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As the Western United States continues to grow, many of the already popular cities that are either growing fast now or have before in the past will find it difficult to keep building the necessary housing to meet the pent up demand and it will lead to more spillover to these four places, especially as housing prices in the top two tiers of Western cities continues climbing north.
Relative to the rest of the Western United States, these cities all have the room to grow, are generally less expensive, are located in more lax regulated states, share the same outdoors oriented landscapes as the rest of the West, are expanding their respective infrastructure, are hospitable locations for migrants from the Midwest, and the like.
A city like Reno, for example, views itself as a well positioned location to absorb a lot of the spillover growth from the San Francisco Bay Area. Generally being considered a location that gets "back offices" is not something to brag about as it means a company is investing in "down market" positions rather than something that drives the company to expected heights but the business community in Reno embraces being the San Francisco Bay Area's back-office as a means of economic growth. I suppose from their view these are jobs that they very well could have missed out on but are glad to have it anyways as something is better than nothing.
Though at this point, I would say that Reno has graduated simply being a place for Silicon Valley back-offices and spillover growth and has started luring some of the smaller scaled companies and their respective headquarters to the area from the over-priced San Francisco Bay Area:
Outside of the Western United States I have Madison, Des Moines, Charleston (SC), and Omaha in the next generation of growth magnets in the United States. Though Omaha is already approaching 1 million people in its metropolitan area and I was trying to cite places below 1 million that are becoming hotspots.
As an aside, booming and gentrification are different things. Booming means a lot of new construction and population growth. Gentrification means the displacement of existing low-income residents, who are replaced by higher-income folks moving in from elsewhere.
A city can boom without gentrifying. For example, The Villages, FL is booming (up over 33% in population so far this decade) but it's all growing sprawl in formerly empty land.
Although less common, a city can also gentrify without booming. This is more frequent on a neighborhood level though. Basically it happens in areas which become desirable, but zoning precludes building much taller or denser. Often in these cases population actually drops as the area gentrifies. This is because chopped-up homes get converted back into single-family use, or low-income families are pushed out of units to make way for single residents and DINK couples.
Yes indeed, and vice versa, correct! Look at Birmingham, for instance...Birmingham is losing population but areas around Avondale for example seem to be gentrifying ditto some areas around DT and Southside of Birmingham. Memphis is losing population to far-flung suburbs (Collierville, Eads, Arlington and beyond), and even losing population to out of state (Olive Branch MS), but efforts are afoot to gentrify Cooper Young , Midtown, Overton Square, etc).
That said, Memphis and Birmingham aren't "booming" with population no where near that of Nashville TN.
Florida cities like Jax, Tampa, Orlando, Ft Myers are having more population growth and money coming in year over year than most.
You are correct, gentrification can be meaningless viz positive growth, intelligent growth/plannning or even desirability.
efforts are afoot to gentrify Cooper Young , Midtown, Overton Square, etc
I thought Midtown and Overton Square had been gentrified or gentrifying for years if not decades. Yet your comment indicates the present tense. Can you elaborate?
I think one of the biggest problems for cities like Detroit and Memphis is their deeply entrenched negative stereotypes. Oklahoma City has the same problem and at this point, I doubt it will ever experience more than slow growth. Cities like Austin, Nashville, Columbus, and Charlotte on the other hand never had that negative image ingrained into America's psyche and people were more likely to want to move and do business there. It makes a lot of difference in my opinion.
I think one of the biggest problems for cities like Detroit and Memphis is their deeply entrenched negative stereotypes. Oklahoma City has the same problem and at this point, I doubt it will ever experience more than slow growth. Cities like Austin, Nashville, Columbus, and Charlotte on the other hand never had that negative image ingrained into America's psyche and people were more likely to want to move and do business there. It makes a lot of difference in my opinion.
I thought Midtown and Overton Square had been gentrified or gentrifying for years if not decades. Yet your comment indicates the present tense. Can you elaborate?
Memphis has been "trying" everything and a lot for decades, all the while people have been running like hell out of the City limits. The newer residents of an area called Cordova were quite disappointed and some were angry when Memphis aggressively annexed Cordova - the newer residents didn't want to be in the City limits of Memphis, but now they're stuck and Cordova has lost a lot of its desirability and even re-sale marketability. All in all, Memphis has lost population, not gained it.
Gentrification depends in Memphis on reverse migration, (white), and that's not going to happen en masse in Memphis. No sane resident of Germantown, Collierville, East Memphis/Shady Grove/Himphries/Wolf River, Arlington, Eads or Olive Branch MS are going to trade their SF nice houses for a new "urban life" in Midtown and Overton square, or Harbor Island in downtown, or really anywhere downtown, particularly if they have children in school.....not going to happen....ever.
I think one of the biggest problems for cities like Detroit and Memphis is their deeply entrenched negative stereotypes. Oklahoma City has the same problem and at this point, I doubt it will ever experience more than slow growth. Cities like Austin, Nashville, Columbus, and Charlotte on the other hand never had that negative image ingrained into America's psyche and people were more likely to want to move and do business there. It makes a lot of difference in my opinion.
Image doesn't really dictate city growth like you think it does.
Image doesn't really dictate city growth like you think it does.
I disagree. It definitely plays a role in growth and development opportunities for cities. Cities with negative (or that can't shake their negative image) images continue to lose population and jobs to cities that are viewed more positively.
I disagree. It definitely plays a role in growth and development opportunities for cities. Cities with negative (or that can't shake their negative image) images continue to lose population and jobs to cities that are viewed more positively.
In some, not all cases I would agree. It would also depend on if we were considering the more balanced national perspective vs. the obnoxious hyperbole ridden stereotypes that are pushed on this website as gospel. If it were the latter places like Phoenix which are routinely battered like inferior step children should not still be growing
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