Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Not sure about that Memphis just keeps getting more poplar and it keeps adding new Amenities...In about 10 years Memphis is going to once again pose a serious challenge to Nashville...Not sure about Demographics and Economics...But Culturally and Tourism...And I grew up and frequent both cities so I'm not biased to Neither One
Not sure about that Memphis just keeps getting more poplar and it keeps adding new Amenities...In about 10 years Memphis is going to once again pose a serious challenge to Nashville...Not sure about Demographics and Economics...But Culturally and Tourism...And I grew up and frequent both cities so I'm not biased to Neither One
I highly doubt that. Memphis hasn't been on Nashville's radar for some time. The demographics and economics favor Nashville. This is a lopsided debate as Raleigh and Charlotte are both doing very well, and have their own set of strengths and weaknesses. With Nashville and Memphis, only one of them is doing very well.
By US Census Data
Charlotte from 2010 to 2015 gain 95,373 for a 12.4% gain 2015 Population 827,097
Nashville from 2010 to 2015 gain 55,388 for a 8.5% gain 2015 Population 654,610
Both cities are great, I have a great time every time I visited Nashville.
Charlotte is bigger, has more stuff, and is more metropolitan. But if you ask anybody where they would rather live/visit, a majority would say Nashville. Bigger isn't always better..
Charlotte is bigger, has more stuff, and is more metropolitan. But if you ask anybody where they would rather live/visit, a majority would say Nashville. Bigger isn't always better..
Oh and while we at it...Titans>Panthers
Visit? Sure. Live? Not sure about that one as both are growing very rapidly.
Charlotte is bigger, has more stuff, and is more metropolitan. But if you ask anybody where they would rather live/visit, a majority would say Nashville. Bigger isn't always better..
I'd take Charlotte an infinite number of times before Nashville, and wouldn't think twice...
-Neither city will turn into the "next Atlanta". I'm sure we can conjure up parallels for both...
-Charlotte has the better location. It's closer to more larger metros, more smaller, "secondary" metros, closer to the beach for sure, closer to mountain activities...
-Charlotte is the more diverse city easily, and I think if not ahead of Nashville, plays to a tie in terms of cosmopolitanism...
-I don't think either of these cities has a measurable advantage in "look". As a generality, they look the same...
-I would say that they have nearly equal amenities. Nashville obviously excels in certain measures of economy. Nashville has that one major economic/cultural driver that jumps out in the minds eye. Besides that, it offers relatively nothing that can't also be found in Charlotte...
-Nashville is more of a "big fish in a small pond" than a true major city. Charlotte has made the leap into one of America's Top 20 cities. Charlotte doesn't have the pomp and pizazz of Nashville, but carries a larger weight and feels like a larger city. Besides the Big 4, Charlotte is the next major city in the South, and if someone wanted to argue for another city, it would be a Florida city, not Nashville...
Not sure why Raleigh-Durham and Memphis were added to the conversation. What I will say is that Nashville is a closer match to Raleigh than it is to Charlotte or Memphis, truth be told....
I'd take Charlotte an infinite number of times before Nashville, and wouldn't think twice...
-Neither city will turn into the "next Atlanta". I'm sure we can conjure up parallels for both...
-Charlotte has the better location. It's closer to more larger metros, more smaller, "secondary" metros, closer to the beach for sure, closer to mountain activities...
-Charlotte is the more diverse city easily, and I think if not ahead of Nashville, plays to a tie in terms of cosmopolitanism...
-I don't think either of these cities has a measurable advantage in "look". As a generality, they look the same...
-I would say that they have nearly equal amenities. Nashville obviously excels in certain measures of economy. Nashville has that one major economic/cultural driver that jumps out in the minds eye. Besides that, it offers relatively nothing that can't also be found in Charlotte...
-Nashville is more of a "big fish in a small pond" than a true major city. Charlotte has made the leap into one of America's Top 20 cities. Charlotte doesn't have the pomp and pizazz of Nashville, but carries a larger weight and feels like a larger city. Besides the Big 4, Charlotte is the next major city in the South, and if someone wanted to argue for another city, it would be a Florida city, not Nashville...
Not sure why Raleigh-Durham and Memphis were added to the conversation. What I will say is that Nashville is a closer match to Raleigh than it is to Charlotte or Memphis, truth be told....
Isn't Tampa area bigger than the Charlotte area? People sleep on Tampa a lot. It even grew faster than Charlotte at a rate of 54k people between 2014-2015. Even when it comes to job growth, Tampa has a larger annual job growth than Charlotte in terms of percentages and absolute numbers. Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t03.htm
Charlotte is not that impressive when it comes to southern cities. In fact, if it were following Atlanta's path, it's growth would be at the level of Austin's MSA growth at 60k+ annual growth by now. Charlotte is limited by it's one dimensional banking industry. If it wants to have gangbuster growth to transform it to an international standard metro(where it appears on top 50 worldwide lists), it needs to diversify it's own economy and it desperately needs an elite higher learning institute. Nashville has Vanderbilt. Charlotte has...? This alone gives Nashville an inherent advantage going into the future. If I had to put money on one of these two cities in the future, I'd put money on Nashville. I think Nashville totally has what it takes to one day become an elite metro.
EDIT: And you also said Nashville should be compare to Raleigh and not Charlotte, but then why does Nashville have higher annual job growth than Charlotte?
EDIT: And you also said Nashville should be compare to Raleigh and not Charlotte, but then why does Nashville have higher annual job growth than Charlotte?
Maybe because both Raleigh and Nashville can claim that they are outperforming Charlotte?
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not ok
Raleigh is overlooked in size compared to other sunbelt "boom" towns largely because it doesn't have an oversized municipal limit. Municipal population alone tends to grab attention and Raleigh at 451K in 2015 doesn't look impressive compared to Nashville (654K) or Charlotte (827K) but God is in the details.
Raleigh's municipal limits are 143 square miles to Nashville's 475 square miles and Charlotte's 298 square miles. "Raleigh" could get to 654K with half or less of the land area of Nashville's limits.
Many other Sunbelt cities also sport huge city limits like all the big Texas cities, Louisville, Memphis and, especially, Jacksonville. Piled onto Raleigh's smaller municipal limits is the fact that Raleigh's MSA is also quite small physically since the former Raleigh-Durham MSA was split despite the fact that the two cities "French kiss" at their common county line. Raleigh's MSA is physically 1/3 the size of Nashville's but with nearly 70% of Nashville's MSA population and the Raleigh-Durham CSA amasses 287,000 more people in less land area than just Nashville's MSA. Oh, and both Raleigh's MSA and CSA are growing at faster rates than either Nashville's or Charlotte's. Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not ok
Raleigh's urban area has actually passed Nashville's this decade and that doesn't even include Durham's numbers. If Durham was included, Raleigh's urban area would be hundreds of thousands of people more.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not ok
Raleigh doesn't have the same amount of name recognition of many other Sunbelt metros. It hasn't been a larger area for that long and it wasn't one of the bigger cities in the South until recently. Nonetheless, the data doesn't lie about about what's happening there. It's real.
So, in the end, there are very good reasons why folks would say that Nashville is more comparable to Raleigh than to Charlotte.
Isn't Tampa area bigger than the Charlotte area? People sleep on Tampa a lot. It even grew faster than Charlotte at a rate of 54k people between 2014-2015. Even when it comes to job growth, Tampa has a larger annual job growth than Charlotte in terms of percentages and absolute numbers. Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t03.htm
Tampa is bigger for sure, but it's clearly an underperformer. Charlotte has a larger GDP, more corporate headquarters, a better performing economy (over time, not just for one year), and higher per capita and median household incomes than Tampa. It also appears to be urbanizing faster than Tampa, especially when you consider transit expansion.
Quote:
Charlotte is not that impressive when it comes to southern cities. In fact, if it were following Atlanta's path, it's growth would be at the level of Austin's MSA growth at 60k+ annual growth by now. Charlotte is limited by it's one dimensional banking industry. If it wants to have gangbuster growth to transform it to an international standard metro(where it appears on top 50 worldwide lists), it needs to diversify it's own economy and it desperately needs an elite higher learning institute. Nashville has Vanderbilt. Charlotte has...? This alone gives Nashville an inherent advantage going into the future. If I had to put money on one of these two cities in the future, I'd put money on Nashville. I think Nashville totally has what it takes to one day become an elite metro.
EDIT: And you also said Nashville should be compare to Raleigh and not Charlotte, but then why does Nashville have higher annual job growth than Charlotte?
Charlotte certainly has an outsized banking industry, but it has been very successful in landing lots of corporate relocations/expansions across a wide variety of industries. Charlotte is a city of big business in general.
I strongly disagree with the statement "Charlotte is not that impressive when it comes to Southern cities." It's not the number one city for population/economic growth in the South, but clearly it's towards the top. The metro has grown 9.44% from 2010-2015, a rate that's higher than Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, etc. as well as DC, Phoenix, Vegas, Seattle, Minneapolis, etc. Nashville's growth rate during that period is only a smidge faster at 9.54%. On Milken's 2016 Best Performing Cities list, Charlotte ranks 12th among 200 large metros, below Austin (2nd) and Nashville (7th) but above Atlanta (21st), San Antonio (24th), Tampa (33rd), Miami (60th), and Houston (68th), as well as Denver (13th), Boston (37th), Minneapolis (64th), DC (110th), etc. Charlotte also has more F500 headquarters than any other Southern metro not named Houston, DFW, Atlanta, or Richmond (it has the same amount as Miami), has the biggest GDP after the Big Four, and has a real GDP per capita higher than Atlanta, Austin, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Raleigh (Nashville's is just a tad bit higher). Charlotte is also one of the leading Southern cities when it comes to transit expansion.
I agree that Charlotte is really lacking on the higher ed front, but it does have one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country (Davidson) and the lack of an elite research university hasn't stopped DFW (SMU is a solid university, but small and not 'elite').
In short, you're selling Charlotte WAY short here. From the way you talk, someone would think you're talking about Memphis or something.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
