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Even assuming they keep the current rate of growth. Legacy cities like San Fran, Pittsburgh, Philly, DC, Boston, Baltimore, NYC etc.. all had literally had 1-2 century head starts in building their urban fabrics, are substantially smaller in geographic foot print and their population density shows.
Not all "legacy" cities had a head start. San Francisco and Chicago were smaller or comparable in size to Louisville, Nashville, Raleigh, Austin, Indianapolis, etc. leading up to the civil war, but subsequently boomed.
The fact that these cities aren't "legacy" is merely a result of their moderate and oftentimes lackluster growth.
Usually hype is a four letter word, it implies undeserved recognition or reputation. Not in Nashville's case. It will at least meet the deserved hype and honestly shouldn't be on this list. It's rubbing elbows (and putting a scare) in the NYC, LA, and Chicago's of this world.
Nashville had the 20th largest absolute growth amongst U.S. metros from 2010-2018. It was ranked 8th in percentage growth among sunbelt regions.
The fact that it's not even in the top 5 in either metric suggests some level of hype.
Of those choices I'd pick Austin. Although, I don't think any of these places will be legacy cities any time soon. Their growth is mainly sprawl. Some of them haven't even been able to make concrete long-term plans for transit, so definitely not promising.
I voted for Austin for two reasons-The Guadalupe (an approved 848 foot skyscraper being prepped now) and Capital MetroRail (a 32 mile commuter rail). How cool they think they are or how many people moved there to get a bigger house and yard is meaningless in this.
Getting a scrape that tall going is a huge deal in this country. Getting a commuter rail built post 2010 in Texas is an even bigger deal. Now that's its built, expansion is more likely than anything else. I haven't read too many stories about cities dismantling rail systems lately.
Though IMO, Austin is still more suburban appearing than several of the others on this poll, those two things I mentioned give them MASSIVE bragging rights over the other six candidates. I could care less what their population growth is.
Nashville had the 20th largest absolute growth amongst U.S. metros from 2010-2018. It was ranked 8th in percentage growth among sunbelt regions.
The fact that it's not even in the top 5 in either metric suggests some level of hype.
That doesn't tell the full story, how many structures are under construction in it's downtown areas though? When you ride through I-65 and see cranes in every direction you look, that should tell you there's something special happening in Nashville right now. Also in raw numbers, Nashville is #5 in white growth from 2013-2018, right behind the DFW juggernaut at 98,172, that's more than 3 times the amount of whites that moved to Atlanta during the same period. Amazon is building a huge office there as are other companies. Nashville will be the crown Jewel of the south in 5-10 years.
Honestly.... None of them, or at least not for several decades even assuming they keep the current rate of growth.
Legacy cities like San Fran, Pittsburgh, Philly, DC, Boston, Baltimore, NYC etc.. all had literally 1-2 century head starts in building their urban fabrics, all are substantially smaller in geographic foot print and hence their population densities shows.
Couple this with how they were built (an era before the car where people either had to train, horse or walk) and you end up with a cities that revolve around a hyper dense & extremely built up urban cores thats almost impossible to replicate simply due to cultural, technological and economic shifts in how we live and build cities today.
These cities can and probably will have great big bustling downtowns, and have characteristic of a legacy city but their never going to look and feel like one.
Mainstream assumption, not really correct.
Raleigh was chartered as a city in the 1790's. It's a big and usually wrong assumption that any of these cities are "new." Austin has been a city longer than Dallas. We can assume at least some CBD structure is still intact from their inception.
If they were irrelevant while the other cities boomed, I don't buy "hey we're new on the scene" as a way to save face for 150 years of quiet irrelevance.
Also, almost every American city has some kind of pre-1900 historical urban core to build around.
Not all "legacy" cities had a head start. San Francisco and Chicago were smaller or comparable in size to Louisville, Nashville, Raleigh, Austin, Indianapolis, etc. leading up to the civil war, but subsequently boomed.
The fact that these cities aren't "legacy" is merely a result of their moderate and oftentimes lackluster growth.
I'd argue the reason for the boom is why their titled as "legacy" not so much their initial size.
The vast majority of the legacy cities were either built around immigration (SF, NYC, Boston, Baltimore, St. Louis, etc) or manufacturing (Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland etc..) or in Chicago case a transportation hub, none of which those above cities started out as, hence why they never blue up into the monsters we see today.
Usually hype is a four letter word, it implies undeserved recognition or reputation. Not in Nashville's case. It will at least meet the deserved hype and honestly shouldn't be on this list. It's rubbing elbows (and putting a scare) in the NYC, LA, and Chicago's of this world.
They voted down a basic light rail system.
If the confidence about population growth met the hype, it would have passed without hesitation and stations would be opening next year.
Not being able to get a local consensus on metro rail is a hallmark red flag of hype cities. Also don't see anything taller than 600 feet planned for Nashville's buildings. They build 1100 footers in seismic zones on the west coast in order to live up to hype.
Raleigh was chartered as a city in the 1790's. It's a big and usually wrong assumption that any of these cities are "new." Austin has been a city longer than Dallas. We can assume at least some CBD structure is still intact from their inception.
If they were irrelevant while the other cities boomed, I don't buy "hey we're new on the scene" as a way to save face for 150 years of quiet irrelevance.
Also, almost every American city has some kind of pre-1900 historical urban core to build around.
Nobody is saying they are all new cities. People are pointing out most of their growth occurred after the advent of the automobile and the trend of sub-urbanization, therefore they never has a reason to have a dense core like Chicago, and Northeastern cities that mostly grew before that period.
Raleigh was chartered as a city in the 1790's. It's a big and usually wrong assumption that any of these cities are "new." Austin has been a city longer than Dallas. We can assume at least some CBD structure is still intact from their inception.
If they were irrelevant while the other cities boomed, I don't buy "hey we're new on the scene" as a way to save face for 150 years of quiet irrelevance.
Also, almost every American city has some kind of pre-1900 historical urban core to build around.
I don't discredit their existence, but being settled during the same time doesn't mean they were destined to grow, function or have the same economic success the others cities had.
Auston or Raleigh were never going to grow in the same way a Boston, SF or Baltimore did because they were land locked by hundreds of miles while the latter were points of immigration on coast that fueled their growths. It didn't help that rail network was still centered in the NE/Great Lakes region at this time.
During this time of American history, city location was everything regarding growth.
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