Atlanta VS Minneapolis VS Austin VS Seattle vs Detroit (populations, metro, living)
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Seattle is too expensive to be a center for regional HQs or secondary offices.
The exception is high-value areas where we can attract people who won't go to the main HQ...says every tech in San Francisco, as they all seem to have big engineering offices here.
I think one of the early draws of seattle was that it's cheaper than SF....by far
Because Seattle's downtown and other core districts are on another level. If you expand to the city limits it's a closer comparison but people notice the cores more.
I agree that MSP is a good second here, roughly on Atlanta's level.
I've been to all of these cities at least somewhat recently, except Austin, which I've never been to. I don't believe that Atlanta's core and Seattle's core are nearly as separated as you. They're very closely ranked to me and certainly downtown Minneapolis isn't on the same tier as Atlanta.
Detroit in some ways feels bigger than all of them to me. Big city big, I mean. To me, I can see from what hasn't crumbled or been abandoned that Detroit reached a level that none of these other cities have reached yet. But it's not there anymore.
Minneapolis should definitely be ahead of Austin, but it doesn’t feel larger or more vibrant than Seattle or Atlanta. I’ve never been to Detroit so I can’t say for sure but I’d assume it’s either slightly ahead or on par with Minneapolis when it comes to “big city feel.â€
How so? I've been to both and they don't resemble each other to me.
Between SEA & MSP...
Both are very core-centric metro's (Atlanta is way more spread out than both MSP and Seattle and also has more employment centers spread through its metro, the inner city area is more core-centric but as a metro is not very core-centric overall.)
Both have similar build designs in terms of connected indoor plaza's and buildings both in downtown and its suburbs (although this is more-so because of the weather in both regions is less forgiving)
Both are more dependent on their respective bus systems.
Both also have LRT & Commuter Rail serving their core (Atlanta more resembles the Northeast such as D.C. and NYC and has HRT -- HRT has the advantage in efficiency and MARTA rail has more passengers than both however.)
That stated, having lived in Seattle and also Atlanta, the two are apples and oranges different metro's. There are way more people living in the core in Seattle where Atlanta is more on par with MSP in terms of population in the core area:
I've been to all of these cities at least somewhat recently, except Austin, which I've never been to. I don't believe that Atlanta's core and Seattle's core are nearly as separated as you. They're very closely ranked to me and certainly downtown Minneapolis isn't on the same tier as Atlanta.
Detroit in some ways feels bigger than all of them to me. Big city big, I mean. To me, I can see from what hasn't crumbled or been abandoned that Detroit reached a level that none of these other cities have reached yet. But it's not there anymore.
Last time I checked on residential densities in the two greater-downtown areas it was pretty stark, like 2:1. A decade ago it was something like 20,000/sm vs. 10,000. Greater DT Seattle has grown faster since then. In a 4.7-sm area we've had 37,000 starts since mid-2010. Even by the State's 2019 estimates, we hit 29,000/sm for a 4.7 sm area and 33,000/sm in 2.7 sm.
Tourism isn't particularly close. Last year DT Minneapolis reported 9,120 hotel rooms, and Seattle had 16,000 over a similar area (with much higher occupancy) despite being a smaller convention market. Much of the difference it tourism...Seattle's core has busy tourist districts and MSP's doesn't.
It's hard to compare office space apples-to-apples (brokerage reports aren't good for that) but DT Seattle's is larger. Also it's had several times the construction in the past decade with about 16,000,000 sf started since 2012.
Last time I checked on residential densities in the two greater-downtown areas it was pretty stark, like 2:1. A decade ago it was something like 20,000/sm vs. 10,000. Greater DT Seattle has grown faster since then. In a 4.7-sm area we've had 37,000 starts since mid-2010. Even by the State's 2019 estimates, we hit 29,000/sm for a 4.7 sm area and 33,000/sm in 2.7 sm.
Tourism isn't particularly close. Last year DT Minneapolis reported 9,120 hotel rooms, and Seattle had 16,000 over a similar area (with much higher occupancy) despite being a smaller convention market. Much of the difference it tourism...Seattle's core has busy tourist districts and MSP's doesn't.
It's hard to compare office space apples-to-apples (brokerage reports aren't good for that) but DT Seattle's is larger. Also it's had several times the construction in the past decade with about 16,000,000 sf started since 2012.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I never suggested that the cores of Seattle and Minneapolis were on the same tier, I was saying that the cores of Atlanta and Seattle were on the same tier and that Minneapolis was after.
DT Atlanta has a huge convention industry, but everything else is Seattle in that comparison. As with Minneapolis, greater DT Atlanta has had a lot of construction, but Seattle's has been on a different scale in the residential and office sectors.
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