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Nashville has 2nd Ave/Broadway, cool venues, nightlife and daylife, nice blend of styles, an active restaurant and rooftop scene: it just oozes energy and all the entertainment blends in very well with the corporate-ness. Plus unlike the other two cities, it's on a river which just adds to the appeal. Biggest dings are lack of grocery, too much luxury flooding in too quick, and no transit - not even a street car line like Kansas City.
Charlotte uptown is bland, but it's clean, there's some entertainment, and it seems very easy to live in. Charlotte was progressive with the light rail and there's a Whole Foods coming, plus some other big boxes and Trader Joes right across 277, though it's not walkable. It's an urban live/work/place, but not a typical one.
I know it may soon change, but as of now overall downtown Atlanta to me is dirtier, lacking appeal, and less inviting outside of obvious areas like Centennial Park. Charlotte and Atlanta both made the mistake of not adding some streetside retail if you're gonna build a giant, soulless block-swallowing concrete parking garage.
As someone said, a lot of the retail in downtown Atlanta is the metal pull down bars type retail, and there's a lot of typical chains. Atlanta's problem is what could've gone to downtown in terms of amenities and attention has been pulled away from everywhere else.
Charlotte pretty much has uptown, Nashville pretty much has downtown, Atlanta has downtown...and then Midtown, and Buckhead, and Perimeter, and Cumberland, and I guess you can say Alpharetta. It's a blessing and curse. Imagine if all of that was concentrated in one place, it'd be truly massive. So does downtown Atlanta lack? Yes, but it doesn't lack in the same reason many other downtowns do, Atlanta is just so massive and there's so many different areas wanting pieces of the pie. I'm excited to see if these downtown developments actually go through. Seems the developers are really focused on adaptive re-use.
Charlotte pretty much has uptown, Nashville pretty much has downtown, Atlanta has downtown...and then Midtown, and Buckhead, and Perimeter, and Cumberland, and I guess you can say Alpharetta.
In that case, Charlotte also has South End, South Park, Ballantyne, University City, etc. Nashville also has Midtown and other areas. I see your point regarding Atlanta, but really it's only Midtown that has detracted from downtown. The rest are self-sustaining districts far enough removed from downtown. A metro the size of Atlanta will naturally have multiple commercial/office districts dispersed throughout, even with a strong primary downtown.
In that case, Charlotte also has South End, South Park, Ballantyne, University City, etc. Nashville also has Midtown and other areas. I see your point regarding Atlanta, but really it's only Midtown that has detracted from downtown. The rest are self-sustaining districts far enough removed from downtown. A metro the size of Atlanta will naturally have multiple commercial/office districts dispersed throughout, even with a strong primary downtown.
Atlanta really is in a league of it's own. Yes Nashville has Midtown, and Gulch, and Antioch and Metrocenter, and so on, I'm aware, and Charlotte has Ballantyne and South Park and UC and so on, but none of those is a Cumberland, or a Sandy Springs, or a Buckead.
Also doesn't matter that they're not "attached", they still fight for office space, amenities, people, and so on. Cumberland just got the Braves, Perimeter just got shiny new State Farm and Mercedes towers. West Rock moved 800 jobs to Perimeter. NCR and others moving into Midtown. Buckhead has taken all the luxury. Imagine if they had all came to downtown instead.
This feels really redundant because you're already aware of all this..., and this is headed towards semantics. My whole point was theoretically, if Cumberland + Perimeter + Alpharetta + Buckhead + Midtown didn't exist, downtown Atlanta would probably be unparalleled in terms of offices, amenities, attractions, food, residences, etc, etc. Those areas have clearly helped suck downtown dry throughout the years in a way that South Park or Midtown Nashville has not. Downtown Atlanta imo for the most part stinks, as of now, but unlike many other cities, that's just because it has so much competition from elsewhere. That's it.
Charlotte uptown is bland, but it's clean, there's some entertainment, and it seems very easy to live in. Charlotte was progressive with the light rail and there's a Whole Foods coming, plus some other big boxes and Trader Joes right across 277, though it's not walkable. It's an urban live/work/place, but not a typical one.
You just explained most of the development that's going on around Downtown Nashville though. It's not really "Urban," "Dense," or "Walkable."
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Originally Posted by Jandrew5
Atlanta really is in a league of it's own. Yes Nashville has Midtown, and Gulch, and Antioch and Metrocenter, and so on, I'm aware, and Charlotte has Ballantyne and South Park and UC and so on, but none of those is a Cumberland, or a Sandy Springs, or a Buckead.
Also doesn't matter that they're not "attached", they still fight for office space, amenities, people, and so on. Cumberland just got the Braves, Perimeter just got shiny new State Farm and Mercedes towers. West Rock moved 800 jobs to Perimeter. NCR and others moving into Midtown. Buckhead has taken all the luxury. Imagine if they had all came to downtown instead.
I do agree with this. This is the product of having an Extensive Metro Area, something that Charlotte and Nashville lacks. There's no Decatur or Sandy Springs in Charlotte's or Nashville's Metro Area.
You just explained most of the development that's going on around Downtown Nashville though. It's not really "Urban," "Dense," or "Walkable."
I do agree with this. This is the product of having an Extensive Metro Area, something that Charlotte and Nashville lacks. There's no Decatur or Sandy Springs in Charlotte's or Nashville's Metro Area.
Not quite true.. Cool Springs/ Franklin-Brentwood area is Sandy Springs equivalent and is a Edge City of Nashville and Antioch and or Madison area is sorta similar and reminds me of Decatur.
Atlanta really is in a league of it's own. Yes Nashville has Midtown, and Gulch, and Antioch and Metrocenter, and so on, I'm aware, and Charlotte has Ballantyne and South Park and UC and so on, but none of those is a Cumberland, or a Sandy Springs, or a Buckead.
Well that's mainly because neither Charlotte or Nashville are big enough to support other commercial districts that size. But both do have other office districts with a good bit of office space at the least.
Charlotte doesn't have particularly tall buildings outside of Uptown like in the first picture, but the second picture? That could easily be South Park or Ballantyne. Heck, it could even be Fort Mill with the tons of companies that have relocated there over the years if they ever embraced mixed-use suburban developments.
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Also doesn't matter that they're not "attached", they still fight for office space, amenities, people, and so on. Cumberland just got the Braves, Perimeter just got shiny new State Farm and Mercedes towers. West Rock moved 800 jobs to Perimeter. NCR and others moving into Midtown. Buckhead has taken all the luxury. Imagine if they had all came to downtown instead.
While Uptown Charlotte is clearly the dominant district in its city, it's not as if it hasn't lost out to significant developments that have landed elsewhere in the city or the suburbs. MetLife's U.S. retail business headquarters (1300 jobs) went to Ballantyne. RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing Corp. (500 jobs), LPL Financial (1500 jobs), and the Lash Group (1200 jobs) all moved their headquarters to Fort Mill in recent years. LendingTree is headquartered in Ballantyne and located 300+ new jobs in South Park a few years back. AXA is adding 500+ new jobs in University. And so on and so forth. There's no metro of significant size that has EVERYTHING downtown, even those with strong, dominant downtowns.
The reason I say Midtown is the only district that has truly detracted from downtown is because it is the only other truly urban commercial district in metro Atlanta and it has everything that downtown lacks. You could probably make a lesser case for Cumberland with the new Braves Stadium and Cobb Energy Center, but that's a different type of dynamic in play as Cobb has long tried to compete with the city of Atlanta.
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This feels really redundant because you're already aware of all this..., and this is headed towards semantics. My whole point was theoretically, if Cumberland + Perimeter + Alpharetta + Buckhead + Midtown didn't exist, downtown Atlanta would probably be unparalleled in terms of offices, amenities, attractions, food, residences, etc, etc. Those areas have clearly helped suck downtown dry throughout the years in a way that South Park or Midtown Nashville has not. Downtown Atlanta imo for the most part stinks, as of now, but unlike many other cities, that's just because it has so much competition from elsewhere. That's it.
I get what you're saying hypothetically (I really do), but that's not a realistic scenario. However, if there was no Midtown and everything that has gone to Midtown went to downtown instead, that would have been more than sufficient to make downtown a truly complete downtown and the undisputed number one commercial/office/entertainment district in the metro. That is something that could have actually happened. Midtown represents the "missing half" of downtown with more modern residential, more restaurants, cultural facilities (the Fox, the High, etc.), nightlife, a large signature park, more retail (Atlantic Station is in Midtown), etc.
Basically, Buckhead, Cumberland, and Alpharetta would have most likely happened in any scenario; Perimeter is a bit more iffy as it's questionable if it would have become another commercial district if it were annexed by Atlanta. Midtown, though, wasn't inevitable and it is very conceivable that just about all of the development that has taken place there within the past 40 years or so could have shifted just a few short miles to the south.
Some comparisons on here are just outright disrespectful
What is that supposed to mean?
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