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Water is a REQUIRED neccessity for life.
If Atlanta runs out of water which someday the city will strain its resources then the city/metro population stops growing and will start to decline.
Gotta have water to live
Luckily places like Indianapolis we have plenty of water to allow us to grow. Plus places like Chicago/Detroit/Milwaukee have Lake Michigan to drink from.
Can't say for sure, but I'd be surprised if Detroit drinks out of Lake Michigan. Probably Lake St Clair or two closer Great Lakes (Huron or Erie).
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Growth will slow in the largest cities (Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix) but shift to the smaller cities. (Huntsville, Lexington, Columbia, Knoxville, etc)
The Sun Belt is growing because of more competitive tax rates. This makes it cheaper for people and businesses to reside there. Warm weather is a secondary attraction. Here in Kentucky we will continue to grow even in a depression economy because of the flood of people fleeing high tax Ohio and Illinois.
Growth will slow in the largest cities (Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix) but shift to the smaller cities. (Huntsville, Lexington, Columbia, Knoxville, etc)
The Sun Belt is growing because of more competitive tax rates. This makes it cheaper for people and businesses to reside there. Warm weather is a secondary attraction. Here in Kentucky we will continue to grow even in a depression economy because of the flood of people fleeing high tax Ohio and Illinois.
Most of Illinois and Ohio in rural areas have a very low cost of living. The taxes are higher in the bigger cities in those states. Appalachian Ohio or rural Central/Southern Illinois have poor economies overall but high costs certainly aren't the issue there.
If taxes matter so much, then why aren't Greensboro and Winston-Salem doing as well as Charlotte or Raleigh? Why aren't Macon or Albany doing as well as Atlanta? Why is Birmingham not doing as well as Huntsville or Mobile? Why is Memphis not doing as well as Nashville? Why has Mississippi remained a slow-growth state?
Favorable taxes are a bonus, and the tax code should be made more efficient when possible, but to keep hammering it home as a reason why the South has done well in recent decades ignores the widely variable degrees of success between states in the South, and even between cities in each state.
There's no correlation with right-to-work laws either. The economy in non-right-to-work New York and Pennsylvania is doing better than the economy in right-to-work Georgia and Florida. Non-right-to-work California's economy is in bad shape, but so is right-to-work Arizona's. The right-to-work Dakotas are doing well, but so is non-right-to-work Minnesota. As for Colorado, the state that can never do wrong economically, surprise! It's not a right-to-work state.
There's gotta be something more to economic growth than this.
The sunbelt boom is not going to end probably until the next 20 years.
Maybe. Let's see what the effects of global warming are on the climate. I've read it could bring us to an Ice Age that has been being delayed for centuries because of global warming.
I've also read it could bring raging hot temperatures.
We just don't have any experience with this to know. I know I left the South to live in the North because I couldn't take the heat, and we are both sun sensitive. If everyone goes South, maybe I can live in that small town I've dreamed of -- without moving!
Austin and Houston are growing like crazy and have great job markets for professionals. I read that there is a predicted shortage in both for housing, office and retail space, because of the credit freeze that limited building over the last few years despite the good job markets and people streaming in.
A lot of parts of the Sunbelt are pretty much dead like the California Inland Empire and will never come back but I think most of it is still going because of young people priced out of the Northeast who want a nice quality of life and not be a pauper, I include myself in that group.
Depletion of resources and rising energy costs will end the sunbelt boom. There is a reason these cities did not sprout up until technology made it possible -- living in a desert was neither attractive nor possible.
Umm, some of the first civilizations known to man thrived in desert environments (ancient Egypt) while the frozen north was still primitive hunters and herdsmen.
Umm, some of the first civilizations known to man thrived in desert environments (ancient Egypt) while the frozen north was still primitive hunters and herdsmen.
Ancient Eyptian society existed almost exclusively along the Nile and Mediterranean Sea. They had a water source. Also, there is evidence that that area was much wetter than it is now. Large societies did not exist without water, and even with today's technology, there are still limits.
Ancient Eyptian society existed almost exclusively along the Nile and Mediterranean Sea. They had a water source. Also, there is evidence that that area was much wetter than it is now. Large societies did not exist without water, and even with today's technology, there are still limits.
The desert region of the sunbelt extends from west Texas to south east California. While this includes Phoenix and Las Vegas.... most of the growth in the sunbelt is in areas with lots of lakes, rivers, aquifers, and rainfall. Not to mention the entire Gulf Coast.
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