Originally Posted by
Plutonic Panda
I’m not sure if you haven’t kept up with Birmingham but they are really seeing some big investment with auto manufacturers and space industry. I was actually very impressed with the city which shocked me.
Memphis is generally viewed as the armpit of Tennessee with even Knoxville looking down on it. Nashville tends to get all of the favoritism from the state.
Raleigh is absolutely on fire though recent efforts to build light rail were shot down due to a university and some powers that be having turned back on a decision to build it. Other than that they are making huge progress.
I’m not sure you’ve ever been to SLC but that city is incredible and is years ahead of OKC. Just due to the amount of tourism it draws, it will be hard for OKC to ever really compete with them depending on how you want to define being in competition.
There are tons of metros like the Boise, Spokane-Coeur d’Alene, Omaha, Des Moines, Fayetteville, etc. which all could easily catch up and eclipse OKC. Should people get too complacent with the way things are going and continuing to justify the backwardness exhibited by the state by the default “other states do this too,” they ought to tread carefully.
In terms of percentage wise as well, Asheville, St. George, Fargo, among various other smaller metros are showing impressive growth.
It’s important to look at trends though remembering such things are unpredictable. It’s a very complex issue, IMO, given that there are many cities today that people would have never guessed 100 years ago would be as big as they are just like the cities that have experienced a loss in population like Detroit. Remember at current trends California is expected to lose population. I’m not sure about NYC, but with 120k a year in the Bay Area being considered low income, there are many issues that are starting to really hit the breaking point in the larger metros. I have a hunch that we will see a revival of small town America.
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