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I don't know about Charlotte but Dallas and Houston are not MUCH more affordable. I guess this is why I'm seeing more Georgia license plates around Houston now. Truth be told, if you can't afford to live in the desirable areas of Atlanta, you won't be able to afford the desirable areas of Houston and Dallas either.
I'll give you a perfect example, when I was living in Atlanta my Wife and I lived in Chamblee in 2015. When we moved into our 1 bedroom apartment rent was $1075 a month. This was right as the area was starting to see a boom in construction. I knew nothing about Chamblee at the time. Didn't know it existed till a realtor showed us the property and said it's an ideal location if you work in the North Burbs but want a quick access to the city. Now a 1 bedroom apartment is starting at $1500 a month!!! A 2 bd apartment is starting at $1,900.00.
Now when we moved into our apartment here in an area called the Energy Corridor a 2 bd apartment starts at $1,745.00. Now Energy Corridor is about 33-35 mins away from downtown Houston. The area is a mix bag. I definitely wouldn't say it's as desirable as the part of Chamblee we lived in but it's solid. Not ghetto but not too far from it. It's Houston so in Houston you'll have these nice affluent neighborhoods (Memorial) surrounded by affordable "low" income complexes. More congestion and crime in the areas surrounding Energy Corridor than what we had in Chamblee.
Now we're moving to Katy for the time being to be closer to my kid's new school and we'll be paying $1800 a month for a nice apartment. Not an ideal situation at all but school is right down the street from our new place so we'll cut on gas a bit and it's a 'desirable" complex in a growing part of the burbs. BUT, it's farther from the core of Houston.
Case and point, don't come to Houston or Dallas thinking your life is going to dramatically change financially. I know a couple of people from Georgia who moved here from Atlanta and are kind of regretting the decision because they don't feel much of a difference. The more affordable "desirable" areas in the metro are farther out and honestly not that much different than what you would find in Gwinnett County.
Oh and for the record the desirable burbs in DFW are actually more expensive than Atlanta. Just compare the median home price of places like Plano/ Frisco/ Allen/ McKinney to Duluth/ Suwanee/ Lawrenceville.
Also if I may add, Texas is cheaper as far as groceries and certain other things HOWEVER is it much of a difference? Living in both it's not a BIG difference. And in some ways when we lived in Atlanta we actually saved more money than we would in Texas just due to lifestyle decisions.
If you want to see a big difference in your pockets move to San Antonio.
Good post I'm not sure where this idea of Houston and especially Dallas being so much cheaper than Atlanta, because until recently DFW especially the northern burbs was a good bit more expensive than metro Atlanta. People just hear stuff and repeat, Texas is cheap is a saying but it probably comes mostly from people in California who considered it cheap relative to where they were moving from. It's not cheap anymore and Austin is ridiculously overpriced. I looked for houses in Dallas heavily in 2017-2018 and nothing in a desirable area was below 300K for a starter home. Atlanta has since caught up with DFW in the last couple years so they're around the same price now for an average home. You don't pay state income tax in Texas but property taxes are high, and you have to consider tolls as a legitimate expense to get around in DFW too.
Check this thread where a study was done for actual/expected and overpriced percentage for metro areas. The methodology behind how this was calculated can be found on the link. Just looking at the numbers the "expected" to me seems to be more aligned with what the average prices were probably about 5 years ago or so but I'm sure the model is a lot more complex than that and takes in consideration a number of factors and past trends.. The Average in Atlanta is now 353K compared to 361K for DFW and 287K for Houston which hasn't gone up as rapidly as Atlanta or Dallas in the last few years.
Good post I'm not sure where this idea of Houston and especially Dallas being so much cheaper than Atlanta, because until recently DFW especially the northern burbs was a good bit more expensive than metro Atlanta. People just hear stuff and repeat, Texas is cheap is a saying but it probably comes mostly from people in California who considered it cheap relative to where they were moving from. It's not cheap anymore and Austin is ridiculously overpriced. I looked for houses in Dallas heavily in 2017-2018 and nothing in a desirable area was below 300K for a starter home. Atlanta has since caught up with DFW in the last couple years so they're around the same price now for an average home. You don't pay state income tax in Texas but property taxes are high, and you have to consider tolls as a legitimate expense to get around in DFW too.
Check this thread where a study was done for actual/expected and overpriced percentage for metro areas. The methodology behind how this was calculated can be found on the link. Just looking at the numbers the "expected" to me seems to be more aligned with what the average prices were probably about 5 years ago or so but I'm sure the model is a lot more complex than that and takes in consideration a number of factors and past trends.. The Average in Atlanta is now 353K compared to 361K for DFW and 287K for Houston which hasn't gone up as rapidly as Atlanta or Dallas in the last few years.
Looking At this Census Map it looks like A SouthEast Megalopolis stretching from Atlanta to Dallas is starting to form, With Recent Growth from Huntsville (which just became Alabama's Largest City) and NorthWest Arkansas.
Starting with Atlanta and Charlotte, Huntsville along with Knoxville and Chattanooga, Connect Nashville to Atlanta, Going West Jackson (Tennessee) Connects Memphis to Nashville, and than Jonesboro (NorthEast Arkansas) and Little Rock, Connect Memphis with NorthWest Arkansas which leads to Oklahoma, Tulsa then Connects OKC to NorthWest Arkansas and then Oklahoma City Connects to Dallas.
A Super City/Megalopolis in the making?
The physical size of a county and its percentage of growth isn't a meaningful pair of metrics alone if the base population of a county is small. A more meaningful map would be one that showed actual population represented across a geography. This is why the stretch from Birmingham on the west to Raleigh on the east is a more compelling megalopolis to consider.
Even then DC MSA + Baltimore MSA is still 9.2 million people (CSA adds 700k more people at almost 10 mil). MSA's are a joke too as you've mentioned. Madison County Virginia is 90 miles from Washington DC with 13k people and gets to join the MSA solely due to having tiny commuter populace to far exurban counties of Washington DC. Yet Howard County or anything within 25 miles of Washington are totally unrelated? Because a higher percentage of the county goes to Baltimore? Yeah ok. Lol
Making it seem like the two MSA's are unrelated at this point is wasted energy. They at this point are close to or about as related as a region as an DFW, or SF/SJ, but those regions are certainly more evenly developed, and have more uniformed cultural ties.
If just the two DC and Baltimore MSA's were ever made into one it would now in current day population rank 4th, and surpass Chicago (9.5 million) within a decade by MSA to be 3rd at that metric too.
I see you and others keep making this point. I can’t speak on San Francisco/SJ. But Dallas Fort Worth has people commuting from suburbs bordering Fort Worth to Dallas and all around. southlake and Westlake are functionally Dallas suburbs in Fort Worth. The eastern half of Tarrant county which includes a significant part of Fort Worth itself has a massive commuter population to Dallas. Denton which is directly north of Fort Worth is in the Dallas Metropolitan Division because it’s so connected.
I see you and others keep making this point. I can’t speak on San Francisco/SJ. But Dallas Fort Worth has people commuting from suburbs bordering Fort Worth to Dallas and all around. southlake and Westlake are functionally Dallas suburbs in Fort Worth. The eastern half of Tarrant county which includes a significant part of Fort Worth itself has a massive commuter population to Dallas. Denton which is directly north of Fort Worth is in the Dallas Metropolitan Division because it’s so connected.
Well, it makes sense since maybe 90% commute by car and a Dallas or Houston to others are built for it. Hard for some older legacy cities to even get close to their expressways far less likely to widen and less lanes.... to handle a volume of vehicles as these newer in extended sprawl cities can handle and others could never handle 600,000 cars a day ever handle. They are lucky if grid cities main continuous streets can be options vs mostly feeder roads to the expressway.
Some of these cities with cores on large bodies of water. Have one half of their 360 ability to sprawl non-existent and can add longer commutes to any farther suburbs especially then into the main city core.
Are not downtown Dallas to downtown Ft Worth like 30+ miles.... and maybe 10 more to further suburbs. Only in America..... they cannot park n ride to a train either.
No way would I do it.... even when young. I knew some people who back-in-a-day worked for my state in its Capital city from my hometown. 50 miles on roads. When they paid enough to be worth it with a pension for non-degree people. Thing is .... they CARPOOLED. So no one drove it more than a couple days. No one by me does that 50-miles today. It is not straight thru and real winters .... in PA.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare
I see you and others keep making this point. I can’t speak on San Francisco/SJ. But Dallas Fort Worth has people commuting from suburbs bordering Fort Worth to Dallas and all around. southlake and Westlake are functionally Dallas suburbs in Fort Worth. The eastern half of Tarrant county which includes a significant part of Fort Worth itself has a massive commuter population to Dallas. Denton which is directly north of Fort Worth is in the Dallas Metropolitan Division because it’s so connected.
Well that makes sense, and certainly DFW makes an even more seamless transition from end to end. I get that. But for DC and Baltimore both their city proper is only 61 sq mi and 81 sq mi respectively, Dallas and FW have huge city limits. So in reality the true city sphere to be compared here should be I-495 surrounding Washington, and 695 surrounding Baltimore. Those are, if you will, like a de-facto sphere of the city's immediate influence. In between 495-695 Beltways there's 18 miles of mostly mild density suburbia, some areas are more dense, and there are some designated areas also with no development due to the agricultural reserve, or BWI airport. It doesn't connect the same way as DFW does, but the un-interrupted development is there in at least some stretches.
The mid-Atlantic/NE type of development is still just way more compact though. DC's MSA + Baltimore MSA is still smaller than metro Atlanta in land mass.
I always wonder will there ever be a city in the states that will take over NYC not only in city population but metro
never. Maybe one that will be similar but never overtake it. I think if we look at how fast cities are growing today ,it will be a sunbelt city . Rising sea level will effect Miami and Florida but im not a scientist but cant it effect any city by the sea including NYC?
never. Maybe one that will be similar but never overtake it. I think if we look at how fast cities are growing today ,it will be a sunbelt city . Rising sea level will effect Miami and Florida but im not a scientist but cant it effect any city by the sea including NYC?
NYC is as vulnerable to rising sea levels as most of Florida.
Not really. NYC can be walled off, and Miami can't. Water percolates from below. Miami's only long-term solution might be putting houses on stilts and rebuilding most of the rest.
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