Georgia or North Carolina: Which will end up with highest population?

[KB0679]

To answer the question at hand, I wouldn't be surprised if GA retained its lead in the short term, but over the long term I'm thinking the two states just may trade places every or every other decade as they did in much of the 20th century. While Atlanta is still one of the fastest-growing metros in the country, its growth has slowed a bit, traffic concerns still loom large, and its economy is experiencing some high-profile losses among legacy companies like Turner Broadcasting, CNN, and SunTrust (and GA's loss will be NC's gain in that case). Realistically, GA's second-tier metros won't be able to grow fast enough in the short term to make up for some of the slowdown happening in Atlanta.

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.