Which city is becoming less relevant as its population increases? (salary, tallest)
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Remember, we're just two years off an actual count of the population, and the estimates are relative to that benchmark. I think that what the recent decennial censuses show is that if anything, the estimates tend to underestimate city population growth slightly,
Underestimates doesn't account for cities going red. And we can't base all census results on 2020.
The 2010 census showed most cities were OVER estimated rather than UNDERestimated. Cities such as Dallas and Atlanta were over estimated by 15%. That's huge.
Atlanta still has not reached the population numbers the estimates were predicting in 2009.
Dallas was estimated to have grown by 200k in the 00s, and the 2010 census showed that that number was more like 11k. Huge difference.
The 2010s estimates may just have been out of an overabundance of caution so that the census numbers would not be wildly lower as they were in 2010.
I think what it is, is that the estimates fail to capture shifts fast enough. For example, a place like Houston slows down when times are good but speeds up during recession. At the turn of the century DFW and Atlanta were on fire. There was talk of Atlanta metro passing Houston. At the census though Houston in actuality posted the biggest numbers and the 2009 estimate was an Underestimate.
I'm not sure what goes into the estimates, but it certainly doesn't capture changes quick enough. I think the wfh picture isn't being fully grasped. CBD vacancy rates are up, but the story isn't all doom and gloom. I think this is a turning point for good. Around the country office space was king in CBDs. Wfh is allowing for conversion of older business space to residential. Hopefully that will result in more vibrant cbds and hopefully will attract more interest in building new office in CBDs again. My fear is that the 3 or so years the situation will have changed but the estimates will still be using 2021 formulas
Jacksonville is a sleeping giant, and anyone voting for it here clearly has no clue. Its downtown area is a huge asset and until recently largely un-utilized. Once completed the new improvements will ignite all kinds of other projects nearby. Besides that other than Miami-Fort Lauderdale, it has the most diverse economy in the state and as such not reliant on tourism like Orlando. The IT sector is growing as well as manufacturing and transportation/logistics, adding to an already sizable medical community and military/defense presence.
Jacksonville hasn't been the largest metro in Florida since the 1930s. Both Tampa and Miami surpassed it after air conditioning became widespread, and advancing technology made it easier to develop the swampy southern 2/3rds of Florida. I don't necessarily agree that what happened 90 years ago should constitute the benchmark for this thread.
I know I'm in the minority here but I think folks are disproportionately hard on JAX on City-Data. That top level city pop number doesn't do it any favors and is deceiving. Probably the best example of why city population should not be used for size comparisons. Jacksonville is the 39th largest metropolitan area. It's skyline is in proportion with other 1.6 million metro's. It's economic output performs well against it's peer metro's and is growing faster, and it's one fastest growing metro's in the country.
Is it becoming "less relevant" as it's population grows? Well that's obviously subjective and hard to measure. To me "less relevant" implies one of 2 things:
1. Other peer cities are becoming more relevant and surpassing JAX. In that case which ones, and how?
2. Major cities/metros are becoming so relevant they are absorbing "relevancy" from all smaller cities/metros. In which case all cities and metro's under a certain size are becoming less relevant by default. (I think if the premise of the thread is true this is the more likely option.)
I don't agree that with it's growth and economic development over the last 20 years that JAX has become less relevant. I think this is more a case of the social contagion and group think that happens on here, where certain cities are automatically written off without forum posters considering objective evidence first.
Jacksonville is a sleeping giant, and anyone voting for it here clearly has no clue. Its downtown area is a huge asset and until recently largely un-utilized. Once completed the new improvements will ignite all kinds of other projects nearby. Besides that other than Miami-Fort Lauderdale, it has the most diverse economy in the state and as such not reliant on tourism like Orlando. The IT sector is growing as well as manufacturing and transportation/logistics, adding to an already sizable medical community and military/defense presence.
I've been reading recently that Jacksonville has been growing and is projected to grow at a pace similar to Atlanta and Nashville. It seems like Jacksonville has come out of nowhere all of the sudden in terms of growth. I've been curious about what changed.
I get the impression that Jacksonville's seaport is booming, presumably as a result of all the growth of nearby metro areas such as Atlanta and Orlando. But also I think I recall reading that Jacksonville has really risen up as a center for financial services. Dun and Bradstreet which does something with data analytics moved its headquarters from NJ to Jacksonville, so something is happening there.
I did some reading on Jacksonville, for example why Fidelity Investments moved its headquarters for part of its business to Jacksonville, creating 750-1000 financial services jobs.
They said in their current location in Santa Barbara, the people whom they were trying to recruit to move to Santa Barbara couldn't afford to live there without commuting 70 miles to work. In order to grow the business, they needed to move somewhere that was affordable for potential employees.
Additionally they wanted proximity to clients along the East coast and needed to be near a major airport to access cities along the East coast. Beyond that it sounds like they actually did consider Jacksonville's warm weather (presumably for staff recruiting purposes). And I'm assuming Jacksonville's location is more convenient to the rest of the country than other places in Florida.
So basically companies want an affordable beach town and a major airport.
I was in Jacksonville this summer for a conference. Coming from Philly, Jax's downtown seemed utterly deserted besides police officers and homeless. It felt a little sketchy and the one 7/11 had a bunch of people loitering outside.
On the other hand, it was nice that there was at least some light rail public transit. There were also bird scooters, though they were weirdly limited to a very small and useless area. There was some development going on, and I saw a building or two that looked like they were converted to luxury apartments. I worked from a coffee shop, the only one I could find but it was cool, and also went to a nice bar with a speakeasy vibe. It has a long way to go IMO but there is real potential based on the the built environment. I just don't know where all the people were.
One area that was rather nice was the area of King Street - not sure if the neighborhood is called Five Points, Riverside, or what - but there was a nice main street with some bars, shops, and restaurants.
St Augustine property has gone to pluto.
They dredge every swamp...... creating big bass ponds
throw the muck up on the bank..... grade it out 10 feet higher
put in cul-de-sacs, 9 hole golf & 4 bedroom homes,
connect them to the previous and next one's via canals.
Rinse and Repeat from the Intercoastal to 15~20mi inland
(incl all the [Green Citrus diseased] dead orange groves)
from Stuart Beach to Jeckyll Island (appears to be the game plan).
Soon the whole state will be subdivisions
and 300,000 excruciatingly-loud obnoxious V6 mustangs.
The ugly world we live.
I voted Jacksonville. It's always been in Miami's shadow and I think going forward it will be increasingly outshined by Orlando and to a lesser extent Tampa
Was Jacksonville ever considered a similar city when it came to population and economic influence, vs. Tampa or Orlando? I have this weird feeling Jax was never quite as big of a city(same with how important it was considered, for its importance) as Orlando or Tampa, but what do I know? Where Jax is more like say Pensacola or Mobile sized, in its influence.
And for some reason, I get this feeling Jax got very lucky, in landing the Jaguars. Since to me whenever I've street viewed that city, Jax doesn't seem like the most interesting City. It has a handful of nice neighborhoods(like one to the southwest of downtown), the area near the riverfront, and the beach area, but for whatever reason I was hoping Jax would jump out to me more as a City. Sometimes I've wondered if there are any interesting neighborhoods in Jax I should street view, that for all I know I missed out in looking at?
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