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I'm not sure why people keep saying "Norfolk Southern is coming."
Reality check: Most of Norfolk Southern (2,500 jobs) was already here. Atlanta at most is only gaining 850 more jobs and another feather in its cap from a generic HQ bragging standpoint. And this is after they held a gun to our heads and we had to give then subsidies (I'm sure they're going to be awesome corporate citizens if all of that was any sign of things to come).
I get what people are trying to do ("think positive" like a person who has suffered from a traumatic event that chooses to dissociate from reality to cope with the pain), but when compared with losing many as 7,500 jobs, the largest private sector downtown employer, one of the region's largest occupier of office space and the status of being home to a major bank HQ, quite frankly the Norfolk Southern stuff isn't all that impressive.
Last edited by citidata18; 02-08-2019 at 09:34 PM..
I think this will impact real estate here as well. Many of these folks live north of town and they'll be moving because there isn't another bank to take them in. The boosters on this board will over look a fact - the reality is Charlotte will pull the best from Atlanta in this case. The people who can will move. That may be the trend going forward that the Nashville/Charlotte higher quality of life and specific industry, takes away from the general and often lower tier that Atlanta has.
The only thing really going for Atlanta now is the movie stuff they did and low cost corporate relocation. Nashville has medical and music and Charlotte owns banking. Atlanta needs to really figure out what it has to differentiate itself. Coca cola and pepsi are so bad off they're calling truce as people stop drinking sugar water. But movies alone won't float an 6 million metro.
This post is hilarious, first off this "merger" not a company "relation", A larger bank in Charlotte bought out SunTrust and keeping it's headquaters in Charlotte not a company choose to relcate out of Atlanta, because they didn't like Atlanta and wanted another location. but in your post trying to describe Atlanta as if it's bad atmosphere for companies or not competitive. Which is not only false it has literally nothing to do with this.
Atlanta has diverse economy it's a top city in multiple industries rather being a niche in one or two, Yes Charlotte is ahead finance but 8/10 industries Atlanta would ahead of Charlotte "or Nashville" for that matter. And on a Annual bases Atlanta is growing and creates more jobs then those cities,
Cities tend to beat cities in different industry just cause Atlanta Metro is larger doesn't mean it it's going to beat Charlotte and Nashville in everything, that should be a given but the fact some Charlotte posters are acting as if because Charlotte is ahead in one industry some how Atlanta is falling down or Charlotte is on Atlanta tier is hilarious.
This reminds of the NASCAR museum a few years back that Charlotte won over Atlanta. Stuff like this matter much more to the smaller cities than it does to the bigger cities. Being in a larger city you expect that will a L once in a awhile to a smaller city, but to that smaller city because less going om that W over the larger city means more to them.
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Originally Posted by poplocker
Atlanta has a bad reputation now around the country for it's bad traffic and crime. Many areas of metro Atlanta are not growing as they once did. I know people who moved to Charlotte and like it a lot. Nearly all the people I know who move to Atlanta think it's ok. Many of us who grew up here have simply moved as far from it as possible while still using things like the stadium etc.
Nash and Charlotte should have learned what not to do by looking over here.
Literally all top 10 metros from Chicago, DC, Boston even SF have bad reputation in traffic, That isn't something specific or standout about Atlanta, Also Nashville has a higher murder rate then Atlanta, and Charlotte isn't much better. Your literally pick the worst things to say.
Nashville is moving on several fronts. Healthcare is a leader for them.
The interesting thing about Atlanta is how often people think Atlanta is on par with something, when in reality it lags far behind. Charlotte is a financial services leader and has been for sometime.
I do not know what Atlanta leads in. It used to be large corporate operations, and maybe that's still true. Some one tried to tell me it was startups, but that was wishful thinking as is often the case here.
This a example of what I talking about, do you realize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is located in Atlanta?
First off Charlotte is not the top city in finance it's New York. I believe Charlotte maybe ranked second but it's toss with SF. Nashvile is top
I'm not sure why people keep saying "Norfolk Southern is coming."
Reality check: Most of Norfolk Southern (2,500 jobs) was already here. Atlanta at most is only gaining 850 more jobs and another feather in its cap from a generic HQ bragging standpoint. And this is after they held a gun to our heads and we had to give then subsidies (I'm sure they're going to be awesome corporate citizens if all of that was any sign of things to come).
I get what people are trying to do ("think positive" like a person who has suffered from a traumatic event that chooses to dissociate from reality to cope with the pain), but when compared with losing many as 7,500 jobs, the largest private sector downtown employer, one of the region's largest occupier of office space and the status of being home to a major bank HQ, quite frankly the Norfolk Southern stuff isn't all that impressive.
because 8,000 range Atlanta monthly creates more jobs then that, These large corpate companies in general make a small percentage of any metro Workforce. They are more "bragging rights" then anything, I do think Loosing SunTrust sucks but overrall Atlanta been gaining more jobs and companies than Charlotte this decade, and even so has larger presence Futune 500 companies anyways. So your making it a lot bigger than what it is. And I think people using Norfolk Southern as just an example. These companies tend to come and go,
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Originally Posted by jero23
North Carolina and Alabama banking laws are better setup for financial institution HQs than Georgia. Atlanta is not really a fin-tech hub. Whereas Charlotte, Miami, and ironically Birmingham are fin-tech strong cities in the South. I don't expect Atlanta to be a player in that arena because of the more network type of economy that has emerged in the Southeast cities that are thriving and competing. Atlanta will be regional HQs and main HQ of some major corps but not all, and that has to be accepted as reality.
because 8,000 range Atlanta monthly creates more jobs then that, These large corpate companies in general make a small percentage of any metro Workforce. They are more "bragging rights" then anything, I do think Loosing SunTrust sucks but overrall Atlanta been gaining more jobs and companies than Charlotte this decade, and even so has larger presence Futune 500 companies anyways. So your making it a lot bigger than what it is. And I think people using Norfolk Southern as just an example. These companies tend to come and go
I disagree about "making it a lot bigger than what it is."
This town has made some real mistakes through the years and Suntrust doesn't bode well. AT&T was also supposed to be located here. Now instead, tens of thousands have been shipped off to Dallas.
No, the doors to Atlanta won't close. But the future isn't great here. The dynamism and energy of 1990's and 2000's isn't here anymore.
If you really know the history of AT&T, they never were coming to Atlanta. After breaking up into the baby Bells, Southwestern Bell, based in St. Louis, began to re-absorb several. Their wireless unit, Cingular, was joint venture of SW Bell and Bell South but the former owned 60%. Ed Whitaker, CEO of SW Bell is a native Texan and Texas was the biggest market of SW Bell. He saw staying in Missouri was not favorable for the new AT&T and relocated to Texas (San Antonio first). Also, Texas is a huge telecom hub with Alcatel, Nortel, Nokia, Verizon (a merger of Dallas-based GTE and D.C. based Bell Atlantic) located there. AT&T about 10 years ago moved to downtown Dallas because of that telecom footprint. Also, north Texas is one of the ten largest data center hubs in the world. Last, DFW is more centrally located in the central time zone.
That seems beyond drastic. I would be shocked if only that remained (of course speaking in terms of 5 years. Companies always say "We are committed to XYZ city" because it takes time to merge anyway.
I would say losing Wachovia to Wells Fargo, Charlotte actually gained a significant amount more jobs due to the merger. But they were literally on the other side of the country and had different strong points. BBT and SunTrust seems to be a merger with lots of synergies and overlap. But in any even, that large of a reduction seems harsh. Although, they did mention their commitment to Winston-Salem more-so than Atlanta has been mentioned.
I hateeeee this bolded argument. It's literally mentioned non-stop in the Charlotte forums. Charlotte and Atlanta both have strong identities. It's not Mardi Gras or Country Music, but they both have distinct identities.
Charlotte didn't gain any jobs from Wachovia failing! I remember the Attorney General contemplating suing to stop the acquisition knowing jobs would be lost.
"Medical" is ubiquitous; practically every major city has that. And Atlanta has its own thing going in music, including being a premier epicenter of the world's most popular genre of music. When hip hop gets that big and mainstreamed, you can hardly call it niched.
And as far as Atlanta figuring out how to differentiate itself, I'm pretty sure that happened when it was founded. Transportation and logistics--literally planes, trains, and automobiles--aren't exactly small potatoes. I suppose it's easy to overlook since it's not exactly a sexy industry where millenials clamor to work.
Practically every city has medical is not really true. Houston has the biggest medical complex in the world with the Texas Medical Center (employs over 100,000). Cleveland has the Cleveland Clinic. Minneapolis has the Mayo Clinic. Baltimore has Johns Hopkins and Boston has several highly respected health care operations.
Charlotte is heavily reliant on banking and finance, and Raleigh/Durham is heavily reliant on tech. Atlanta's economy is much more diverse than those with corporate operations, healthcare, education, (some) manufacturing, and tech being significant economy drivers.
The only time one can be certain about a region's economic diversity is its resilience after a recession.
Remember, like Atlanta, Raleigh is the state capital and has NC State U and not away, Duke and UNC. Thus, is has a stable employment base. Yes, the Research Triangle is part of its brand but Raleigh is not Austin when it comes to Tech. They want to be but just suffered two major blows with Amazon AND Apple selecting other cities for expansion. Apple especially hurt because its CEO was asked if Austin was a consideration more workers and he said "no" but shortly after Amazon announced its HQ2 plans, Apple announced a new $1billion campus in Austin.
I wonder how old those of you who are all "sky is falling" are. This kind of stuff happens all the time in business, and like one voice of reason pointed out above -- this isn't about SunTrust "deciding" that Atlanta is old news and wanting to go somewhere different. This is about BB&T deciding that it benefits their shareholders to purchase SunTrust, and making the offer, and SunTrust deciding that it benefits THEIR shareholders too, and agreeing, and that based on all the financials and tax benefits that it makes sense to be based in Charlotte.
Quote:
Originally Posted by poplocker
I do not know what Atlanta leads in. It used to be large corporate operations, and maybe that's still true. Some one tried to tell me it was startups, but that was wishful thinking as is often the case here.
I disagree with you but philosophically I ask: Why does Atlanta have to "lead" in anything? Atlanta has many strengths on many fronts.
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Originally Posted by citidata18
I will admit, I've been debating big time on whether or not to buy a house. This move definitely makes me more hesitant to do so.
If I'm going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on property, I'd expect decent appreciation of it.
One company is leaving and you aren't sure you want to buy a house? There are many companies moving here all the time. The net loss of jobs will be more than made up. Do you work in banking?
And LOL on the traffic thing -- any major city now has huge traffic problems. If you spent any time on other cities' forums when Amazon HQ2 was in play, most of the comments were along the lines of "we already have too much traffic" or "they will never come here because of our reputation for constant gridlock."
Atlanta is a constantly evolving entity. There are enough strengths that businesses will continue to be attracted to our city.
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