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Most different:
Miami/Jacksonville
El Paso/Houston Columbia/Charleston (SC)
Los Angeles/San Francisco
Detroit/Grand Rapids
Fargo/Bismarck (ND)
Most similar:
Indianapolis/Fort Wayne
Louisville/Lexington (smaller version)
Las Vegas/Reno (not that similar but....)
Charlotte/Raleigh
Columbia and Greenville are the most different, easily.
Columbia and Charleston share several similarities: city/metro size, left-leaning politics/ideology, roles in the Civil War, past/present state capitals, past/present largest city in the state, sizable Black populations, colleges/universities, military presence, etc.
For New York state, there are a lot of small cities and towns that draw a pretty strong contrast with NYC in many different ways as New York is a fairly large and populous state and NYC is a very large and dense city.
I think maybe something like a Southern Tier less populous county would probably be the strongest contrast as there were cities there that never had a large manufacturing component and had remained small even during industrialization and were not directly on the Hudson or Erie Canal trade paths or the early Dutch settlements. Maybe Allegany County with its capital of Belmont?
Do Savannah and Atlanta have the same type of population and economic growth disparities that are present in Detroit/Grand Rapids, or Birmingham/Huntsville? Really I think Huntsville and GR are unique in that they are both the only metro's of scale in their states that are growing.
The last 10 years in Birmingham
• 200 development projects has been built or is currently in construction/proposed stage.
• Over $5B has been invested in the city in the last 10 years.
• A newly finished $1B rebuilt/remodel of the downtown interstate bridge/junction.
• Innovation Depot is the largest start-up tech program facility in the Southeast.
• UAB is a top 20 medical school in the country and generates $7B annual to Birmingham economy.
• Alabama first and only BRT system is getting constructed in Birmingham.
• The World Games 2022 is being hosted by Birmingham with a local economic impact close to half a billion dollars.
• 7 county metro area of 1.15M. A third of the state population resides with 50 miles of Birmingham.
• Currently 17 residential developments (condos, lofts, apartments, townhomes, micro -unit) are under construction in downtown.
• Two 17 story residential towers open in 2020.
• Within the next 3 years, another $1B is being invested in the city
• Interstate 65, 20, 59, and 22 connect through Birmingham.
• The state largest urban linear green park (10 city blocks, 1.3 miles) is being constructed downtown.
• Amazon is building 6 logistics facilities in Birmingham.
• 5 of the top 10 largest general constuction contractor companies in the country are headquarted in Birmingham, combined together to generate $4B annual.
• Birmingham is home to the 6th largest home builders association in the country, with over 292 homebuilder members and over 1200 associate members.
• The Birmingham metropolitan area has more than 550 tech companies employing more than 6,300 skilled workers. The city is home to Innovation Depot, in which 112 startups are located throughout a sprawling 140,000-square-foot complex — the largest in the Southeast.
• Birmingham is home to 12 hospitals and several hundred health and medical facilities/clinics.
Last edited by mcalumni01; 03-18-2021 at 09:46 PM..
Seattle and Spokane. I'm often surprised to see Washington license plates when I'm in Spokane, as they show Mount Rainier which is a completely different type of climate.
• 200 development projects has been built or is currently in construction/proposed stage.
• Over $5B has been invested in the city in the last 10 years.
• A newly finished $1B rebuilt/remodel of the downtown interstate bridge/junction.
• Innovation Depot is the largest start-up tech program facility in the Southeast.
• UAB is a top 20 medical school in the country and generates $7B annual to Birmingham economy.
• Alabama first and only BRT system is getting constructed in Birmingham.
• The World Games 2022 is being hosted by Birmingham with a local economic impact close to half a billion dollars.
• 7 county metro area of 1.15M. A third of the state population resides with 50 miles of Birmingham.
• Currently 17 residential developments (condos, lofts, apartments, townhomes, micro -unit) are under construction in downtown.
• Two 17 story residential towers open in 2020.
• Within the next 3 years, another $1B is being invested in the city
• Interstate 65, 20, 59, and 22 connect through Birmingham.
• The state largest urban linear green park (10 city blocks, 1.3 miles) is being constructed downtown.
• Amazon is building 6 logistics facilities in Birmingham.
• 5 of the top 10 largest general constuction contractor companies in the country are headquarted in Birmingham, combined together to generate $4B annual.
• Birmingham is home to the 6th largest home builders association in the country, with over 292 homebuilder members and over 1200 associate members.
• The Birmingham metropolitan area has more than 550 tech companies employing more than 6,300 skilled workers. The city is home to Innovation Depot, in which 112 startups are located throughout a sprawling 140,000-square-foot complex — the largest in the Southeast.
• Birmingham is home to 12 hospitals and several hundred health and medical facilities/clinics.
This thread has nothing to do with investment/development. There was no need to post a boosting list of projects. Both Detroit and Cleveland have also experienced exponential growth in new investment like Birmingham has. The one thing they all have in common is that the investment $ being pumped into them hasn't been enough to shift their overall trajectories.
This thread was supposed to be about understanding why the Huntsville's, Grand Rapids, and Cbus's are out performing them.
This thread has nothing to do with investment/development. There was no need to post a boosting list of projects. Both Detroit and Cleveland have also experienced exponential growth in new investment like Birmingham has. The one thing they all have in common is that the investment $ being pumped into them hasn't been enough to shift their overall trajectories.
This thread was supposed to be about understanding why the Huntsville's, Grand Rapids, and Cbus's are out performing them.
It is what it is. It's just opinions on here. We all are entitled to those. Read what people say and keep it moving. You can't dictate what others say.
By the way you started this thread "same state - different cities". What does how a city is out performing another city has to do with anything. There are no set guideline for people to use when making their own opinion.
Last edited by mcalumni01; 03-19-2021 at 05:24 AM..
In the same metro as Norfolk and VA Beach is the "little" city of Suffolk, VA, birthplace of "Mr. Peanut," the mascot of the Planters' Peanuts co., with its quaint downtown, cottonfields and famous peanut farms. The city of about 100k, has expansive borders that run to the NC line and also encompass the Great Dismal Swamp, definitely giving the area an almost deep south feel which is just totally different from the Mid-Atlantic vibes of the beach cities a short drive away.
In the same metro as Norfolk and VA Beach is the "little" city of Suffolk, VA, birthplace of "Mr. Peanut," the mascot of the Planters' Peanuts co., with its quaint downtown, cottonfields and famous peanut farms. The city of about 100k, has expansive borders that run to the NC line and also encompass the Great Dismal Swamp, definitely giving the area an almost deep south feel which is just totally different from the Mid-Atlantic vibes of the beach cities a short drive away.
I thought I was alone in this assessment. I visited Norfolk a couple of years ago and hopped on U.S. 58 to head back home. It looked just like parts of AL and GA.
• 200 development projects has been built or is currently in construction/proposed stage.
• Over $5B has been invested in the city in the last 10 years.
• A newly finished $1B rebuilt/remodel of the downtown interstate bridge/junction.
• Innovation Depot is the largest start-up tech program facility in the Southeast.
• UAB is a top 20 medical school in the country and generates $7B annual to Birmingham economy.
• Alabama first and only BRT system is getting constructed in Birmingham.
• The World Games 2022 is being hosted by Birmingham with a local economic impact close to half a billion dollars.
• 7 county metro area of 1.15M. A third of the state population resides with 50 miles of Birmingham.
• Currently 17 residential developments (condos, lofts, apartments, townhomes, micro -unit) are under construction in downtown.
• Two 17 story residential towers open in 2020.
• Within the next 3 years, another $1B is being invested in the city
• Interstate 65, 20, 59, and 22 connect through Birmingham.
• The state largest urban linear green park (10 city blocks, 1.3 miles) is being constructed downtown.
• Amazon is building 6 logistics facilities in Birmingham.
• 5 of the top 10 largest general constuction contractor companies in the country are headquarted in Birmingham, combined together to generate $4B annual.
• Birmingham is home to the 6th largest home builders association in the country, with over 292 homebuilder members and over 1200 associate members.
• The Birmingham metropolitan area has more than 550 tech companies employing more than 6,300 skilled workers. The city is home to Innovation Depot, in which 112 startups are located throughout a sprawling 140,000-square-foot complex — the largest in the Southeast.
• Birmingham is home to 12 hospitals and several hundred health and medical facilities/clinics.
That's great but none of that has really resulted in population growth and a reduction in crime and run down areas.
It is what it is. It's just opinions on here. We all are entitled to those. Read what people say and keep it moving. You can't dictate what others say.
By the way you started this thread "same state - different cities". What does how a city is out performing another city has to do with anything. There are no set guideline for people to use when making their own opinion.
The OP seems pretty clear that in that it was looking for examples that compare two cities in the same state that seem to be on opposite paths. It's not clear to me how a list of projects from Birmingham(which is not at all unique to Bham) had anything to do with that?
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