The Emergence of Small Cities

One look at some of the fastest growing places lists or best places to live lists, many might be shocked to see what cities people are moving to and what cities are considered some of the most desirable.
It is clear that Americans today are getting sick of the "big city" life and are now flocking to the "one horse country towns" that people in places like Atlanta and Dallas used to snicker at. While still many larger cities are still growing tremendously like the above mentioned, they are becoming much less desirable than their smaller neighbors.
Think about it like this, while Atlanta is by far the largest city in the Southeast with over 5 million people in the metro, its much smaller rival city Charlotte with a metro population of just over 2 million, or less than half of Atlanta, continues to win city vs city debates and ranks higher on most "best places to live" lists than their big brother Atlanta.
Now while Charlotte though smaller than Atlanta, is still very much a major city, this may not surprise you or really hit home the point of people preferring smaller cities. So lets look at a place like Raleigh, one of the fastest growing cities in the country and consistently ranks as one of the top cities to live in. A large part of Raleigh's growth has come from people escaping Atlanta and has now made Raleigh in most ways, a more attractive city than Atlanta with its smaller feel and population. But what is the difference today opposed to ten years ago?
Well this has to do with many components and one of them is the technology. With the technology we have today and the connectivity that comes with it, we now have the ability to work from anywhere and still be able to network with others, even if one is in an office building in Atlanta and the other is sitting at their mountain house in Asheville. Though this may not always be the case, it has become more common. Another big element that advanced technology has been what I like to call domestic globalization. In the past, someone from big city would have all of the fancy new gadgets, listen to all the newest music, and shop at all of the new stores. Today with the connectivity we have and the ability for many people to work from anywhere, no area will be drastically behind any of the bigger cities in terms of technology or connectivity, so now where it used to be that you had to live in Atlanta for work or to be connected, you can live anywhere in the world and do the same thing. This ability has lead to growth in cities like Charleston where you would really have to be crazy not to want to live there so now you are seeing needs for stores that normally would only be in Atlanta, coming to Charleston and other smaller cities, thus making smaller cities trendy and with all of the amenities of a big city but in a more desirable place without the crime and traffic that people hate in a big city.
Another big element to this is this current generation of younger people moving to where they want to live rather than where they get a job. Younger people have a much bigger entrepreneurial spirit than those before us (as I am 25) and with that being said, we now move where we want to go and then find a job, and most people our age are not looking for the big corporate structure of a big city, but rather the hipster vibe of a place like Raleigh or Charleston.
It will be incredibly interesting to see what happens within the coming years in smaller cities vs. bigger cities especially as technology grows more advanced, and the younger generation becomes larger players in the workforce. Big cities will never go away or become less important as they always will be, but smaller cities like Charleston will be a much bigger player and important market for people than many could have imagined ten years ago.