Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That's for cities/areas thay don't know how to handle it. I've never had chains, snow tires or any of the other issues mentioned. Many times what you see is stuff that the media hypes up and for areas that don't have the equipment to handle the storm. Life goes on here as well and I live in an area that has averaged
The "hyped" up stuff I'm seeing is from New York and Chicago. Are you saying they don't know how to handle snow? They don't use salt on the roads in Syracuse?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smtchll
yall got a day when it was below zero? I can't ever remember a day here when it got that cold. I think the point is, Atlanta does have a winter, it does have snow at least once a year, and apparently days where it gets below zero, so it's not like Southern Florida or SoCal where
snow is absolutely rare and winter doesn't really exist.
Now that I think about it, even the one day on my mind it was only 30 degrees from the morning to midday when it got to like 34 before dropping back down. I do agree that Atlanta does have a winter, but it still is nothing like winter in Boston or New York, or Chicago or Green Bay...etc - places where snow is regularly on the ground for weeks at a time. Georgia probably has the same number of snow plows that we have in Alabama, which is probably about 3.
The "hyped" up stuff I'm seeing is from New York and Chicago. Are you saying they don't know how to handle snow? They don't use salt on the roads in Syracuse?
Now that I think about it, even the one day on my mind it was only 30 degrees from the morning to midday when it got to like 34 before dropping back down. I do agree that Atlanta does have a winter, but it still is nothing like winter in Boston or New York, or Chicago or Green Bay...etc - places where snow is regularly on the ground for weeks at a time. Georgia probably has the same number of snow plows that we have in Alabama, which is probably about 3.
My point is that some areas are better prepared to handle a high amount of snowfall(i.e.-Syracuse). We use salt on the roads here and we have the plows to handle a lot of snow. NYC and Chicago do not get as much snow on average like we get here(usually).
Yet southern metros are all the way at the bottom when it comes to per capita income. What does the south have to show for its large growth? Absolutely nothing.
There is a difference between growth and good growth. The "sunbelt growth" has done nothing but shifted problems of the Northeast to sunbelt states (i.e. look at your real estate industry, spiking poverty levels, higher than average unemployment).
Grow away!
Thats a real dumb and provincial remark.If that were true then every city would look like Jackson MS in the South!
Lower cost of living.
Higher quality of life
Higher home ownership rates
Spiking poverty rates?You mean like in Baltimore,D.C.,Detroit,Philadelphia,Camden,Newark. What cities in the South are equals to any of those cities?
The South boom has actually been going on since the 1950s. The momentum has recently taken notice. The South has booming metros all over. The only exception is probably Mississippi. And when you include the Sunbelt as a whole which includes Phoenix, LA, Las Vegas, among others, the areas will continue to grow. With the recent economic crisis what this will do is force Sunbelt metros to grow smarter. But the growth and boom won't stop.
The sunbelt "boom" will end when the water rationing begins and/or when energy gets too expensive to cool the place down during the 4-5 months of oppressive heat. The "water wars" have commenced in many of the areas already. One day, people will realize that it's a hell of a lot easier (not to mention a hell of a lot more efficient) to heat up than it is to cool down and that lawns (and just about everything else) are tough to grow where there isn't any rain. Until then...
Are not NYC and several of the rest of the Northeast worried about going broke because of all the snow and blizzards.Ne
If the national unemployment rate is 9.4 and all those states in the South East are above the nation rate, guess what……those small states cannot offset the unemployment rate in the large SE states. Rather, its large states like NY, NJ, PA, MA and others that have lower than the national rate. When you aggregate those states unemployed with the states with the higher rates, then you get the 9.4 national rates.
Really folks, this nation is in the beginning of a radical paradigm shift in economics. One cannot extrapolate from past growth and predict future growth because the economy for the last several decades has been artificial and debt driven. The South’s long held advantage of labor cost and cost of living has faded. There are many medium sized cities up North whose cost of living is a low as the South and whose economies have been so decimated that unions have been emasculated and labor cost for new higher is very low given the number of unemployed.
Growth had become the main economic engine in places like Atlanta. Think of it like this. In our banking system we use fractional banking which results in banks lending out more money than they actually have in deposits. They have to keep a certain percentage on hand, their reserve requirements, by law. What would happen then if everyone came to get their deposits? The system would become quickly insolvent and the system would collapse. When population growth is your main economic engine, when that growth stops your economy is going to collapse because many of the present jobs in the boom towns were geared on creating housing and commercial development for future people and businesses. As long as the population continues to grow, jobs based upon speculation continued to grow. It’s like the housing boom and the speculation that homes would continue to appreciate forever and when home prices started falling, the whole market collapsed.
There are many factors that many areas of the South, in particular Atlanta, will not continue to grow as they did the last 20 years. We have entered a radically different era.
I know people think of Atlanta as a de facto capitol of the South,but Atlanta has been growing nonstop since its inception.Unlike much of the rest of the South.It was not a hotbed of agriculture with boundless plantations.It was the last and final blow to the ending of th civil war.(Battle of Atlanta Campaign)It was much like Northeastern cities in its growth patterns.In the last 20 it became more debt driven just like other places.
Despite gentrification in urban cities, the migration downwards is soaring and isn't expected to end any time soon. Construction and real estate is going to continue although there were setbacks in those sectors due to the recession. Not only are blacks and hispanics leaving the NE as the years go by, whites are leaving in huge numbers as well.
As much as we don't like it, the housing boom is coming back.
The sunbelt boom is not going to end probably until the next 20 years.
The biggest threats to future growth of Sun Belt cities is traffic and WATER. Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, three of the biggest and fastest growing areas are going to face serious water resource issues in the next decade.
Traffic in all three cities is already problematic. My prediction is that by 2030 the urban sprawl in these cities will get so bad and water issues will be so severe that the same forces that drive people to leave Los Angeles will occur on those cities. All three cities get a substantial amount of their water supply from man-made lakes or resevoirs I know for a fact there are no new plans underway for new man-made lakes or resevoirs for Dallas or Houston.
A third issue that nobody talks about is crime. All three areas have some serious issues with crime. Right now some of the problems are mitigated because people in these areas tend to separate themselves by housing prices and income. But as some housing developments get older they will become less favorable. The current pattern in each cities is to built "new" high end suburban developments farther out from the city centers but realistically how long can this trend last?
Also as more people move to these areas when do the housing costs start to escalate to the point where they start losing a critical competitive advantage compared to other parts of the country?
I can't believe you are actually comparing an Atlanta winter to a winter up north. Even after the snow storms we've had this year in this country you still believe that?
I do not live in Atlanta, but they get about the same level of snow we do and I'll say this: I don't own a winter car. Salt does not eat up my vehicles. I have never put on chains, bought a set of snow tires and one of my vehicles rides on summer tires all year round, our other cars stay on all-seasons. The soccer mom types and non-outdoorsy types typically buy 2WD SUVs and trucks. Subarus are not popular here at all. A 4WD crossover carries no extra value over the same model in 2WD form and might actually be a turn off to some buyers because most feel it would be extra maintenance and something they won't need. I've never seen a significant amount of snow stay on the ground here for more then 3-4 days in my life and I am in my mid 30's and even then just once. I think I can count the number of days that it has actually been below zero ALL DAY here (this year) on one hand.
Nobody living up north can say the same thing. We have long hot muggy summers here, yes - but we go inside and turn on the A/c - we get in our cars and turn on the A/C and life goes on. That is a minor inconvenience compared to what I am seeing on the news every morning with you guys and your shovels, snow blowers and snow plows crashing into parked cars and people slipping and busting on the sidewalk.
Which is my problem with the whole lifestyle in most Sun Belt cities. Everybody is so busy staying inside a home, a shopping mall or their car TURNING ON THEIR A/C that these cities tend to lack a certain cultural vibrancy when compared other parts of the country. Where people actually get outside their homes, cars, malls and office buidling and interact with each other. The suburbs of Sun Belt cities particularly lack any type of character everything is housing developments, chain stores, strip centers and shopping malls. It's a very homogenized lifestyle that works fine for a lot people.
Right....and the what attracted the Jobs to the South was NOT young professional, but Lower cost. This then attracted the young professionals. Young professional are more and more attracted to the Urban, Artsy, semi-gritty cool environments that many Northern Cities have. They like Walkable communities of high density. This is why such neighborhoods of walkable high density were recently built in the city of Atlanta. The North alread has ready made High density areas like this that are being Gentrified. NO.NO.NO.Sorry but you may have lived in Atlanta but you know nothing about its history.Atlanta in its hey day was very walkable with streetcar system and a vibrant urbanity.
Its actually less dense now than then.White flight urban decay ring a bell?However it has gained more people in its core in the last 5 years, more than any other city and currently at it highest peak ever.
You don't know.....its the EXCITEMENT baby!!! There is a certain high energy vibe living in high desity areas. Have you even been to Europe? High density, done right, allows mass transit, walkable communities, people watching and a vibe that you cannot get in low density spread out areas.
No....but the attraction of places like Atlanta for many transplants is the low density. They like the trees, the large lots, the open spaces and many things that make the area different from whence they came. If you start building at high densities rising demand against a finite supply will raise prices regardless if there is ample land. If it did not matter then developers would not have continued to stretch the limits of the boundaries. Also, when you increase the density you just turn it into the type of places that people left.
More like to much is to much but then there is just right.Atlanta is much bigger and denser than Charlotte but much less denser than say NYC,Boston etc.I dont care what you say but NOBODY likes living in a shoebox if they can move into "bootbox".Sometimes their is a such thing as too much density or too much sprawl.Atlanta has densified in breakneck pace.And you assume that all the people moving to Atlanta are from the Northeast when actually its form all around the region.
Yeah....but those old areas are small and a massive influx of people would ruin all the charm. What makes a lot of those places so appealing and charming is the fact that they are small and not filled with hustle and bustle. If massive people started moving to those places it would destoy much of what made it attractive.
You have to realize that things run in cycles. The North had its boom period, followed by Bust. California had its boom period more recently. The South has had its boom Period. Points of diminishing returns are always an eventuallity that kills bust. The growth eventually becomes the problem and the growth diminishes.
Which is my problem with the whole lifestyle in most Sun Belt cities. Everybody is so busy staying inside a home, a shopping mall or their car TURNING ON THEIR A/C that these cities tend to lack a certain cultural vibrancy when compared other parts of the country. Where people actually get outside their homes, cars, malls and office buidling and interact with each other. The suburbs of Sun Belt cities particularly lack any type of character everything is housing developments, chain stores, strip centers and shopping malls. It's a very homogenized lifestyle that works fine for a lot people.
This isn't primarily because "everybody is so busy staying inside a home, a shopping mall or their car TURNING ON THEIR A/C." It's because historically, much of the South was more agrarian as opposed to the more industrial North. So the North as a region matured before the South, which meant more built-up cities with classical urban forms. In contrast, a lot of Southern cities started hitting their stride post-WWII in the age of the automobile where there was much less emphasis on building cities around people.
And the last I looked, suburbs are pretty much suburbs in any region of the country. The only exception of sorts would be smaller towns with a somewhat urban form that have been swallowed up in the sprawl of a neighboring larger city.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
