Atlanta should move up to 8th by the 2020 census (Macon: best, areas)

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by Bobdreamz

or lower Alabama! Boring and slow just like Jawja! People who move to Florida to retire go to the Gulf Coast and people who are ready to die? The panhandle!

And any of them are better than the cesspool known as Miami/Dade County.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by bu2

We'll just have to disagree on the benefit to Atlanta and cities north of an alternative to I-75 south of Columbus. To Columbus as an Atlanta bypass the benefits are clear.

But that is the problem... the context of the whole network matters.

Most traffic can bypass Atlanta by going towards Birmingham from Chattanooga if they are going southwest.

If they are going southeast they will still want to stay the course going down I-75.

So now we are talking about an expensive route that just affects traffic to/from Columbus, Tallahassee, and Southwest Georgia.

The conundrum doesn't go away.

Then we have to approach the problem on whether it is better to fund reinforcing I-75 with a third travel lane in rural areas, like we have been building, since a bulk of the traffic will stay on I-75.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

But that is the problem... the context of the whole network matters.

Most traffic can bypass Atlanta by going towards Birmingham from Chattanooga if they are going southwest.

If they are going southeast they will still want to stay the course going down I-75.

So now we are talking about an expensive route that just affects traffic to/from Columbus, Tallahassee, and Southwest Georgia.

The conundrum doesn't go away.

Then we have to approach the problem on whether it is better to fund reinforcing I-75 with a third travel lane in rural areas, like we have been building, since a bulk of the traffic will stay on I-75.

I think I-75 is six lanes now throughout Georgia?

[JoeTarheel]

Originally Posted by AtlantaIsHot

Metropolitan areas are one entity. City proper technicalities are pretty much irrelevant these days. No city on earth stops at it's city limits anymore. Metropolitan areas are much more important.

City-limits populations are insignificant in 2015. MSA/CSA or urban area is the way to measure the size/scope of a city these days. I guess some people don't realize this, but when you are wondering when Atlanta might pass Mesa then that should tell you something immediately...or when you see that El Paso is larger than Boston.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by JMatl

I think I-75 is six lanes now throughout Georgia?

We just recently did that.

And that is exactly what I'm trying to allude to. Is we make choices on how to make these investments. We chose to do that, as opposed to making a whole new interstate corridor with higher costs that really only benefits a handful of cities.

[chiatldal]

Originally Posted by JoeP

No, I did not compare DC/Baltimore with Dallas.

You did on the first and second pages, You said DC was the 4th largest Metro people quickie pointed it's not and you had to add Baltimore. Then posters said they are distinct urban areas with their own identities. This still the first page.

On the second page you quoted a specific sentence from someone mentioning the development between Dallas - For Worth. And you said in the real world "Most people know that DC and Baltimore are one big market for business purposes. I lived there in the 90s and the development between was significant and there was a lot of new stuff happening."

That's comparing DC-Baltimore to DFW. When there not the same thing, DC-Baltimore is a CSA not a MSA, and I used DFW as an example to show you how a two city MSA is like. DC-Baltimore is not.

I stated this because we can't just start adding cities randomly next to each other together because we want them to appear bigger. When they don't function as a MSA. DFW, Minneapolis-St Paul, Tampa–St. Petersburg and etc. Are multi cities metropolitan.


I remember some compared Northeast Ohio...... Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown in 8,000 sq mi which is 5 mil, like that's one MSA. Then compare that to Atlanta. The error was Northeast Ohio doesn't function as a MSA.

It's not "semantics" if we just look at proximity were only looking at density. This creates an error ignoring outward growth. Which is common on city data. Outward growth is measure by commuting ties to central cities. This is why DC-Baltimore is a CSA you can't say it's the 4th largest MSA. On the second page you said this is "meaningless in the real world" In the real world DC-Baltimore are close to each other but their "outward growth" doesn't overlap enough which is why they have distinct identities as two MSA's.

[chiatldal]

MSA is the best measure of a city size because it's immediate

Urban areas is the second, but it's just density over a distance.

CSA your now combining MSA's, It has it's purpose but it doesn't represent the city it's an Conurbation.

[JoeTarheel]

Originally Posted by chiatldal

MSA is the best measure of a city size because it's immediate

Urban areas is the second, but it's just density over a distance.

CSA your now combining MSA's, It has it's purpose but it doesn't represent the city it's an Conurbation.

True...but they are all preferred over city-limits.

Sometimes CSA is only slightly larger than MSA - like in Atlanta's case. Other times it's a massive difference, like San Francisco or DC.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

We just recently did that.

And that is exactly what I'm trying to allude to. Is we make choices on how to make these investments. We chose to do that, as opposed to making a whole new interstate corridor with higher costs that really only benefits a handful of cities.

I agree we make choices. But I-75 is one of the most heavily travelled interstates. Do we want to make it 4 or 5 lanes each way?

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by bu2

I agree we make choices. But I-75 is one of the most heavily travelled interstates. Do we want to make it 4 or 5 lanes each way?

no, but we don't need to.

The issue is what is being put forth wouldn't take much traffic away from I-75. This is a large reason why money went to widening throughout most the state.