Is Atlanta the most important city in the South?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ with the Rams move to LA and the Raiders move to Vegas, we need a new NFL fandom map.

My guess is that nevada will cease to be cowboys country very soon, if it hasn't happened already.

And LA is obviously Rams country again, as it always should have been.

And STL is probably now part of chiefs nation, especially with the recent SB win (everybody loves a winner).

yeah i see a lot of chiefs gear these days. the fact that there have always been bears bars strung down through illinois into metro st louis and even in st louis probably puts them second...usually people from illinois (which there are a lot) and not converts. the rams always had a somewhat limited geography compared to other midwestern teams.

[UrbanImpact]

God Bless Atlanta!

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by JManc

Out of the Bos-Was corridor, DC still feels southern. From the swamp ass in the summers to the food. It's just no longer traditional south given its status as nation's capital.

DC feels mid-atlantic to me, the swamp summers (and even a few cold hearty palms) arent a primary southern signifier to me considering st. louis is south of DC and is hotter in the summer. i mean the record high temperature in DC is 10
degrees cooler than st. louis. it doesn't really get THAT hot.

the high quality brick construction, the rows, the historically large african american population - all feel mid-atlantic - the lower midwest cities feel like echos of the lower mid-atlantic excepting kansas city and indy if you count that.

atlanta is the capital of the southEAST. fixed. the south is too wide and varied and sub-regions have their own capitals. atlanta WAS a chicago-like hub until the “western south” many hundred of miles away with different trade connections boomed. atlanta was too far east to hold the pattern, unlike chicago in the midwest. new orleans was always there, too, keeping things decentralized in the south from the start and houston got a boost from assuming some of new orleans roles.

i’m assuming that there must have been a window there for atlanta where boosters claimed “capital of the (entire) south” and had a decent argument but i don’t know enough about atlantas twentieth century history.

[Yuri]

As we’ve talking about Atlanta, does anyone think its urban area will become denser this Census? Demographia keeps tracking of it since 1950, and Atlanta has always became less and less dense, bottoming at its current 600 inh/km2.

I guess, if it will keep growing fast, it will eventually need to densify, otherwise it won’t work as a single hub anymore.

[bossabreezes]

I think the city of Atlanta has probably densified but the metro as a whole has probably not changed very much. Atlanta embodies all that is wrong with American sprawl.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

As we’ve talking about Atlanta, does anyone think its urban area will become denser this Census? Demographia keeps tracking of it since 1950, and Atlanta has always became less and less dense, bottoming at its current 600 inh/km2.

I guess, if it will keep growing fast, it will eventually need to densify, otherwise it won’t work as a single hub anymore.

Hard to imagine but it needs to happen eventually. The city of Atlanta added more people this past decade than it has since the 1950s, and it was one of the biggest population increases in the city's history. So the city is densifying, and maybe someday it will resemble something urban. But Atlanta's suburbs seem almost irredeemably anti-urban.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Fun bit of trivia: New York City is classified as a subtropical climate. Its winters are just mild enough that it clears the requirement to be subtropical (coldest month has average lows above -3 C/27 F) by a fraction of a degree.

Important to note that this is a recent reclassification due to climate change.

[pj3000]

Regardless of which is the "most important", Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are all rather unattractive places to me.

I think it's due to their lack of significant geographical presence. No significant water nor topography result in no perceivable reason for their existence. Most major cities hit you right away with their surroundings, and you don't even think about why the city is there... it's inherent... the city and its natural surroundings are one in the same. And those attributes of setting result in a history and overall vibe that make a city interesting.

Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, for as large and prominent as they are, just don't seem to have that. They could be be located a hundred miles in pretty much any direction from where they exist, and they would look no different.

[bossabreezes]

^^100% agreed. All are rather unremarkable and easily forgettable.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, for as large and prominent as they are, just don't seem to have that. They could be be located a hundred miles in pretty much any direction from where they exist, and they would look no different.

of the three, houston, with buffalo bayou/galveston bay (and the massive port facilities that arose there), has the greatest geographical reason for existing where it does, but it's interesting that downtown houston was located miles upstream on the non-navigable part of the river.

in most other major port cities, "downtown" springs directly forth from the port, or at least where the port used to be (NYC, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, SF, etc.).

was downtown houston purposely pushed further up stream from the port to avoid hurricane storm surges or other coastal flooding issues?

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

of the three, houston, with buffalo bayou/galveston bay (and the massive port facilities that arose there), has the greatest geographical reason for existing where it does, but it's interesting that downtown houston was located miles upstream on the non-navigable part of the river.

in most other major port cities, "downtown" springs directly forth from the port, or at least where the port used to be (NYC, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, SF, etc.).

was downtown houston purposely pushed further up stream from the port to avoid hurricane storm surges or other coastal flooding issues?

Sure, absolutely. When in Houston though, you really don't even perceive that it's a port city... because the huge port isn't really near the city center. There was massive dredging of the bayous as early as the 1870s to create the shipping channel. But right in the core city, the bayou is a rinky-dink little drainage ditch of chocolate milk.

Galveston was the port on the barrier island... in between was swampy, unstable and flooded land and open water... Houston was inland where land was stable and the railroads came. It was never pushed inland really... it's just where the elevation was higher and therefore less prone to regular flooding/inundation.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Regardless of which is the "most important", Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are all rather unattractive places to me.

I think it's due to their lack of significant geographical presence. No significant water nor topography result in no perceivable reason for their existence.

Isn't this true of nearly all Sun Belt cities? You could say the same of L.A.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

of the three, houston, with buffalo bayou/galveston bay (and the massive port facilities that arose there), has the greatest geographical reason for existing where it does, but it's interesting that downtown houston was located miles upstream on the non-navigable part of the river.

in most other major port cities, "downtown" springs directly forth from the port, or at least where the port used to be (NYC, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, SF, etc.).

was downtown houston purposely pushed further up stream from the port to avoid hurricane storm surges or other coastal flooding issues?

Downtown Houston is the spot where the Allen Brothers first established their settlement. Houston grew from that spot on the Buffalo bayou outward in all directions.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Hard to imagine but it needs to happen eventually. The city of Atlanta added more people this past decade than it has since the 1950s, and it was one of the biggest population increases in the city's history. So the city is densifying, and maybe someday it will resemble something urban. But Atlanta's suburbs seem almost irredeemably anti-urban.

It's basically a race of which grows faster: Atlanta UA population or Atlanta UA footprint.

Even though Atlanta represents only a tiny fraction of its MSA population, I guess this impressive growth the city presented in this decade will be a game changer: I bet Atlanta UA will be slightly denser in 2020 compared to 2010.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Isn't this true of nearly all Sun Belt cities? You could say the same of L.A.

No, I don't think so. Charlotte, Birmingham, and Orlando likely fit the bill too. But most other major cities in the sunbelt seem to have more of a geographic/natural setting reason for their location: New Orleans, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Nashville, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Shreveport, Jackson...

I don't think of LA as sunbelt, really... at least not in the same way as I do the traditional southern US. And LA is coastal, anyway, with major, major geographic/natural setting reasons why it is there.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

I think the city of Atlanta has probably densified but the metro as a whole has probably not changed very much. Atlanta embodies all that is wrong with American sprawl.

Even though Atlanta is a massive land-eater, the biggest sinner, it's sprawl looks much better than Dallas, for instance.

It's full of gardens, massive trees that you barely see the houses under them. It looks more like a forest than suburbia. Dallas, on the other hand, is more compact, but its outer suburbs looks incredibly dull. Poorly, mass designed houses, surrounded by grassland only, for miles. It must be depressing to live in such environment.

And talking about Dallas and Atlanta, looking at GSV and googling it, it seems they're developing some hipster/counterculture/creative/urban districts, just east of their downtowns. Do they actually nice places to enjoy or they're still very incipient?

[Buckeye Native 001]

Wasn't Galveston the dominant city in that region before a hurricane destroyed it in the early 20th century and the population/economy shifted toward Houston?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Regardless of which is the "most important", Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are all rather unattractive places to me.

I think it's due to their lack of significant geographical presence. .

Of the three, in my opinion Atlantas climate, being on a plateau is notable in how moderated it actually is in comparison to other major cities in the south. The “Hotlanta” nickname is silly...the temperature almost always is lower in Atlanta than wherever i’m driving from in summer, especially from Nashville/St. Louis/Memphis/New Orleans. The tree canopy is also stunning in my opinion.

They are somewhat secondary attributes but I think they do amount to something in distinguishing Atlanta from other sunbelt cities.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Wasn't Galveston the dominant city in that region before a hurricane destroyed it in the early 20th century and the population/economy shifted toward Houston?

I don't know about "dominant", but it was the slighly larger port city to Houston's railroad hub up until the turn of the century. But Houston was already surpassing Galveston in size by the time the hurricane hit. But it was more of a symbiotic relationship, and once massive dredging of the bayous between the two cities began in the 1870s to create the ship channel, Houston was on its way to become the alpha.

[Centropolis]

also southern appalachians > north texas/east texas for surrounding geographical interest. i see texas plated offroad vehicles roaming all the way up into the ozarks in search of anything halfway resembling topography.