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Eau Claire, WI - Home to the Eaux Claires music festival, newly revitalized downtown, close proximity to Minneapolis-St. Paul, starting to be on the "hipster radar."
Rochester, MN - Home to the ever expanding Mayo Clinic headquarters, insane number of new high rises for such a small city.
Merced, CA - Will be the terminus for the first portion of California high speed rail that will be done in a couple years. Also home to the one the newest UC school, UC-Merced. If the new administration prioritizes HSR, and with remote work, Merced could become a bedroom community to the Bay Area.
Reno, NV - Already has name recognition, but will become more well known as a place to move due to the presence of companies like Tesla.
St. George, UT - Booming retirement destination, will become more well known.
I'm not seeing a whole lot mentioned that would be from "out of nowhere". Most of them are already where they're going to be for a while.
Maybe St. George Utah or something like that. It's a sizable small town that could feasibly turn into a regional powerhouse of sorts.
Cities like Kansas City will do what they always do: have solid steady growth but probably not enough to push them back to their place of greater prominence.
I'd love to see it do more though, it's one of my favorites, easily. Like a lot of its peers, it's very underrated and overlooked.
Also, Pittsburgh was at one point one of the 10 largest cities in the US and does not appear to be doing much more than treading water demographically speaking. “Up and coming, out of nowhere” doesn’t seem the right category for it.
Pittsburgh has been the next big thing for nearly my entire life and it's never happened. Not large scale anyway.
The Tri-Cities, WA could be the newest major city to land on the map. It has the currently explosive growth and the job market for it, and while COL is increasing, it's still far below that in Seattle and other interior Northwest hotspots like Boise and Bend. And the area has risen pretty quickly --- it was all farmland in the 1940s, and Franklin County's population has doubled since 2000.
But even combining the downtowns of the three composite cities adds up to a horrible downtown for its MSA size --- the Tri-Cities make Phoenix look like Manhattan. The area has basically no youth/hipster culture or nightlife, and its prospects will always be limited as long as it's only aiming to attract families and retirees.
I don't see Pittsburgh as "up and coming", not only has the city been in decline since the stone age, but it has one of the very few large metros that are in decline. Even metro Detroit and Memphis have experienced significantly more growth than the Pittsburgh area. Personally, I don't like El Paso at all, and I don't see it as an "up and coming" city either. It's nice for some people, but overall it's a very ugly city imo. Chattanooga is nice. Also "urban" isn't what grows in America, large suburban major cities like Raleigh and Fort Worth are what experiences the most growth.
I would say Tulsa, OK , Kansas City, MO , and Birmingham, AL.
I personally plan to leave Pittsburgh for Birmingham by 2025.
The Tri-Cities, WA could be the newest major city to land on the map. It has the currently explosive growth and the job market for it, and while COL is increasing, it's still far below that in Seattle and other interior Northwest hotspots like Boise and Bend. And the area has risen pretty quickly --- it was all farmland in the 1940s, and Franklin County's population has doubled since 2000.
But even combining the downtowns of the three composite cities adds up to a horrible downtown for its MSA size --- the Tri-Cities make Phoenix look like Manhattan. The area has basically no youth/hipster culture or nightlife, and its prospects will always be limited as long as it's only aiming to attract families and retirees.
The Tri-Cities could take off in a bigger way, but I suspect it would require turning that brainpower from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Hanford into some major spinoff enterprises. So far it's what, 20% this decade...strong but not a standout?
Two places that have been mentioned multiple times, Tulsa and Northwest Arkansas, both offer $10,000 relocation incentives for remote workers who move there. Just interesting to note.
I do believe a place like Pittsburgh can be "up and coming, out of nowhere" if the turnaround/growth is shocking and game changing. I don't think it will accomplish that and I wouldn't put it on my list for this OP, but I don't think it's automatically disqualified.
While it isn't a major city(and just an outer suburb within the Chicago area), I am a little surprised how fast Huntley, IL is growing northwest of Chicago. It isn't quite at Rockford or Aurora or Peoria type population levels yet, but it has grown a LOT faster than I thought it would.
For reference in the 1980 census, Huntley only had 1,646 residents. In the 1990 census, Huntley was up to 2,453 residents. By 2000, they were at 5,730 residents, and 2010 made the population go up to 24,291 residents! Per a 2019 census data estimate on Wikipedia, it's now up to 27,228! To me it's insane to think it's grown like over 25K residents, since 1980. And since a lot of places in IL are declining, it's impressive how much Huntley has grown. Granted the construction of a Del Webb retirement community, was behind some of Huntley's population growth after 2000.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewjdeg
Eau Claire, WI - Home to the Eaux Claires music festival, newly revitalized downtown, close proximity to Minneapolis-St. Paul, starting to be on the "hipster radar."
Now you're making me want to check out Eau Claire's census data, for myself! Has it really grown that much in recent years? I have a hard time thinking it'll grow as fast as say like Boise or Nashville is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it sees a little more growth in future years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars
The Tri-Cities, WA could be the newest major city to land on the map. It has the currently explosive growth and the job market for it, and while COL is increasing, it's still far below that in Seattle and other interior Northwest hotspots like Boise and Bend. And the area has risen pretty quickly --- it was all farmland in the 1940s, and Franklin County's population has doubled since 2000.
But even combining the downtowns of the three composite cities adds up to a horrible downtown for its MSA size --- the Tri-Cities make Phoenix look like Manhattan. The area has basically no youth/hipster culture or nightlife, and its prospects will always be limited as long as it's only aiming to attract families and retirees.
I have a hard time believing that "tri-cities" area(w/Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland in Washington state) will start to grow very quickly in future years, but what do I know? In the past, I don't think anyone predicted Bend, Oregon would start to grow at a faster rate either.
Finally, a few others mentioned Pittsburgh. While that city isn't growing fast, I think that city will be fine and stable population-wise for years to come. I wouldn't be surprised if in future years they find ways to fix their issues, and you start to see some population growth near there again. Also Pittsburgh felt pretty nice to me, when I visited in 2018. I came away with a pretty good impression, of that city. It's a city where for sure if I had to move from Chicago for a job, I wouldn't mind considering a move to Pittsburgh.
People have been talking about Pittsburgh being the next up-and-coming city for at least 2 decades. Despite its apparent advantages of solid urban bones, low COL and hosting one of the most important tech schools on the planet, it hasn't gotten much traction.
I don't see El Paso going anywhere just because it's so far away from any/everything. Being right on the border of a failing narco-state with one of that state's nastiest cities on the other side of he river doesn't help, even if they've managed to prevent major spillover of those problems for now.
Chattanooga I can see, if only because as a Chicago-area resident I'm aware Tennessee is one of the top states receiving our fleeing diaspora.
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