Suburban/exurban Southeast growth since Covid. (employment, suspect, highway, solution)

[cttransplant85]

Anyone else live in an exurb or suburb in the south? If so, Where are you from? Are you also going through just an insane amount of growth since Covid? It was bad before Covid but now it’s just insane. The infrastructure in my area is not meant for this amount of people.

[gailjnh]

Yes. I'm in South Carolina outside Charleston and the growth is impossible. When I moved here from NH in Dec. 2015, town's population was around 28000 and is now up close to 60000. Traffic was already a nightmare when I got here and it's even worse now.


Housing prices have doubled during that time as well but people from NY, NJ, Mass, etc still think it's a bargain.


And one year ago, SC was ranked in a nationwide survey as having the most distracted drivers in the country.

[Hrw-500]

Originally Posted by gailjnh

Yes. I'm in South Carolina outside Charleston and the growth is impossible. When I moved here from NH in Dec. 2015, town's population was around 28000 and is now up close to 60000. Traffic was already a nightmare when I got here and it's even worse now.

I wonder how Charleston will handle an hurricane evacuation with an increased population?

[gailjnh]

Originally Posted by Hrw-500

I wonder how Charleston will handle an hurricane evacuation with an increased population?

Charleston set up a more efficient evacuation plan several years ago after people were trapped on highways in the middle of the storm because of car breakdowns or running out of gas. Several people died during that storm.


What they do now is reverse the lanes on the highway heading towards Charleston so they have 8 lanes of traffic heading west instead of 4 lanes. It seems to work much better. All exits except 2 are closed between Charleston and Columbia. The rest of the exits and on ramps heading east are blocked by police cruisers starting early morning way before the hurricane is scheduled to hit.

[Frank DeForrest]

Im in Franklin Tn, and we've been getting overrun w/California dreamers who are paying cash for homes, sometimes buying them sight unseen. Since moving here 15 years ago, I’ve seen overall quality of life decline while housing and traffic have shot up considerably. I suspect the mass migration is going to slow, but the damage is done.

[cttransplant85]

Originally Posted by gailjnh

Yes. I'm in South Carolina outside Charleston and the growth is impossible. When I moved here from NH in Dec. 2015, town's population was around 28000 and is now up close to 60000. Traffic was already a nightmare when I got here and it's even worse now.


Housing prices have doubled during that time as well but people from NY, NJ, Mass, etc still think it's a bargain.


And one year ago, SC was ranked in a nationwide survey as having the most distracted drivers in the country.

SC has horrible drivers, I believe only Louisiana has worse.

[censusdata]

Not quite in the Sunbelt but the Louisville KY / IN area was among the only metro areas to never have employment declines throughout the pandemic. Due to the UPS global hub here and being at the geographic center of the eastern USA warehousing / logistics is huge here. One new industrial park is literally 7 miles X 4 miles long, it's going to employ towards 50,000 people soon. Beyond that KY side has had an insane violent crime surge so the IN side I'm at is seeing a mass influx of people. Housing prices have went through the roof. In 2015 we bought a starter home for $55k. Today we get one mail in offer a week from real estate companies offering $150k in cash. But to replace this house would cost as much as we'd make.

[doc1]

Originally Posted by Frank DeForrest

Im in Franklin Tn, and we've been getting overrun w/California dreamers who are paying cash for homes, sometimes buying them sight unseen. Since moving here 15 years ago, I’ve seen overall quality of life decline while housing and traffic have shot up considerably. I suspect the mass migration is going to slow, but the damage is done.

Blount county here.

If it's any consolation, according to the various "Moving to TN" Facebook groups the great majority are escapees from CA, IL, NJ, NY, WA........... They make it clear up front, LOL.

[Canes2006Champs]

It's crazy watching older 60's style ranch houses being torn down to make way for multiple ugly mini-mansions on the same lot. They're all so close together too, if one of them catches on fire they all will

What angers me is that the roads can't keep up with all this, and they're already bad enough as it is but lets add about 30 more cars for every ranch style house torn down. Oh the solution isn't to widen the roads but drop the speed limit? Oh yeah like anyone follows those anyway.

[danielj72]

I’m in East Tennessee (Knoxville area) Yes the growth the last two years has been unbelievable, a lot from the northeast and California. Many of them did it based on politics and covid lockdowns. The price of a house has doubled in a few years, traffic is terrible. Everyone now wants to be in the Red State south. The problem is that we do not have enough space for all the northern and western political refugees pouring in. People are moving by the tens of thousands over politics, I think that should tell us something about how much trouble our country is in.