What city has the most missed potential in the US? (safe area, luxury)

[smashystyle]

Originally Posted by jas75

I think much the same could be said of Albuquerque, which unlike Tucson is not in the shadow of a larger city. But New Mexico is not a well managed state and has a under-developed private sector economy. Albuquerque could be like a smaller Denver with a milder climate if it could get more aggressive about achieving good quality growth.

I noticed Birmingham mentioned in a few posts. I think that area seems to be on the right track these days, but the problem is they lost a lot of ground to their regional competitors more than a generation ago. Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville just have a lot more to work with today and a momentum that keeps stimulating further development in those metro areas. Memphis seems to be the major Southern city that is falling short of its potential at the present time. While population growth there has kept pace with Birmingham, income growth has not, and Memphis is struggling with crime and social problems to a frustratingly large extent.

I absolutely agree about Albuquerque. It has the climate and outdoors access of Denver (arguably better, in some respects), with more livability and unique culture. But New Mexico has long been a poor state with many of the attendant social problems, which are a struggle to overcome.

[Losfrisco]

If you read about the history of San Diego, you'll learn it's a good candidate for this. It was unjustly deprived of rail connections for a long time in the 1800's when travel to California from the east was nearly impossible for most people.

[projectmaximus]

Originally Posted by Iconographer

Jacksonville's downtown continues to be a source of frustration for me; the potential there is boundless, but until First Baptist Jax relinquishes its stranglehold on its considerable real estate holdings there nothing material is going to happen.

Though a very common refrain, First Baptist is kind of an unfair scapegoat here. Just how much the church has hurt/helped downtown is a complex matter, but in any event, I'll just say that the church's campus is just one portion of downtown and one very small section of the overall CBD. So regardless of the church's effect within its real estate and to a limited degree surrounding its campus, there's no excuse for the state of the rest of the CBD.

Originally Posted by Jandrew5

I'm actually curious about Jax. People are saying it's missed, but they seem to be doing fine to me. Sure the core isn't as vibrant as it could be.

Jax was an extremely urban and dense city at the turn of the 20th century and on into the 20s and 30s. So it has missed potential in that not only did it not build on that, but it lost a lot of the urban fabric that it had built. In other ways (kinda like Birmingham) you can also look at a few missteps in the history that may have compounded to lead to a very different growth trajectory. It's hard to project what Jax could be if not for those mistakes but there's no question it could be significantly larger than it is now.

[jas75]

Originally Posted by lD8modem

Missed potential? hmm...historically maybe
Birmingham AL, in favor for its next door neighbor, Atlanta, GA
Mobile AL in favor of NOLA
Memphis TN in favor of Nashvillell
Lexington in favor of Louisville, maybe

Perhaps there is justification for some of these, but Lexington doesn't come across as a city falling short of its potential at all. It is a very clean, prosperous, medium sized city with far stricter development controls than most places, in order to preserve the surrounding picturesque countryside of the Bluegrass. Lexington has been growing at a higher rate than Louisville for years, despite being a smaller metro area. The two cities are complementary as Kentucky's key urban centers, and not particularly similar to each other despite their proximity.

Mobile hasn't exactly been booming but its growth rate has been higher than New Orleans' in general, except when the latter area was rebounding after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Atlanta being on a faster growth track than Birmingham, and the same for Nashville compared to Memphis is indisputable.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by lD8modem

Missed potential? hmm...historically maybe
Birmingham AL, in favor for its next door neighbor, Atlanta, GA
Mobile AL in favor of NOLA
Memphis TN in favor of Nashvillell
Lexington in favor of Louisville, maybe

Agree with all but this one. I really don't think Lexington ever aspired to be Louisville. I consider Lexington to be a low-key, insular old-money dominant town that never wanted to be anything but.
It's a great small city; Louisville is a great mid-size city.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by lD8modem

Missed potential? hmm...historically maybe
Birmingham AL, in favor for its next door neighbor, Atlanta, GA
Mobile AL in favor of NOLA
Memphis TN in favor of Nashvillell
Lexington in favor of Louisville, maybe

Although Mobile and New Orleans have similar histories, they also have significant differences which would provide a better explanation as to why New Orleans has been the bigger, more important city and not at the expense of Mobile. The biggest difference can probably be attributed to geography: New Orleans is near the mouth of the Mississippi River which is much longer and has always been much more important nationally than the Mobile River. That advantage alone, which was the underlying reason for other factors that boosted the importance and profile of New Orleans (e.g., slavery, immigration, oil and gas, etc.) made it nearly impossible for Mobile to catch up to New Orleans historically.

Mobile certainly made mistakes and missed opportunities that would have potentially made it a larger and more important city today (urban renewal during the 60's and 70's being chief among them), but it had nothing to do with New Orleans outcompeting or outmaneuvering it.

[Gunion Powder]

Originally Posted by manitopiaaa

^^ JAX is a weird case. It avoided the Saint Louis problem by annexing a huge chunk of its suburbs. In doing so, however, it gave political control of the city to the suburbs. As a result, the "old" Jacksonville that is dense is but a small part of the new "Duval County" Jacksonville. As a result, the suburban parts of the "new" Jacksonville call the shots.

Unfortunately, the reason why Jacksonville expanded to take in nearly all of Duval was to prevent Blacks from getting control of political power. By annexing its white suburbs, it prevented that, but is now a city where urbanity isn't really something to strive for.

Jacksonville and Houston are alike in this regard.

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by SunGrins

St. Louis could have been more than it is but it intentionally shot itself in the foot when it became its own county making annexation of more land nearly impossible. The second major blow was disowning and deterioration of the Illinois side of the river. Complacency, inertia, and provincialism replaced the progressive stance that the place once had. Today St. Louis and Kansas City reside in one of the most backward states in the nation and a strong hostility has developed between urban and rural counties.

It didn't take long for St. Louis to realize that the great divorce from the county was a mistake, but by the time that they did, the county didn't want St. Louis back. St. Louis' largest set back was not jumping onto the railroads faster. Chicago beat St. Louis to the punch, and the rest became history.

As for Illinois (which I assume you predominantly mean East St. Louis), that was completely outside of St. Louis' control. East St. Louis was having race riots as early as 1917. By the time industry collapsed and white flight accelerated, there was no saving East St. Louis. The white residents packed up and moved further east in St. Clair County.

That being said, most of the Illinois suburbs look nothing like East St. Louis. The trouble today is that Missouri and Illinois suburbs are continuing to shift the population further away from the core.

[oobanks]

Macon, GA. all the way! When I saw this it was the first City that came to mind. Macon a city of around 155,000 people sits right in the Center of Georgia with 3 Major Interstate Hwy's, a Downtown with a decent city skyline right on a major Freeway and a river, Great Urban bones, and less than 100 miles from DT Atlanta and Hartsfield Jackson Intl. Airport but kinda remains stagnant. To be honest this City has the best Infrastructure lay out of all the 2nd Tiers in the State for a City it's size. The city has already started to make some noticeable changes in it's cities core and the DT area with some gentrification, especially when it comes to new Lofts being constructed, not to mention a host of new bars and restaurants showing up. You would think Macon's closeness to metro Atlanta would help but it has been more of a hindrance for the Georgia mid size city with a lot fleeing to it's larger sibling to the north. It's public school system has been a major down fall for the city as well. If Macon is ever discovered to it's True potential it has the opportunity to become healthy Satellite City as well as a Historic Independent Central Georgia City with a booming economy of it's own. I'm actually surprised with it's prime location, especially DT a major company has not taken a lead and has built Highrise Tower over 400 to 500 ft. by now. I don't know why but I can see Macon becoming a major gem once some true white collar investment is put into the City. Most has been blue collar and that is typical and won't bring about a major change for a city like that, I think that's where it all goes back to education.

[Tom Lennox 70]

New Orleans may count. The Sunbelt basically skips it over while it includes cities to its west like Houston and Dallas and to the east like Atlanta and Jacksonville. It's also not seen the New South growth that Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, etc have seen. New Orleans has a comfortable warm climate and a relatively low cost of living and many suburban areas that are actually above sea level and protected from hurricanes and floods. One reason may be that Louisiana is an overtaxed state and overregulated in some ways....perhaps not compared to the NOrtheast or West Coast but compared to the rest of the South. Also the reputation for violent crime though New Orleans has many nice, safe areas while many other cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland etc actually feel like one massive slum.