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After all this info you wouldn't think Columbia's has the state's largest GDP.
Actually I would think the Coumbia metro should have the largest GDP. In fact, it should be much larger. Considering how close the small 3 county metro of Greenville comes in GDP (no Spartanburg or Anderson numbers included), Columbia's should be MUCH more having 6 counties in its metro.
Perhaps the lack of a truely large GDP in the six counties and surrounding Midlands region is part of the air service issue? The failure of CAE to land Southwest? The fact that the largest city and metro has the 4th busiest airport?
Last edited by gsupstate; 10-07-2010 at 05:44 PM..
After all this info you wouldn't think Columbia has the state's largest GDP, since this is a Columbia thread.
Oh yeah, that's something else I was going to say. Despite those drawbacks we mentioned earlier, it is quite notable that Columbia still has the state's largest metro GDP, per capita income, highest educational attainment, etc. If Columbia can manage to have these advantages without a particularly aggressive business climate, imagine how far it would go if it would truly harness its resources in order to reach the next level.
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The Charlotte hating Raleigh thing is second-hand commentary that's based on what I have read. The two areas of the state don't like each other from what I've heard, and part of the reason is that Charlottetans (sp) perceive that state legislators do more for the RTA than for the "Metrolina" area.
That's not true. While there is something of a sibling rivalry between both areas, there's also a very congenial relationship between the two. Charlotte doesn't "hate" Raleigh because of RTP; on the contrary, Charlotteans realize that it has to continue to get state support because it was the state, along with educational and business leaders, that established RTP in the first place. The state of North Carolina set the stage for growth in Charlotte when it loosened the state's banking laws, and business leaders like Hugh McColl and Ed Crutchfield took it from there.
The number of counties is irrelevant; it is total population that matters. The Columbia MSA still has a higher GDP per capita than the Greenville MSA. What I find particularly interesting is that the Columbia MSA (that's without Newberry, which is part of the CSA) actually has a higher GDP per capita than the entire Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson CSA. I think this is because the Upstate, for all of its economic progress, is still very much in the midst of economic transition. A lot of people don't realize that there are still a lot of job losses there related to the traditional textiles/manufacturing sector which is probably primarily why the Greenville MSA alone lost over 20,000 private sector jobs in the last decade (compared to a modest gain of 500 in Columbia and a rather significant gain of 16,800 in Charleston). And that is truly not a slam, but very much the truth.
I think you have a point there. Another Southern capital that might serve as an apt example here is Austin. The University of Texas has played a very prominent role in the city's economic growth and development, but I don't know to what extent the state of Texas played a role in setting the stage for that growth.
I think Texas is a bit different in that there are two metros (Houston & Dallas-Ft. Worth) that are massively bigger than Austin (and have been for a very long time), and so the business communities in those cities, particularly the oil industry, plowed bucket-loads of money into UT and its endowment. There is no rivalry between Austin and the state's two mega-metros. And those mega-metros are far larger than anything in the Carolinas (you could fit about 4 Charlotte MSAs in the DFW Metroplex).
In contrast, in both NC and SC, the each state's three major metros are not that much different in size (even Greensboro/Winston-Salem isn't radically smaller than Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham. Therefore, their respective capitals/flagship college towns are in more direct competition with its in-state metros, and can't depend on the other metros to provide massive infusions of donations, etc. Raleigh-Durham pulled ahead because of local and state government decisions, rather than outside business forces more directly propping it up. Austin did eventually develop its own tech industry (I don't know the history of it landing IBM, etc. to the extent I know how RTP landed IBM and others), and of course it has the now world-famous home-grown name of Dell (something even Raleigh-Durham still lacks, smaller firms like Red Hat notwithstanding).
I wonder how much tickets would cost to fly this charter airline from CAE to Hilton Head??? Seems like a bizarre service to have unless its strictly for CEOs for business purposes
Charter flights proposed to link Columbia, HH - Business - TheState.com (http://www.thestate.com/2010/11/22/1572535/charter-flights-proposed-to-link.html - broken link)
I wonder how much tickets would cost to fly this charter airline from CAE to Hilton Head??? Seems like a bizarre service to have unless its strictly for CEOs for business purposes
Charter flights proposed to link Columbia, HH - Business - TheState.com (http://www.thestate.com/2010/11/22/1572535/charter-flights-proposed-to-link.html - broken link)
It's not worth any of our time to pay attention to this. Intra-state air travel, especially for a smallish state like ours, is a crazy idea. They fly a Cessna 172, not exactly a jetliner. Who is going to fly to Hilton Head instead of driving under 3 hours to get there?
Flew into Greensboro a few weeks ago. There airport appears larger than CAE with more gates and a bigger terminal. It was alsoeasy to get from the airport to Downtown. I wonder what the passenger traffic is like at the airport, because it didnt seem to be particuliarly busy though the flight to/from GSO were full. There runways also seemed to be longer and there were some large cargo jets (maybe USAF) parked nearby which is presumably why they have longer runways. I dont know the history.. but it appears that they may have expanded the airport some time ago to rival RDU but lost????
Flew into Greensboro a few weeks ago. There airport appears larger than CAE with more gates and a bigger terminal. It was alsoeasy to get from the airport to Downtown. I wonder what the passenger traffic is like at the airport, because it didnt seem to be particuliarly busy though the flight to/from GSO were full. There runways also seemed to be longer and there were some large cargo jets (maybe USAF) parked nearby which is presumably why they have longer runways. I dont know the history.. but it appears that they may have expanded the airport some time ago to rival RDU but lost????
1. Yes, GSO is a larger airport with more gates - about double - and the passenger traffic has varied recently from between about 65 - 100% more than CAE.
2. I'm not sure what route you took into downtown, but GSO is accessed by a high-quality interstate-standard freeway (Joseph Bryan Blvd) that dumps you pretty close to downtown Greensboro. It's not necessarily shorter than the route from CAE to downtown Columbia, but it is definitely "easier" as you said and more pleasant. I believe Bryan Blvd may be slated to become part of I-73 at some point, which is probalby why it was built as a limited-access freeway. For CAE, one will have to wait until John Hardee Expressway is extended to I-26 to have a comparable style of access road.
As for driving from CAE directly to downtown Columbia, I don't see any alternative except for driving on the traditional Platt Springs Road/Route 1-Meeting Street or Route 302/Knox Abbott Drive. Unfortunately this does not present the most visually appealing "front door" into the city - no offense to the good residents of Springdale, Cayce, and West Columbia. I personally am not offended by the assorted commercial strips along those routes (business and development is often "messy"), but I'd be at least somewhat embarrased if I'm picking up someone from the airport and marketing the region or at least driving towards downtown.
3. I think the GSO terminal and concourses are probably a bit oversized for their current passenger traffic levels (they could probably get by with 5-10 fewer gates), so that's why it may seem less congested. Their gates are spread between two separate concourses, as opposed to CAE's one consolidated gate area.
If one were to remodel the GSO terminal with a major project today, it would probably replace the two-concourse design with a single T- or Y-shaped "hammerhead" design more similar to CAE's (if bigger). In fact many small/midsize airports with more than one concourse has retrofitted their terminals this way, such as Jacksonville, Houston-Hobby, and Knoxville (which is a very comparable airport in size and traffic to Greensboro). The single-concourse design allows for one consolidated security checkpoint so is operationally cheaper.
Airlines are really packing 'em in these days as they have cut their fleets and numbers of seats faster than the drop-off in passenger numbers, so I'm not surprised your flights were full. The days of regularly finding flights 50-60% full are largely over.
4. Yes, their runways are longer. GSO's two longest runways (they have 3 total) are 9000 and 10000 ft long, vs 8600 and 8000 for CAE. The 9000-foot one was built recently for what was going to be a huge East Coast hub for FedEx (i.e., a smaller version of their Memphis super-hub), to allow for simultaneous parallel landings/take-offs. Unfortunately, as the economy has tanked, they have downsized to not much more than what was their original operation at GSO. However, GSO is home to a large aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul company that services aircraft as large as widebodies (I have seen a DC-10 parked at their hangar there), so that justifies the existence of the long 10000-foot main runway in front of the terminal.
They don't need that long of a runway for scheduled passenger operations, as like CAE it is mostly smaller regional jets and the occasional 737 or MD-80 mainline jet - they could get by with 7000-8000-foot runways.
I dont know the history.. but it appears that they may have expanded the airport some time ago to rival RDU but lost????
GSO did expand at some point in the mid 90's when they landed a Continental hub, mainly for the short lived Continental Lite brand. I think the hub lasted only about two or three years, but I do remember expansion going on at that time, of both the landside terminal and one of the airside concourses.
Seems ironic that most of the airlines appear to be going to these smaller regional jets in the smaller markets....where two or more can be served by one gate and even one jetway making the need for additional gates unnecessary. CLT seems to be redoing their Regional/Commuter Jet Terminal. Seems Like GSO will never fill those gates. They had put some touristy stuff and some public art in a couple of places to hide the dead space. Im not trying to down GSO or the Triad... I do think the area does however have a lot going for it.
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