What Smaller U.S Cities Would You Like To See As Bigger Centers

[ckh]

Originally Posted by Razor

^ Yes there are some Canadian cities that are incredibly urban for their size.

It's all about relativity I suppose..A metro of 400,000 is considered a strong medium sized metro, and is a regional hub. In the U.S, it would be a college town maybe...Syracuse NY would be considered a major metro up here much in the vein of Winnipeg or Hamilton.

Good point about Syracuse, as it is still a top 100 metro, urban and combined statistical area in the US.

[delts145]

Originally Posted by NYC Rick

Salt lake City, Birmingham, Louisville and a few others not on this list totally lead the category. I mean SLC alone is in a 35 mile long and 12 mile wide area with over 2 million people in 3 not so large counties.

SLC is making major inroads while the area is really growing.

Yeah, Salt Lake City proper is rapidly becoming more dense with the additional construction boom of a lot of missing middle, and mid-rise development. It's adjoining metro towns from north to south give it over 2.5 million people and rapidly climbing. I would like to see the cores of the many connected towns become denser and more walkable. Many 19th century villages which use to be around 700 to 7000 pop. a decade or two ago are now 30,000 to 60,000 plus people. They need to continue to restore and build up their cores. Hopefully, the many transit projects will continue to facilitate this.

Originally Posted by wjntoronto

Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Rexburg, Blackfoot, Idaho.

I understand these towns of southeastern Idaho are experiencing their own population boom. I hope so, as they are an important part of the Salt Lake City market for future major league franchises locating in the Salt Lake City metro.

I think one town in Utah that I would like to see become a major metro outside of the Wasatch Front of Salt Lake is Southern Utah's St. George. It's a beautiful little city surrounded by some of the most otherworldly scenery on the globe. It's definitely one of the fastest growing areas in the nation, and seems to be really focusing on it's core development also. I would like to see it become a metro of over 600,000 in my lifetime, while continuing to buildup an attractive walkable core.

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[Tuckerman]

Strange as it might seem, I would like to see Atlanta grow. The city itself is less than 500K but embedded in a 5.5M surround. As such, the city itself seems like a big urban village. The infrastructure of roads is a mixture of two lane, four lane, and six lane streets alternating in size as you go. The “grand” Peachtree St. is a narrow street in downtown and midtown ATL that widens in the Buckhead section of the city and then becomes bigger and bigger as the population get less dense. In brief, the central core should ideally have twice the density and the city should be >1m in population. Fortunately, it is becoming denser.

[jonesrmj]

I don't know if it was mentioned here but I really would love to see some growth for Wilmington, Delaware. It's only got a population of around 70k but it peaked at 114k in the 1940s. It also have a very big skyline for a city of it's size, like you would not think only 70k people live here when you look at the skyline. I would love to see Wilmington gain some talent for tech and become a smaller tech hub between Philly and Baltimore like what Tysons in Virginia is becoming.

Here's an image of the skyline:

[ivegotaname]

Calais Maine border city to Canada . The city only has 2 thousand people and I think it could do alot better for both countries if it had more people and business. Mainers are not like other states they have there own identity like my province of New Brunswick and they don't hide it.

[ckh]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

I'd love to see the Appalachian cities develop into majors and the gap filled between the Great Lakes region and the Northeast Corridor. That would require growth in cities like Scranton, Harrisburg, Albany, Syracuse, Altoona and State College to fill the gap. What is the eastern extent of that region? At what point does the line draw? Also to re-emerge the region as a whole, make it a megalopolis from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic and south to Florida, basically the entire eastern North America.

I would call those cities listed a part of the Interior Northeast. I was thinking of this area as well, as it would kind of be a bridge between the Bos-Wash corridor and the Midwest.

[vetteking]

I would like to see my city Jackson, Mississippi as a bigger center comparable to Charlotte and Jacksonville, Florida.