Quote:
Originally Posted by KB0679
What NC has working in its favor is primarily Charlotte and the Triangle. Atlanta is still the defacto capital of the Southeast, but gone are the days when Atlanta was the only feasible city in the region for corporate expansions and relocations. Charlotte (especially) and the Triangle are true economic competitors with Atlanta and have proven that they can score some big wins when going up against Atlanta; they are at the sizes where they offer several of the advantages of Atlanta but not as many of the disadvantages. There is still room for massive growth in both metro areas. Although traffic is becoming a worsening issue in both places, they aren't anywhere near the magnitude of Atlanta's either in perception or reality which bodies favorably for them--for now anyway. As Charlotte and the Triangle continue to get built up and developed, the Triad--smack dab between the two--could start getting "overflow" investment and is well-positioned for that both economically and infrastructurallly.
Two caveats with Charlotte and the Triangle are the fact that Charlotte's metro extends into SC and over the past several years, companies have been increasingly choosing the SC side of the metro to relocate in initially or after some years in Mecklenburg County so that detracts somewhat from NC's growth, and challenges in getting rail transit implemented in the Triangle could possibly have some negative consequences for the region.
|
I think your arguments are quite reasonable. Of course this is all future speculation and the past is a guide, but not a certain guide for the future. What appears to be the case is that, as opposed to many other areas of the country, both NC and GA have a fairly balanced growth pattern that is a good mix of domestic and international migration, normal demographic population growth, and fairly healthy growing economies. IMO this means that both areas will continue to grow in population at a steady rate for some time. In short, I believe that whether NC or GA has the higher population is too close to call. The 2020 census should help, but it may have some flaws e.g. undercount of the undocumented population.