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Wake County has a massive 831.92 square miles of land area, while Mecklenburg only has 526.28 square miles. Consequently, Mecklenburg is a much denser, urban county, whereas Wake County is much more suburban and even has areas that have a rural, undeveloped character. Mecklenburg has much less room to grow and develop than Wake; therefore, much of the Charlotte region's growth has spilled over to adjacent counties. The Charlotte region is denser and more urban; therefore, light rail and public transportation works quite well there. Raleigh is not only smaller, but much less dense and urban. However, if robust growth continues in Raleigh, the area will be much denser a decade from now than it is today. The lack of light rail or a subway in Raleigh is a major detriment to the area's quality of life and infrastructure. Now is the time to build urban infrastructure before Raleigh chokes on its own growth.
Wake County has a massive 831.92 square miles of land area, while Mecklenburg only has 526.28 square miles. Consequently, Mecklenburg is a much denser, urban county, whereas Wake County is much more suburban and even has areas that have a rural, undeveloped character. Mecklenburg has much less room to grow and develop than Wake; therefore, much of the Charlotte region's growth has spilled over to adjacent counties. The Charlotte region is denser and more urban; therefore, light rail and public transportation works quite well there. Raleigh is not only smaller, but much less dense and urban. However, if robust growth continues in Raleigh, the area will be much denser a decade from now than it is today. The lack of light rail or a subway in Raleigh is a major detriment to the area's quality of life and infrastructure. Now is the time to build urban infrastructure before Raleigh chokes on its own growth.
As far as cities go, Raleigh is more dense than Charlotte. Much of the 526.28 square miles is 280 sqaure miles worth of Charlotte. I do agree Meck county is more urban, mainly due to Charlotte covering most of the area and spilling into the towns.
Wake County has a massive 831.92 square miles of land area, while Mecklenburg only has 526.28 square miles. Consequently, Mecklenburg is a much denser, urban county, whereas Wake County is much more suburban and even has areas that have a rural, undeveloped character. Mecklenburg has much less room to grow and develop than Wake; therefore, much of the Charlotte region's growth has spilled over to adjacent counties. The Charlotte region is denser and more urban; therefore, light rail and public transportation works quite well there. Raleigh is not only smaller, but much less dense and urban. However, if robust growth continues in Raleigh, the area will be much denser a decade from now than it is today. The lack of light rail or a subway in Raleigh is a major detriment to the area's quality of life and infrastructure. Now is the time to build urban infrastructure before Raleigh chokes on its own growth.
All points well taken but be careful to not be the kettle calling the pot black. Just because Charlotte has a minor light rail and some tall buildings downtown, it's not as big of a difference as you seem to think.
First of all, from a city perspective, Raleigh is actually more densely populated than the city of Charlotte. You are correct about the overall county though. Meck is def. more densely populated than Wake. But, consider that there's still a lot of undeveloped land in Wake that affects the metrics. From a municipality perspective, both Raleigh and Cary are more densely populated than Charlotte.
That all said, I agree that Raleigh should do more, as should Charlotte. An advantage that Raleigh does have is that it's hemmed in by other municipalities along its border. This will cause Raleigh's limits to not expand as much as Charlotte's. Hopefully, this will cause Raleigh to develop more areas with denser development to drive future tax revenues. And, hopefully, this denser development will bring visibility to more mass transit options.
I am looking forward to the newest census information and the related studies associated with it. In particular, the studies that look at cities and metros by "urbanized area" will be particularly interesting to me. In 2000, the urbanized area of Charlotte was 758,927 while the urbanized area of Raleigh was 541,517. Neither city's urbanized area was particularly dense. Charlotte's was 1745 people/s.m while Raleigh's was 1694 people/s.m.
I expect both urbanized areas will significantly increase. Raleigh's # will probably be where Charlotte's was 10 years ago. Charlotte's will rise too. It will be interesting to see. List of United States urban areas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm not sure what you mean by hemmed in - Charlotte is surrounded by other cities as well, plus a large portion of the population lives in SC...
Wake County has a greater quantity of significant municipal population that surrounds Raleigh within Wake Co. Because of the adjacent municipalities within Wake, Raleigh will not be able to expand its city limits to the physical size of Charlotte (which is twice the size of Raleigh).
Again...I am only referring to what's within Wake County since this is a county/county discussion. I am just trying to communicate one of the major differences between how Mecklenburg is developed and how Wake is developed. Charlotte dominates Mecklenburg in a way that Raleigh does not in Wake. Wake County has 309,199 people in municipalities other than Raleigh. Much of this municipal population is in towns immediately adjacent to Raleigh's city limits
Of Wake's approx. 900,000 people (estimate), 44% is in the city of Raleigh. 34% is in other municipalities. The remainder is not under a municipal jurisdiction though much of it is probably in ETJ's of municipalities.
Of Mecklenburg's approx 910,000 people (estimate), 75% of it is in the city of Charlotte.
It's practically double.
Depending on the source, Charlotte is around 288 square miles. Raleigh is about 145 square miles.
Im speaking on the general area population wise.
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