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What makes you think people are moving there because it's not dense? Obviously there are other options, but in my cases it's extremely expensive.
Its all of the above. People who move here want more for their money and they want space. One thing Californians, Texans, and most sunbelters have in common is that they are not intimidated by distance.
Yeah...natural resources are very very very FINITE...including oil. Its price changes everyday, based on the commodities market...based in New York oddly enough.
Btw....green energy will be local, no one will import wind power from 1000 miles away or solar, or water, or wishes for that matter. One day in the future, probably the not too distant future, every region of the world will be responsible for their own energy.
All the other cities mentioned, I'll also inlcude PNW cities of Seattle and Portland, SFB and Los Angeles have incredibly diverified economies. That's my point. Their stabilty is secure, sunbelt cities will need to rethink their buisness plan, if you will.
Dallas and DFW easily has one of the most diversified economies in the country. You seem to think everyone has diverse and great economies except the sunbelt, yet it should be the non-sunbelt cities trying to copy us right now since we are doing so much better.
These cities wont always be booming, but they wont ever really be in that much trouble either.
Its all of the above. People who move here want more for their money and they want space. One thing Californians, Texans, and most sunbelters have in common is that they are not intimidated by distance.
What do you call Los Angeles? Its transit isnt any better than Dallas or Atlanta's. It has sprawled the same way, yet it will never fail either.
The notion that sunbelt cities will fail because they arent like the Northeast is stupid.
LA has its fair share of problems unemployment being the most striking.Thats not including the estimated 900,000 illegal aliens hiding away in LA County.
Will LA survive? Absolutely
Did LA's explosive growth prevent it from living up to its vast potential? You bet it did. Here is a city that is nestled between the Pacific Ocean and San Gabriel San Bernardino Mt ranges, post card perfect setting and glorious year round weather. LA should have been the protypical US world class city. Except for the immediate coastal communities its anything but.
If LA can have a 18% unemployment rate and a Million illegal aliens what do you think is going to happen to much more modest Dallas or Houston growing at 20%-30%. What is Dallas going to look like 50-75 -100 years from now as the boomtown infrastructure begins to deteriorate?
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tmac9wr
With all due respect, statistics seem to imply that these cities have not sprawled like Los Angeles.
While this is true, I wouldn't paint with such a wide brush. I can not speak for Houston or Dallas, so this post will only be in regards to Atlanta.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tmac9wr
The Houston, Dallas and Atlanta all have MSAs that are larger than 8,300 square miles. Los Angeles' MSA is 4,850. If it could spread, I'm sure it would (and I believe the CSA does), but physically Los Angeles is blocked in by mountains which prevents the contiguous spread from the central city. The other cities don't have this natural wall...so theoretically their borders could double or triple.
Actually, it is the CSA of Atlanta that is 8,376 sq miles, but I think for this topic it would be better to look at the UA which is 2204 sq miles and where the majority of the people in Atlanta and it's suburbs live. The recent estimates show there are little over 5 million people living in that area, which puts the suburbs in to a similar area as that of Boston's (2756 sq miles) and Philadelphia's (2182 sq miles) urban areas. In fact, Atlanta has more in common development wise with those cities than it does with Houston or Dallas.
Urban Areas in Metropolitan Areas: United States (USA): 2000
1. All three city propers have small land areas. Atlanta (131 sq miles), Boston (48 sq miles) , Philadelphia (127 sq miles)
2. All three suffered at the hands of "urban renewal".
3. All three have massive suburbs spreading out several thousand square miles.
Of course there are obvious major differences between them in that Philly and Boston have been around since colonial times so they have a 200 year head start on Atlanta, both are twice as dense on the neighborhood level in the city proper (for now), and Atlanta has been destroyed twice in the last 150 years (once totally during the Civil War, and the less know Great Atlanta fire of 1917 that burnt up half the city).
The other big difference is the amount of time it took all three cities to reach their current levels. Philly and Boston did it over the course of 400 years. Atlanta went from a small to medium sized city in it's first 130 years (from 0 in 1837 to 1 million in 1960), and then multipled by 6 times in the last 40 years (from 1 million in 1960 to close to 6 million in 2010). While that type of growth is rather jarring, it has resulted in a metropolitan area very similar in scope to major cities in the northeast.
It should also be noted that the massive development that Atlanta saw in the 70s, 80s and 90s (and the depopulation of the City of Atlanta proper) has reversed itself. This is what johnatl was alluding to in his post. The City of Atlanta's population grew by about 120,000 over the last 10 years, but the city limits has remained the same size. In other words, the city grew by densification and not by annexation (annexation itself is damn near impossible in Georgia :P )
Quote:
Originally Posted by tmac9wr
Los Angeles' rail transit is hideous (though expanding), but from what I've heard they do have a good bus system. Can the same be said about the other cities?
While transit is Metro Atlanta's overall achilles heel, the transit system that we do have is actually quite good. In terms of passanger trips, MARTA averages about half a million trips per day and is the 7th most used rail system in the country (higher than LA's, Baltimore's, and Miami's subways system and significantly so for the last two). When you combine the various modes of public transportation, it is the 9th most used.
johnatl mentioned the "rapid densification" of these cities...while you mentioned low housing costs. Density and low housing costs definitely do not go together. Since the rapid growth of these cities has been helped by the extremely low housing costs, how do you two think densification will affect future growth in cities like Atl, Hou, Dal, Phx?
Not necessarily. I think the housing market collapsed reset the rules for how that works. Then there is the fact that the City of Atlanta isn't wall to wall development in it's city limits. The central part of the city where most people live, about 40 square miles or so, has an average residential density of about 10 to 15,000. The rest of the city's land area varies from scattered pockets of low and high density areas to more even built up areas. There is still an incredible amount of land to build on, and I think it'll quite some time before that densification begins to effect housing costs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tmac9wr
Some of the predictions for future populations in these cities is off the charts and at times assumes a constant rate of growth. Do you think these cities will actually be able to grow at a constant rate once COL begins to rise? Or do you think we're going to start seeing MSAs that begin to top 15,000 square miles?
I've never been one to look at those population predictions in a flattering way. I think most of the sunbelt cities will continue at much larger rates than cities in other areas of the country for a long time to come, but I think most of them will start to level off around present levels. However for Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta I don't think that a population for all three in the 8 to 10 million range isn't out of the question over the next few decades.
I don't want you to be confused. Perhaps we should be speaking about URBAN AREAS rather than MSA's. Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, etc..btw, are no worse offenders of urban area sprawl than Boston is.
Dallas and DFW easily has one of the most diversified economies in the country. You seem to think everyone has diverse and great economies except the sunbelt, yet it should be the non-sunbelt cities trying to copy us right now since we are doing so much better.
These cities wont always be booming, but they wont ever really be in that much trouble either.
Dallas and DWF are the same thing, for one.
I fail to see how or why cities like NYC, Boston, Chicago or SF would "copy" sunbelt cities...they're already dense, have very strong economies, large, stable populations and infrastructures and institutions to ensure future growth. If it's a question of affordabilty, anyone who lives in those cities can actually afford to do so, hence they're choice to live there.
I don't want you to be confused. Perhaps we should be speaking about URBAN AREAS rather than MSA's. Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, etc..btw, are no worse offenders of urban area sprawl than Boston is.
(sub)Urban sprawl is a different beast in the Boston area. Every 10-20 miles from the core of Boston out there is a major city of 50-175,000 people. All these urban areas add up and overlap hence the appearance of sprawl, its not really suburban sprawl. It's an ammolgamation of well established cities and their suburbs with Boston at its core.
Boston west for example: Boston (630,000), Natick (40,000), Framingham (70,000), Marlboro (35,000), Worcester (175,000).
Boston north: Boston, Cambridge (110,000), Woburn (40,000), Lowell (110,000), Nashua NH (85,000), Manchester NH (110,000)
Boston southwest: Boston, Dedham (35,000) Attleboro (45,000), Pawtucket RI (80,000), Providence RI (175,000)
Boston south-southeast: Boston, Quincy (85,000), Brockton (95,000), Taunton (55,000), Fall River (90,000), New Bedford (100,000)
These are all well established industrial cities. Of course Boston is subject to sprawl, no city is safe, but you can't tell me Houston or Phoenix has the same establishment of surroundings. I realize there are large sub-cities that surround these, but they are not urban centers, they are large suburban developments.
LA has its fair share of problems unemployment being the most striking.Thats not including the estimated 900,000 illegal aliens hiding away in LA County.
Will LA survive? Absolutely
Did LA's explosive growth prevent it from living up to its vast potential? You bet it did. Here is a city that is nestled between the Pacific Ocean and San Gabriel San Bernardino Mt ranges, post card perfect setting and glorious year round weather. LA should have been the protypical US world class city. Except for the immediate coastal communities its anything but.
If LA can have a 18% unemployment rate and a Million illegal aliens what do you think is going to happen to much more modest Dallas or Houston growing at 20%-30%. What is Dallas going to look like 50-75 -100 years from now as the boomtown infrastructure begins to deteriorate?
What this boils down to is that Northeastern cities and sunbelt cities are just plain different. I fail to see what makes one better than the other overall. The Northeastern cities are obviously more urban overall, but the sunbelt cities have a better economy right now (overall) and are cheaper. Dont forget that a reason these places are booming with business is that it is cheaper to operate here. If New York, Philly, or Boston were as cheap to operate from as Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta, Im sure this trend wouldnt be exactly the same.
(sub)Urban sprawl is a different beast in the Boston area. Every 10-20 miles from the core of Boston out there is a major city of 50-175,000 people. All these urban areas add up and overlap hence the appearance of sprawl, its not really suburban sprawl. It's an ammolgamation of well established cities and their suburbs with Boston at its core.
Boston west for example: Boston (630,000), Natick (40,000), Framingham (70,000), Marlboro (35,000), Worcester (175,000).
Boston north: Boston, Cambridge (110,000), Woburn (40,000), Lowell (110,000), Nashua NH (85,000), Manchester NH (110,000)
Boston southwest: Boston, Dedham (35,000) Attleboro (45,000), Pawtucket RI (80,000), Providence RI (175,000)
Boston south-southeast: Boston, Quincy (85,000), Brockton (95,000), Taunton (55,000), Fall River (90,000), New Bedford (100,000)
These are all well established industrial cities. Of course Boston is subject to sprawl, no city is safe, but you can't tell me Houston or Phoenix has the same establishment of surroundings. I realize there are large sub-cities that surround these, but they are not urban centers, they are large suburban developments.
What difference does it make? We're talking sprawl. Period. You may try to put a spin on the "type" of sprawl, but it's still sprawl. Look at a map of the night lights from space and please tell me how Phoenix looks anything like the Boston urban area in the amount of land it gulps up. Many people like to clamor about how the Phoenix MSA eats up thousands and thousands of sq kilometers (much of it being uninhabited desert land that HAS to be included because Maricopa County itself is so big) and you can CLEARLY see that the urban area is much smaller than the MSA.
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