Charlotte or Columbia? (Charleston, Newberry, York: live, versus, shopping centers)

[Skyliner]

Originally Posted by gsupstate

Hope your move from Upstate New York was easy. Glad you found a job in Charlotte and a home in Rock Hill. Excellent decision.

It's all the same place though, right? But you have it backwards. He must have just moved to Upstate NY within the last 3 days to attend university in Rochester and has since forgotten everything he knows about his home state (SC) and its major cities. Shocking behavior, Akhenaton06.

[TIRED]

I'm living in the chicagoland area and sick of the cost of living. I have always liked north carolina but not sure about moving there. I'm looking to enjoy my life more without having to work like crazy to pay my mortgage. What can I expect in charlotte?

[sgibbs2007]

I say move to Columbia because Charlotte is too packed! Help Columbia grow!

[sgibbs2007]

Originally Posted by TIRED

I'm living in the chicagoland area and sick of the cost of living. I have always liked north carolina but not sure about moving there. I'm looking to enjoy my life more without having to work like crazy to pay my mortgage. What can I expect in charlotte?

Move to Columbia. Its better than Charlotte and less crowded.

[sgibbs2007]

Originally Posted by sandlapper

You may want to thoroughly look at the sources again because you seem to be getting them confused. I used the MSA population for both Columbia and Charlotte that I obtained from the Census Bureau, (usually the only legit recognized source for obtaining city and state population). If you check the links again you will see that. http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...b07-51tbl2.pdf At the top of the table it says "100 most populous metropolitan statistical areas based on July 1, 2006 population estimates". Meaning that these are the latest (as of April 5th of this year) official population estimates in the US according to the golden standard of measuring the United States population the ever coveted MSA. Try as you may do deny it, Columbia's MSA (not CSA) according to the United States Census Bureau is officially 703,771 I don't think it gets any more self explanitory than that? That number is excluding Newberry County which is in Columbia's CSA. Charlottes official MSA population according to the census is 1,583,016. Again it is a number directly from the census. Why is that so hard to believe?

MSA Population (2006)

Columbia, SC: 703,771 (69th)
Charlotte, NC: 1,583,016 (36th)

CSA Population (2006)

Columbia, SC: 741,553 (64th)
Charlotte, NC: 2,191,604 (23rd)

Why is it legit for the CSA to represent Charlotte but not Columbia? I don't understand your argument? Anyways I wasn't using CSA to reflect either cities population I was using both cities MSA to represent its metro population. And if you wanted to do an even more accurate representation of a city's metro then I would suggest using the Urban Area (UA) population. That would make Columbia, and Charlottes population even closer.

You are right but bigger is nto always better. Charlotte is too crowded fo a Carolina city. Distribute and populate Columbia and Charleston

[waccamatt]

The traffic in Charlotte is horrible because the system of roads is terrible. Very little of Charlotte is built on a grid and there are only 2 interstate highways. The beltway Charlotte built is only 4 lanes. Columbia has 3 interstates versus 2, a 6 lane beltway instead of 4 and wide downtown streets on a grid; this combined with twice the population in Charlotte results in a traffic nightmare much of the time.

[TIRED]

Thanks for all the advice. It's helpful to know that about the traffic in Charlotte. I'm looking to get away from a lot of traffic. What do you think about greenville? I've heard some good things. Plus, I have a children, so I'm looking for a nice place to raise her.

[sgibbs2007]

Originally Posted by waccamatt

The traffic in Charlotte is horrible because the system of roads is terrible. Very little of Charlotte is built on a grid and there are only 2 interstate highways. The beltway Charlotte built is only 4 lanes. Columbia has 3 interstates versus 2, a 6 lane beltway instead of 4 and wide downtown streets on a grid; this combined with twice the population in Charlotte results in a traffic nightmare much of the time.

Ur right but Charlotte dont need to widen the highways because it wont do anything but cause more rediciolus growth. At lease the current roads control the population slightly

[Charleston native]

I think there is a serious falsehood and error in logic in thinking that not widening current roads or not adding additional roads curb traffic and growth. This line of logic proves false with NE Columbia, where many roads have remained two-lanes, yet more neighborhoods and shopping centers are built. Charlotte and Charleston are no exceptions, either.

I believe that it is terrible to basically make traffic conditions worse for the current residents in order to "control" new residents.

[waccamatt]

I'm for more strict zoning to control new growth versus using a lack of adequate roads as a control. If the county governments would put more teeth into their zoning laws, growth would be more manageable.