Atlanta Emerging as One of Largest Tech Hubs (Jackson: colleges, to live in)

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

Your population statistics for Anderson, Spartanburg, and Greenville at the time of the founding of Clemson University, which was in 1889, are inaccurate.

My apologies. I accidentally looked at he 1850s. I was analyzing Auburn side by side and it was founded in 1856 and got that mixed up.

Seeing that is so late in the 1800s and there was the College of Charleston that was larger for the time period, I can totally get your point that those were concerned upstate were left out.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Atlwarrior

Dang, it's so disrespectful to hijack others' thread when you know it will be closed when you get off-topic. For the love of God, take this topic to the city vs. city thread.

Well, I kind of like hearing folks talk about the history. It provides context for what happens today.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Atlwarrior

Dang, it's so disrespectful to hijack others' thread when you know it will be closed when you get off-topic. For the love of God, take this topic to the city vs. city thread.

This must be a joke since we've done nothing but talk about about other tech hubs throughout the country since this thread was created AND I have defended the validity of the topic at hand. I wasn't even the one to bring up neighboring universities or the only one to elaborate on them at length so singling me out isn't a good look on your part.

I suggest you redirect your righteous indignation elsewhere.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

My apologies. I accidentally looked at he 1850s. I was analyzing Auburn side by side and it was founded in 1856 and got that mixed up.

Seeing that is so late in the 1800s and there was the College of Charleston that was larger for the time period, I can totally get your point that those were concerned upstate were left out.

No problem. You're usually quite on point with your observations so I figured something might have been amiss.

[walker1962]

Originally Posted by JMatl

This is possibly your most desperate reach yet. With the exception of a single commuter rail line with an extremely limited schedule and abysmal ridership, Nashville doesn't have any rail transit. Their recent vote for a light rail network was defeated by a whopping 70% of voters. There are currently no plans to try again, they are talking about BRT instead. Charlotte on the other hand is a good 20 years ahead of Nashville with a single 18 mile long LRT line, and several streetcar lines under construction in the core. There are impressive plans in place to expand the LRT system. Nashville needs to worry about Charlotte before concerning itself with Atlanta.


MARTA meanwhile has 48 miles of HRT transit that has been well maintained, and with higher ridership than all of DFW's more expansive separate systems combined. MARTA just totally rebuilt the Gold/Red line junction to the tune of $240 million, and has hundreds of sleek new rail cars on order. To portray Atlanta's rail transit as "the shortest midget in the room" is perhaps your most bizarre and ridiculous claim yet.

Nothing desperate at all. Marta does good but its not a really a regional rail asset as it doesn't touch Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton counties DART/TRE/Tarrant/Denton rail is a true regional rail asset.

Nashville made a mistake but relative to Atlanta the area has good mobility. I fault Atlanta for not expanding beyond two new stations in 30 years and not building the Outer Perimeter. I stand by my opinion that Nashville and Charlotte have become even greater competition for greater Atlanta. DFW has had that competition from Houston for generations and now has Austin and to a lesser extent Denver. But DFW is the premier MSA in the sunbelt and I'm saying such as a native of Houston. Its central location helps it draw from all north American regions. The biggest worry I have is State leadership half-stepping on ensuring the power grid issues are adequately addressed.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by walker1962

Nothing desperate at all. Marta does good but its not a really a regional rail asset as it doesn't touch Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton counties DART/TRE/Tarrant/Denton rail is a true regional rail asset.

Nashville made a mistake but relative to Atlanta the area has good mobility. I fault Atlanta for not expanding beyond two new stations in 30 years and not building the Outer Perimeter. I stand by my opinion that Nashville and Charlotte have become even greater competition for greater Atlanta. DFW has had that competition from Houston for generations and now has Austin and to a lesser extent Denver. But DFW is the premier MSA in the sunbelt and I'm saying such as a native of Houston. Its central location helps it draw from all north American regions. The biggest worry I have is State leadership half-stepping on ensuring the power grid issues are adequately addressed.

MARTA does go to Clayton County directly.
GCT goes to Gwinnett.
CobbLinc goes to Cobb.
GCT and CobbLinc both have express buses into town.
Xpress has express buses in all of these listed main counties and many more in the region.

Percent of the metro area using Transit/walk as a means to commute to work:
Atlanta 6.3%
Dallas 4.0%
Houston 4.6%
Nashville 3.9%
Charlotte 4.5%

None of these cities are going to win over transit advocates from the largest Pre-WWII cities, but Atlanta is the clear stand out of this pack of fast growing Sunbelt metro areas.

You're praise of Nashville and Charlotte really boils to they are smaller and still centered on one main county in the region and they were your initial comparison. You seem to add Dallas late in the the follow up rebuttal, but ultimately Dallas transit spread has been ineffective at getting more people to use it, in comparison.

Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago actually share many key qualities in being a central location. They are the 3 largest inland freight hubs in the US. Dallas is only more centrally located when you need to access the 16% of the country's population on the west coast with a heavier concentration. It is further from the heavily populated Northeast corridor (DC-NYC-PHL-BOS) to get that advantage.

Atlanta is more centrally located relative to the population of the country. Atlanta is about equidistant between most of the major population centers not on the west coast. You can draw a circle and it comes close to passing through Chicago, Dallas, Houston, DC-NYC-Bos-PHL corridor, and Miami/S. Florida. Atlanta can uniquely say they are in the within 2 hours raw flight time (wheels up/wheels down; no ATC delays) to 80% of the country's population home airport.

Chicago has further to travel to Florida in a similar analysis, but maintains good distance to the Texas Triangle, DC-NYC-PHL-BOS, and Atlanta. They gain a slight advantage to reaching the west coast. The Midwest is also a bit more heavily populated, even if it is not growing as much. This has made them a successful traditional inland hub.

In short, Atlanta's central location has also made it a major destination and a go-to locale for companies with more frequent business travelers than average.

This is why Atlanta is a great location as a rapidly growing tech hub and a major FinTech center.

[Need4Camaro]

I personally feel the main thing that draws tech is local talent, universities, historical and cultural amenities as well as recreational outlets of which make a city an interesting place to live. Atlanta has this in abundance as well. Tech being heavily virtualized with meetings able to be conducted over Xoom, Microsoft Teams, ect isn’t very dependent on air travel IMO. I mean I’m sure they have their share of flights but AUS attracts plenty of tech companies but isn’t a very strong hub for flights compared to Houston and DFW.

[markjames68]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

I personally feel the main thing that draws tech is local talent, universities, historical and cultural amenities as well as recreational outlets of which make a city an interesting place to live. Atlanta has this in abundance as well. Tech being heavily virtualized with meetings able to be conducted over Xoom, Microsoft Teams, ect isn’t very dependent on air travel IMO. I mean I’m sure they have their share of flights but AUS attracts plenty of tech companies but isn’t a very strong hub for flights compared to Houston and DFW.

Depends on the level they’re hiring for.

If it’s support, lower level product marketing, sales ops, etc. then no, travel isn’t a big thing.

But for higher levels travel is still relevant and required. Atlanta’s direct flights are a help.

[LynnHarris1]

How did Atlanta become a top breeding ground for billion-dollar startups in the Southeast?

Over the past five years, the Southeastern region, led by Atlanta, has gone from being “one of the best kept secrets” in tech, to a vibrant ecosystem teeming with a herd of the billion dollar tech businesses that are referred to in the investment world as “unicorns..."

https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/02/ho...the-southeast/

SOURCE: Techcrunch

[Atlwarrior]

Insurance tech company expands to Atlanta.

https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/...Pos=3#cxrecs_s