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What are some small to medium sized cities that are up and coming. Looking for a city that is still cheap to live in, but is revitalizing their downtown and growing in popularity. I'd like to move there before it becomes trendy(and expensive). I have been hearing great things about Florence, SC, and Lafayette, LA.
What cities(with a warmish climate), would you recommend?
OP, how would you define small to medium size? I want to make sure you are getting suggestions that fit along with your ideal sized places.
You mention Florence SC, city pop about 40,000 and area pop of 200,000 and Lafayette, LA with about 120,000 in the city and 600k in the area. Going by those sizes, I'd also suggest checking out Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers-Bentonville, aka Northwest Arkansas. It is a beautiful area and growing. Solid economy too. Cost of living is very reasonable and has four seasons with a mild winter. You might like it.
Florence is kind of out in the boonies and there just isn't much going on there, at least the last time I was there about two years ago. I know nothing about LA.
I've been partial to SC for awhile now. Columbia, Greenville, and Charleston are all what I'd call mid-size cities, and both have made wonderful improvements to their downtowns, economy, and just livability over the past few years. I am consistently amazed at Greenville in particular - it has a wider variety of shopping, restaurants, and bars than you'll see in about any city of this size.
Florence is kind of out in the boonies and there just isn't much going on there, at least the last time I was there about two years ago. I know nothing about LA.
I've been partial to SC for awhile now. Columbia, Greenville, and Charleston are all what I'd call mid-size cities, and both have made wonderful improvements to their downtowns, economy, and just livability over the past few years. I am consistently amazed at Greenville in particular - it has a wider variety of shopping, restaurants, and bars than you'll see in about any city of this size.
I think the reason why Greenville is like that, is due to serving a good sized metro in relation to the city population. So, the metro area is bigger than what the city population would indicate.
What are some small to medium sized cities that are up and coming. Looking for a city that is still cheap to live in, but is revitalizing their downtown and growing in popularity. I'd like to move there before it becomes trendy(and expensive). I have been hearing great things about Florence, SC, and Lafayette, LA.
What cities(with a warmish climate), would you recommend?
Florence is an interesting choice. It's downtown has really only recently started undergoing revitalization, but it seems to have taken ahold. But I don't see it becoming really trendy or expensive anytime soon
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckhthankgod
I think the reason why Greenville is like that, is due to serving a good sized metro in relation to the city population. So, the metro area is bigger than what the city population would indicate.
Precisely. Greenville is the primary hub of the Upstate region which has a population of around 1.4 million so that helps to explain why it has a lot of the amenities it does.
Chattanooga has been reinventing itself and has become quite an attractive little city. It's in a beautiful setting on a river surrounded by mountains with a downtown area that is very popular with young urbanites. It's only 100'ish miles from either Nashville or Atlanta. And now that VW has announced that it's going to add more than 2,000 new jobs to its Chattanooga plant, I suspect the city will become even more popular.
I second Chattanooga It's quite impressive for its size if you've never been there. It's lower on the radar but it's definitely getting trendy quickly.
Columbus Ohio
2,000,000 people but no one really knows about it.
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