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Riverside is on the medium size as a city with only 315,000 people, but it has proved to be a part of an already large metropolis: The Inland Empire in Southern California, home to 4,081,000 people, is the 14th largest MSA in the country. The Inland Empire is
The Inland Empire (Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA) is larger than the Seattle Metro, San Diego Metro, Minneapolis Metro, Baltimore Metro, Denver Metro, Baltimore Metro, and more. It is double the size of the other metropolitan areas on your list like Orlando area with 2,032,000.
Still Riverside and the Inland Empire is in the shadow of Los Angeles which gets most of the attention for Southern California.
It might not have a Metropolis due to NYC in the vicinity but..
Jersey City.. that may sound like i'm being naive because i might sound like a homer but it's true. Jersey City had the potential back in the 1930s to have a population of 316,000 (now has a pop of 242,000), then i wouldnt doubt it now since they have done major rehabilitation to the city overall from being a pretty dangerous place back in the 60s-80s to now being a lot more succesful with it's workforce and night life. Its population decline was around the 50s-80s when losing up to 75,000 people due to the urban decline resulting A LOT of wealthier white collar people to go off into suburbs which also made the city crime level rise dramatically.
Now that all this was set and done, JC had many higher leveled job openings after many people left. This created the rise in population in the 90s with more wealthier people and resulting the cities crime rate to go down. And at the same rate, i dont think JC will ever have a dramatic decrease in population again, but a dramatic increase...
JC has plans to broad the city. Many new office and residential buildings have been shot up in the last 5 to 10 years. The whole plan hasn't been fully created yet but is in the making and i think we should be ready to see a new big city in NJ, and it wont be a dangerous one .
Charlotte doesn't even feel like a city. It may have a large metro, but the city itself feels like one huge suburb. Charlotte, get over yourself. You got decades upon decades of dense urban infill to ever be as big as you think you are.
Actually, Charlotte is very similar to Atlanta of 1984 (when I moved to Atlanta). Roughly the same metro population as Atlanta had then, and the growth is close to the same as it was here then, too. Today, Atlanta has 5.2 million in the metro area and anyone who has been here long enough to compare the 1984 version of it to the 2009 version of it will attest to the huge changes that have taken place in that time.
While I'm not sure it's a title every city wants, I do think that in 20-something years time, Charlotte will be roughly where Atlanta is today. Remember, the threads topic isn't what will be the next GREAT city - just what is the next BIG city. And yes, Charlotte's growth is such that it will indeed in a few years be a "big" city.
Also watch for Austin and Dallas, Texas to continue their steady growth as well.
Personally, I think that Raleigh has a better chance to become like Atlanta than Charlotte in the Southeast. The educational facilities are there, the high level of educated individuals are there. The research facilities are there. The infrastructure just needs to be built up a little more though.
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