Post-Grads Flocking to the Southeast?

I know my readers are frustrated with my lack of posts this fall,  so here's one to  get things started again.  People who know me  are probably aware of my interest in urban policy, suburbia, city management, etc.  It's one of my favorite topics.  An article somewhat related to these issues in today's NYT caught my eye.

The article, titled "Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young," discusses how cities are making an effort to attract today's post-grads by appealing to our social, artistic, and living interests.  According to a recent study, Atlanta is leading the charge among big cities in attracting the "young and restless" from traditional hubs such as New York City, Washington, and Chicago.  Other gainers include Charlotte, Austin, and Portland. 

Austin and Portland make sense to me.  Both cities are known to have progressive local legislatures that put a prerogrative on keeping their cities liveable and dynamic.  Austin is considered a top venue for live music, and residents wear shirts that famously read "Keep Austin Weird."  Portland features one of the most efficient mass-transit systems in the United States, and "smart-growth" policies assure that the evils of suburbia, along with it's mushrooming highways, won't turn the city into a tangle of asphalt, cars, and finely-mowed front lawns. 

Atlanta and Charlotte, on the other hand, are case-studies for disorganized city planning.  Highways dominate the landscape in both cities, and neither locations have viable downtowns as growth has been allowed to expand outwards in all directions.  The article claims that Atlanta is gaining in popularity among young people because of its diversity, 45 universities, and major airport.  Young people are supposedly flocking to Charlotte because of a "new Nascar museum," "frisbee golf," and a "new articifical river for whitewater sports."  Yeah right.

Charlotte and Atlanta are popular among post-grads for one reason: money.  It's just becoming too expensive for young people to afford to live the city-life in places like NYC and Washington.  As an example, in Davidson, NC, a suburb of Charlotte, I paid $275/month for an entire house that I shared with two friends.  In Washington, I pay $1300+/month for a two-bedroom apartment. 

My contention all along is that Atlanta and Charlotte can only maintain this level of growth for so long.  With a transportation system reliant on cars, both cities are facing an impending crisis when oil prices soar again and highways finally reach their capacity.  Charlotte is in a little better shape because it's still a young city and much can be done to steer growth in a more organized direction.  But Atlanta is in trouble.  Young people will be fleeing Atlanta before long when they realize that their commutes to work suck hours from their day, and their gas bills resemble a night of drinks at an expensive bar. 

Comments

[Travis Lloyd]

Atlanta seems relatively inexpensive to me. I suppose hip, in-town neighborhoods are few and far between in the city, but there's plenty of available real estate in those neighborhoods (e.g., Virginia Highlands, L5P, Grant Park, Inman Park, East Atlanta)(to your point though, much of this is pretty expensive). It just seems to me that many people choose to live north of the perimeter, in cookie-cutter neighborhoods. I suppose their argument (aside from cost) is that those areas are safer. I can understand this argument for a young family, but for recent post-grads, come on. I've not yet felt any sort of threat to my well-being. Also, I think the cost argument is generally without merit. If someone who lives out yonder, say in Marietta, travels to and from Atlanta during peak traffic, they might spend 2 hours a day in transit (and I think that's a conservative estimate). 10 hours a week of gas, wear on his car, and lost opportunity to spend time doing something meaningful. It seems like that amount would make up whatever difference exists between renting/owning an apartment/home in Atlanta versus doing so in Marietta.

Charlotte? Gross. Do you think those banks hire a lot of recent grads for entry-level analyst positions? I know of a number of Davidsonians who headed in that direction. The banks might have more to do with it than the city's hipness. I mean, remember all the great times we had in Charlotte during college? Exactly.