urban life of a large suburb. The live music scene sucks, overpriced, franchised douchey restaurant chains on every corner and no historical building or street walls.
I felt like I was in suburban Atlanta [which is literally hell on Earth] when I was in Charlotte.
I did enjoy the beautiful new towers - have to applaud all the new construction.
People are moving there in droves, but they are all vanilla, white collars.
There's nothing Charlotte [or wtf Raleigh?] is known for. It has no music history, food reputation, etc.
KC and STL are light years above Charlotte in real, urban city living and experience.
Unless you like douchey, franchised restaurants and 3 chord garage bands from hell.
KC and STL are unique cities with great history; civil war, mafia, political, food and music culture.
And outside of "uptown' in Charlotte you never feel like you're even in a real city.
WOW.You just insulted eveyone who doesnt think like you.Charlotte and Raleigh arent my type of cities either ,but they offer a quality of life that more people want.
There is not one ranking that i have seen that ranks KC higher than these cities.Almost by every metric Charlotte/Raleigh usually blow KC out of the water,
Now I agree with you.I do think KC?STL are more "urban".They have more of a city feel but Charlotte/Raleigh like many Sunbelt cities are engineering their cities to be what they want them to be because they are lacking those more historical and character assets that make cities great.
KC/STL has those things already but they are way behind in using their assest to make the cities as livable as they should be although they to are making strides,
Outside of the Andy Griffith Show I've never heard of Raleigh.
I don't care or ever will visit Raleigh, who does? Must be a college town or something.
The fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., was much smaller than Raleigh even when The Andy Griffith Show and its successor Mayberry R.F.D. were on.
Raleigh never has been a college town. Of the three cities that together make up the Research Triangle, that term best fits Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina. Even more prestigious Duke University is in Durham, a short distance up the road from Raleigh, and the Triangle is also close to Winston-Salem, where you will find Wake Forest University. Raleigh is the state capital of North Carolina, which means you should have heard about it in grade school, unless the schools in Kansas City no longer teach basic geography or civics in grade school. Then again, Kansas City doesn't hold a candle to the Triangle in terms of educational institutions.
Raleigh, Durham, and Winston-Salem also share a heritage as centers for the tobacco-growing industry. Given that cigarettes have fallen out of favor, it might be no surprise that this element of their history has been buried in the popular imagination; the degree to which STEM and pharmaceuticals have taken over as economic mainstays for the region probably helped bury it as well, though.
I'm a forever Kansas Citian, but I try to keep it real when the occasion calls for it.
I am going to follow up with one asterisk to my post immediately above:
If it weren't so large as to occupy the talents and energies of just about everyone in Douglas County, where most of it is located, or if more Johnson Countians commuted to jobs at it, there would be one Tier One research university and member of the Association of American Universities (the 60 research universities considered to sit atop the American higher education pyramid) within the Kansas City CSA.
That university's medical school IS in one of the five core metro counties (Wyandotte - Kansas City, KS), and its hospital is considered the best in the Greater Kansas City region. Some Missourians get bent that it's the official hospital of the Kansas City Royals. My mother received her BSN from it in 1954, then went back to get her MSN in 1970, making her the first African-American woman to receive both degrees from the school.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
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