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I just checked Columbia's population (I might be going there, also), and wow, it's just a little over 133,000! From the photos, I thought it would be bigger than that. To give you some perspective, I'm now in Coeur d'Alene, ID, a quaint little town, and it's population is a little over 50,000. I don't know if you can expect a huge amount to be going on in a town that's the size of Columbia, but on the upside, it would probably be more peaceful and quiet, and easier to get around, than in larger towns.
You can't compare city populations in SC with cities in most other states, due to restrictive annexation laws. Compare MSA populations and you'll see that Columbia's MSA is about 850,000.
Columbia has come a long way since the 90s when the Vista area had nothing and was a eyesore.
I think one thing they could do to increase the ambiance is convert Gervais from Assembly to Huger to a two lane street to eliminate some of the commuter traffic through there. That would help it attract more people and businesses.
I would try to sell Finley Park to private developer and then use some of that money to create a park integrated within the Vista.
Ditto... having lived and grown up here.. what is now the Vista was skid row and mostly an industrial area crisscrossed with railroad tracks.. You could get stopped two or even three times between Huger and Assembly by trains either on a main line or some boxcars being pushed between alley warehouses. As a kid it was kind of cool to see all the rail activity.. but it was a NIGHTMARE for my parents and commuters...I fondly remember many a trip on the train (Amtrak) out of what is now the Blue Marlin.... 'Those were the daaaaays.. ' Archie....
You have to compare urbanized areas. Just looking municipality populations isn’t enough because of this state’s arbitrary municipal boundaries due to our annexation laws. The municipal population underrepresents the size of the city, but the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) population overrepresents the size of the city due to the fact that it includes people in rural portions of the counties that are included in the MSA.
This. The last paragraph in this article angers me. This is why we’re “so far behind” everybody else. Because all this state cares about is everybody else. Why should the coast get everything?!
This. The last paragraph in this article angers me. This is why we’re “so far behind” everybody else. Because all this state cares about is everybody else. Why should the coast get everything?!
I think that Columbia, being the state capital,suffers from some of the same identity political problems that Washington DC suffers from being the nation's capital. Many sections of the rural Midwest or rural South .....outside of the monuments and cherry blossoms have a negative opinion of Washington as do their congressional reps.. It has nothing to do with the City.. but what it represents from a political perspective because it is the capital. Same here in Columbia when it comes to the SC legislators from rural areas. "Columbia" represents what is right or wrong in the state and is viewed simply as the seat of government. Charleston has tourism, retirees, and industry, Upstate has industry, MYR has tourism.. all of which , in their view, contribute to the growth of the state. So its harder for someone in Bamberg to say "no" to request for incentives for industry or road money in these parts of the state. Columbia is simply .. The government in their world view.
I recall an article in the local news in DC where some Congressman from Kansas or some Midwestern state was looking out his office window at all the cranes in the DC skyline seething...He wrote that people in his district would love to see just one of the two dozens large construction projects underway in DC in their town. He felt that DC needed to have a recession so that it can feel the pain of average Americans and that he(we) need to stem the flow of money into Washington. I am sure he meant the city as a political entity.. but the impact would be on the District as a municipality which are not interchangeable to some...I am sure if he sent that message back to his district it would be greeted with nodding and cheers....
I haven't done the research but it seems like many of the SC Legislators are very "geo political". The upstate has a large population and quite a few Counties that consider themselves in or in league with or that benefit from the success of Greenville Spartanburg so their legislators vote for things that feel will continue benefit that area. Same with the Low Country with Charleston. North Charleston Mt Pleasant etc. The Midlands in terms of geo political identity is much smaller than the upstate and the low country in population and area. Once you get beyond Richland, Lexington, Kershaw...places like Newberry or Saluda may be within our CSA but from an geo identity perspective you could almost draw a line down the middle of these Counties in terms of if they consider themselves in the midlands or the upstate. ( I haven't forgotten about Calhoun or Fairfield but they both have really small populations comparatively speaking.
Of course the upstate has Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Cherokee Counties followed by atleast another half dozen other that geo politically identify with the upstate. Same for Charleston, Dorchester, Berkley, and throw in Colleton, Beaufort and Jasper Counties (Orangeburg like Newberry and Saluda could be cut in half)
So give all of these factors, from a state resource allocation perspective, we may actually be behind...especially if you look at things like road paving highway money incentives for industry (remember Southwest Airlines) transit etc to the extent that any of these items receive money from the State beyond some formulaic allocation......
Last edited by Woodlands; 02-21-2019 at 12:46 PM..
I think that Columbia, being the state capital,suffers from some of the same identity political problems that Washington DC suffers from being the nation's capital. Many sections of the rural Midwest or rural South .....outside of the monuments and cherry blossoms have a negative opinion of Washington as do their congressional reps.. It has nothing to do with the City.. but what it represents from a political perspective because it is the capital. Same here in Columbia when it comes to the SC legislators from rural areas. "Columbia" represents what is right or wrong in the state and is viewed simply as the seat of government. Charleston has tourism, retirees, and industry, Upstate has industry, MYR has tourism.. all of which , in their view, contribute to the growth of the state. So its harder for someone in Bamberg to say "no" to request for incentives for industry or road money in these parts of the state. Columbia is simply .. The government in their world view.
I recall an article in the local news in DC where some Congressman from Kansas or some Midwestern state was looking out his office window at all the cranes in the DC skyline seething...He wrote that people in his district would love to see just one of the two dozens large construction projects underway in DC in their town. He felt that DC needed to have a recession so that it can feel the pain of average Americans and that he(we) need to stem the flow of money into Washington. I am sure he meant the city as a political entity.. but the impact would be on the District as a municipality which are not interchangeable to some...I am sure if he sent that message back to his district it would be greeted with nodding and cheers....
I haven't done the research but it seems like many of the SC Legislators are very "geo political". The upstate has a large population and quite a few Counties that consider themselves in or in league with or that benefit from the success of Greenville Spartanburg so their legislators vote for things that feel will continue benefit that area. Same with the Low Country with Charleston. North Charleston Mt Pleasant etc. The Midlands in terms of geo political identity is much smaller than the upstate and the low country in population and area. Once you get beyond Richland, Lexington, Kershaw...places like Newberry or Saluda may be within our CSA but from an geo identity perspective you could almost draw a line down the middle of these Counties in terms of if they consider themselves in the midlands or the upstate. ( I haven't forgotten about Calhoun or Fairfield but they both have really small populations comparatively speaking.
Of course the upstate has Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Cherokee Counties followed by atleast another half dozen other that geo politically identify with the upstate. Same for Charleston, Dorchester, Berkley, and throw in Colleton, Beaufort and Jasper Counties (Orangeburg like Newberry and Saluda could be cut in half)
So give all of these factors, from a state resource allocation perspective, we may actually be behind...especially if you look at things like road paving highway money incentives for industry (remember Southwest Airlines) transit etc to the extent that any of these items receive money from the State beyond some formulaic allocation......
You have a point, and this is in line with a historic mentality in some states where the capital was moved from the earliest city of commerce to another city, not only because of geographical reasons (to be more accessible to the majority of the state's population), but to also reduce the likelihood of business interests unduly influencing government so the state capitals didn't have as much industry steered there as opposed to other parts of the state. Of course this is something that has changed over time but I think the mentality still prevails to an extent in SC. Columbia was founded to be the state capital and it got USC so that state government officials could keep a close eye on it, so that should continue to be its primary function: government. The coastal and upstate cities were founded as centers of commerce so that is where the bulk of economic investment should be steered (and coincidentally, that is why the Lowcountry and the Upstate--the two historic divisions of the state--are both geographic *and* cultural regions while the Midlands is simply a geographic one based primarily on the growth of the Columbia region as its own distinct center of gravity over the years). And this is why the state's economic investment strategy rests more with traditional industries that constituted the foundations of the coastal/upstate economies to a large degree (manufacturing being the most obvious example as outgrowths of the textile industry in the upstate and the port on the coast) as opposed to more innovative/white-collar industries for which higher education plays a more central role, which would certainly benefit Columbia more. I'd say Columbia's saving grace here has been being centrally located in a relatively small state so that it made more sense logistically for sectors serving the entire state (banks, law firms, insurance companies) to locate in Columbia and keeping practically all state government agencies headquartered there also...and before that, there were logistical advantages for the railroads in Columbia also. I actually wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the state's history, politicians decried Columbia's growth and its eventual rise as a peer of Charleston and Greenville and probably said it was getting too big for its britches and whatnot.
I think that Columbia, being the state capital,suffers from some of the same identity political problems that Washington DC suffers from being the nation's capital. Many sections of the rural Midwest or rural South .....outside of the monuments and cherry blossoms have a negative opinion of Washington as do their congressional reps.. It has nothing to do with the City.. but what it represents from a political perspective because it is the capital. Same here in Columbia when it comes to the SC legislators from rural areas. "Columbia" represents what is right or wrong in the state and is viewed simply as the seat of government. Charleston has tourism, retirees, and industry, Upstate has industry, MYR has tourism.. all of which , in their view, contribute to the growth of the state. So its harder for someone in Bamberg to say "no" to request for incentives for industry or road money in these parts of the state. Columbia is simply .. The government in their world view.
I recall an article in the local news in DC where some Congressman from Kansas or some Midwestern state was looking out his office window at all the cranes in the DC skyline seething...He wrote that people in his district would love to see just one of the two dozens large construction projects underway in DC in their town. He felt that DC needed to have a recession so that it can feel the pain of average Americans and that he(we) need to stem the flow of money into Washington. I am sure he meant the city as a political entity.. but the impact would be on the District as a municipality which are not interchangeable to some...I am sure if he sent that message back to his district it would be greeted with nodding and cheers....
I haven't done the research but it seems like many of the SC Legislators are very "geo political". The upstate has a large population and quite a few Counties that consider themselves in or in league with or that benefit from the success of Greenville Spartanburg so their legislators vote for things that feel will continue benefit that area. Same with the Low Country with Charleston. North Charleston Mt Pleasant etc. The Midlands in terms of geo political identity is much smaller than the upstate and the low country in population and area. Once you get beyond Richland, Lexington, Kershaw...places like Newberry or Saluda may be within our CSA but from an geo identity perspective you could almost draw a line down the middle of these Counties in terms of if they consider themselves in the midlands or the upstate. ( I haven't forgotten about Calhoun or Fairfield but they both have really small populations comparatively speaking.
Of course the upstate has Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Cherokee Counties followed by atleast another half dozen other that geo politically identify with the upstate. Same for Charleston, Dorchester, Berkley, and throw in Colleton, Beaufort and Jasper Counties (Orangeburg like Newberry and Saluda could be cut in half)
So give all of these factors, from a state resource allocation perspective, we may actually be behind...especially if you look at things like road paving highway money incentives for industry (remember Southwest Airlines) transit etc to the extent that any of these items receive money from the State beyond some formulaic allocation......
Totally agree, great analysis. To add to this: I don't really know what the Midlands identity is. Whereas the Upstate is super religious and mountainous and the Low Country is beachy and a bit bougey, I couldn't describe the Midlands beyond describing Columbia. Perhaps that plays into the lack of regional self-identification.
I would argue that Columbia doesn't do enough to promote its insurance industry. Most people in SC know about state government, Fort Jackson (federal government), and USC, but I wonder if people know about the tax-generating industries in the area. The lone Fortune 500 in the area was SCANA and now that's owned by Dominion. Perhaps part of the problem is regional leaders failing to brand the area very well.
Greenville is overrated. Just my opinion. No lake, no beach. I visit Greenville and Charleston. Charleston has so much more to offer. I prefer Columbia - just like it.
Greenville is overrated. Just my opinion. No lake, no beach. I visit Greenville and Charleston. Charleston has so much more to offer. I prefer Columbia - just like it.
Greenville is far from overrated and is growing like crazy.
Yes subdivisions everywhere. But no lake or beach. Traffic problems.
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