Huntsville Passes Birmingham As The Largest City In Alabama

[UAH]

And now - autos here, to be clear...

Yes. It is astounding to see the road and general construction related to Toyota-Mazda a few miles west of us. The pressure on roadways is going to be tremendous here for years to come.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

There were a lot of people in Decatur that worked at Marshall SFC when I was a kid 45+ years ago. Decatur was almost a suburb of Huntsville then.
I think Huntsville and Athens is now contiguous.

Huntsville and Decatur touch. Decatur and Athens touch. Huntsville and Athens are expanding towards each other at breakneck speed...

 

[Go Bama]

There are also a lot of people in Lincoln and Giles County, Tennessee that commute daily to Huntsville. My father did it back in the 60's and 70's.

 

[TexasBama]

I get this up to a point but then again if we took the entire DFW metroplex as one, it’d be the 5th largest city in the country. Instead, Dallas is 9th and Ft Worth is 12th.

How many people even think of FW when thinking of the 20 largest cities in the US? (I was stunned when living there to learn that San Jose is larger than San Fran. Of course, put that whole area together and it’s about what DFW is, too.

I try not to think of Fort Worth at all.

ETA - Tyler TX would be the 5th largest city in Alabama. I really try to not think of Tyler

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I get this up to a point but then again if we took the entire DFW metroplex as one, it’d be the 5th largest city in the country. Instead, Dallas is 9th and Ft Worth is 12th.

How many people even think of FW when thinking of the 20 largest cities in the US? (I was stunned when living there to learn that San Jose is larger than San Fran. Of course, put that whole area together and it’s about what DFW is, too.

Those, along with Houston are mature no-brainers. This thread is really more about the startling changes in Alabama, particularly the rapid growth of the Huntsville area. The population growth is driven by the economic growth. The unemployment rate is 2.2%...

HSV Chamber

 

[92tide]

I try not to think of Fort Worth at all.

ETA - Tyler TX would be the 5th largest city in Alabama. I really try to not think of Tyler

i was born in richardson. we moved when I was three, so i don't have to think of it much.

 

[MobtownK]

Those SMAs are outdated. Huntsville should include Limestone and Marshall counties as well as Morgan. When a large portion of the population is migrating to an economic center for work or obtaining their economic support from that center, that's an obvious statistical area. When you adjust for that, the Huntsville area is much closer to Birmingham/Hoover...

If we did this, then Mobile would swallow Prichard, Chickasaw, Saraland, Creola, Semmes, West Mobile, & across the bay Spanish Ft., Daphne, & Fairhope. Prichard by all rights should be part of Mobile.

Montgomery would take Pike Road, maybe Prattville, & Wetumpka at the very least.

The question would be how many miles out to extend "metro area?" I'd argue Tallassee & Shorter also have to go to Montgomery to work... but none of these *feel like* a metro area, whereas Mobile does.

Perhaps it has to do with the proximity of the Mobile suburbs?

 

[92tide]

Megaregions of the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

from the "further reading" section

Megaregions: Planning for Global Competitiveness

i co-authored a chapter in this book. my final semester in graduate school, we did a studio class where we worked on the southeastern "mega region" and then i worked as a research scientist for dr. ross and a lot of our early work was on megaregions, which culminated in this book.

 

[92tide]

this is the one we studied

Piedmont Atlantic megaregion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Emerging Megaregions | Georgia Tech Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development

web.archive.org

 

[TIDE-HSV]

If we did this, then Mobile would swallow Prichard, Chickasaw, Saraland, Creola, Semmes, West Mobile, & across the bay Spanish Ft., Daphne, & Fairhope. Prichard by all rights should be part of Mobile.

Montgomery would take Pike Road, maybe Prattville, & Wetumpka at the very least.

The question would be how many miles out to extend "metro area?" I'd argue Tallassee & Shorter also have to go to Montgomery to work... but none of these *feel like* a metro area, whereas Mobile does.

Perhaps it has to do with the proximity of the Mobile suburbs?

Your MSA already includes Baldwin county and all of Mobile County, and it has a population of around 650K. If Decatur and Guntersville were included with Huntsville's 430K or so, each is around 155K, the MSA here would top 800K. That's without the trans-Tennessee border growth. Feel free to count Prichard. They already were...

 

[92tide]

In the old days we looked at SMSA's from the department of labor. One thing that is interesting here is intersection of the Huntsville labor market that stretches into middle Tennessee and intersects with the Nashville labor market that extends south along the I-65 corridor practically to the Alabama state line. Automotive and construction suppliers are located generally along the entire corridor. At some point in the future Huntsville-Nashville will become a megalopolis.

there are a few interesting corridors that pop up. we integrated county and census tract level info (transportation, economics, environmental, demographic, etc) with gis and did a lot of interesting analysis.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

i was born in richardson. we moved when I was three, so i don't have to think of it much.

That explains SOOO much........

 

[crimsonaudio]

Maybe, but that is how we calculate city populations. Look at the major metropolitan areas around the country. The suburbs which surround the large cities don't count their population toward the cities.

Yeah but it makes no sense to people who aren't familiar with the area (and only matters to those who live in the city limts).

Case in point - Memphis and Atlanta:
City of Memphis population: 633k
City of Atlanta population: 506k
Memphis MSA: ~1,348,000
Atlanta MSA: ~6,020,000

 

[Crimson1967]

How do they decide what is in the MSA and how big it is? Does Memphis’ MSA extend into Arkansas or Mississippi?

 

[92tide]

How do they decide what is in the MSA and how big it is? Does Memphis’ MSA extend into Arkansas or Mississippi?

About

This section provides detailed information and statistics on [name of topic, survey, etc.]. Find the latest news, publications, and other content.

www.census.gov

 

[Chukker Veteran]

Living in Decatur gives me a taste of the boom Huntsville is having and of course the industry growing in between. I see new major projects under construction in Huntsville every time I go there. It's amazing, really something to see.

One aspect I've convinced myself of is that people's aggressiveness in driving gets worse the thicker the traffic. The only way to merge lanes in Huntsville is to just bull your way in, it's rare anybody would cut you some slack and let you in their lane.

 

[Isaiah 63:1]

Pop quiz: Which is bigger - the city of El Paso, or the city of Atlanta?

Answer - El Paso, by a whopping 36%. It's a wonder the El Paso media don't run with that story. Maybe they don't realize? But once the news got out, just imagine what would logically follow: Coca Cola and Delta relocate; and of course, the El Paso Falcons (a move which might make both areas better off, come to think of it).

 

[92tide]

Pop quiz: Which is bigger - the city of El Paso, or the city of Atlanta?

Answer - El Paso, by a whopping 36%. It's a wonder the El Paso media don't run with that story. Maybe they don't realize? But once the news got out, just imagine what would logically follow: Coca Cola and Delta relocate; and of course, the El Paso Falcons (a move which might make both areas better off, come to think of it).

meh, outkast is better than marty robbins