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I will admit, the last time I flew through Birmingham's airport was 10-15 years ago. If the airport facilities and flight options have gotten better since then, that's awesome.
if you haven't flown through birmingham's airport in the past 10-15 years, then you haven't flown through birmingham's airport. it went through a major ($200 million) facelift / expansion in 2014. flight options are probably similar, though... having ATL 2 hours away definitely takes a toll.
Birmingham, AL
Chattanooga, TN
Des Moines, IA
Grand Rapids, MI
Greensboro, NC
Huntsville, AL
Lexington, KY
Knoxville, TN
Rochester, MN
Tallahassee, FL
Wichita, KS
Winston-Salem, NC
Billings, MT has a pretty good shot. Des Moines, IA also.
I think there's several hidden gems in Montana, but I don't necessarily think Billings is at the forefront. It's the largest city in the state, but geography is not its friend (it's isolated in an already-isolated state, plus it's firmly a Plains city and doesn't have the jaw-dropping scenery other cities further west have). Butte and Helena are nice, but don't have the "it" factor of Missoula or (especially) Bozeman. Bozeman might be the city to keep an eye on in the next couple of decades. It's a college town, and is also the closest notable city to Yellowstone. It's also doubled in size over the past 20 years and is showing no signs of slowing down.
And Des Moines is about as "discovered" as it's ever going to get (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). It has some decent growth going for it, but it has too many strikes against it (such as geography, climate, mediocre infrastructure, lack of public universities, limited funds, lots of nondescript neighborhoods and suburbs with only modest-to-moderate diversity) to really be anything other than a "mid major" city.
I'm not sure what would be driving Billings as a destination. Cold winters, not much in the way of picturesque scenery (which seems to have driven the growth of other areas in MT). It's like Cheyenne as in it's the biggest city in a state without big cities..except Cheyenne is likely going to profit from Denver overflow. So I'd say Cheyenne over Billings in terms of likelihood of considerable growth.
I'm not sure what would be driving Billings as a destination. Cold winters, not much in the way of picturesque scenery (which seems to have driven the growth of other areas in MT). It's like Cheyenne as in it's the biggest city in a state without big cities..except Cheyenne is likely going to profit from Denver overflow. So I'd say Cheyenne over Billings in terms of likelihood of considerable growth.
In another thread, I speculated that Cheyenne might see growth from overflow from Fort Collins and Denver. I think it will happen, but will probably take some years.
OKC, especially Edmond. Mild winters, sunny climate, and hot but not too humid. Low state income tax and very low property taxes, as well as affordable, high quality new construction. Roads have potholes, but there's an enormous network of freeways so you can get anywhere in the OKC area very fast. Only 90 minutes from Tulsa and three hours from DFW, both very doable weekend trips. When Dallas gets too expensive people who are priced out are going to come to OKC. Edmond, in particular, has two high schools that rank within the top 500 in the nation, above even many good schools in DFW and in Southern California. OKCs downtown also feels impressive for a metro area of only 1.3 million. The metro area is truly one of the only metro areas above one million that are still center right.
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