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This is off topic but is it really better when a city and county merge (becomes metropolitan)? Does it have an advantage over other cities.
And surprised Nashville beat Charlotte in walkability. Nice
Nashville is a more mature city, so I am not surprised. Going metro has its advantages such as more streamlined government, higher tax collection, and larger population. The disadvantages are that the city tends to develop in a more suburban way, does not have the adequate infrastructure to support the higher population, and it's density levels are greatly altered. Nashville is working on its walkability by building more sidewalks first. The other things such as traffic control, pedestrian crossings, lighting, more dense development etc. will take some time.
It has a very good job market with a low cost of living. When I initially started interviewing in Indy back in late 2013/early 2014, it was not uncommon for a job in Indy to pay 20%-30% more than jobs in Nashville. The call backs I was getting in Nashville were paying $30k-$40k - in Indy, it was $40k-$50k. The difference in salary for IT jobs is significant - that's not even counting the fact that Indy has substantially cheaper property prices and rents than Nashville, and probably Charlotte as well. The economy has picked up and wages are probably higher, but I still bet there's a difference between Nashville/Charlotte and Indy/Pitt in wages. Northern metros are almost always higher paying than metros in the South for similar jobs, even if the Southern city has a higher COL.
It's practically impossible to a find 1 BR for under $1000/month now in the urban core, possibly even city limits, of Nashville. $1000/month in Indy opens up quite a few options. There are some livable homes in places like Bates-Hendricks that are within a decent walk or fairly short bike ride of downtown, Fountain Square, etc., for $100,000 or less, and very nice homes that will need nothing for $150,000-$200,000. These price points near "where the action is" in Nashville simply don't exist anymore.
Your "urban dollar" is going a lot farther in Indy than Nashville, and probably farther than the urban two cities as well. I think there is a lot of money to be made in neighborhoods like Bates-Hendricks.
My last job there sucked and I was commuting from Carmel to Fishers (which sucks), didn't get off until 6 (can't really go to Pacers/Indians games and get DT with traffic starting at 6), so I probably grew to dislike it a lot more than I should due to the bad personal situation. Compared to working at Keystone at the Crossing and 96th/College, the traffic in Fishers was absolutely nightmarish. I felt like I did nothing for six months but sit in traffic.
My biggest gripe with the area was the lack of scenery and outdoor activities. IMO, it's easily the worst of this bunch for outdoor rec. I like to hike, and it was at least an hour to any somewhat decent hiking from Carmel (Turkey Run, Brown County). Geist and Morse are small lakes at best that are overdeveloped with little in the way of privacy. For truly decent hiking and boating, you can easily be going a couple of hours in any direction. Monroe was the best lake around, and it was still an hour and a half from where I was. I can find hiking as nice as Turkey Run within ten minutes of my house, and an 1.5-2 hrs opens up numerous state parks, several national forests and Cumberland Gap National Park in VA/TN/NC/KY, there are two reasonably large lakes within fifteen minutes of my house, etc. For someone who likes outdoor recreation, there is next to nothing in central Indiana.
It has a very good job market with a low cost of living. When I initially started interviewing in Indy back in late 2013/early 2014, it was not uncommon for a job in Indy to pay 20%-30% more than jobs in Nashville. The call backs I was getting in Nashville were paying $30k-$40k - in Indy, it was $40k-$50k. The difference in salary for IT jobs is significant - that's not even counting the fact that Indy has substantially cheaper property prices and rents than Nashville, and probably Charlotte as well. The economy has picked up and wages are probably higher, but I still bet there's a difference between Nashville/Charlotte and Indy/Pitt in wages. Northern metros are almost always higher paying than metros in the South for similar jobs, even if the Southern city has a higher COL.
It's practically impossible to a find 1 BR for under $1000/month now in the urban core, possibly even city limits, of Nashville. $1000/month in Indy opens up quite a few options. There are some livable homes in places like Bates-Hendricks that are within a decent walk or fairly short bike ride of downtown, Fountain Square, etc., for $100,000 or less, and very nice homes that will need nothing for $150,000-$200,000. These price points near "where the action is" in Nashville simply don't exist anymore.
Your "urban dollar" is going a lot farther in Indy than Nashville, and probably farther than the urban two cities as well. I think there is a lot of money to be made in neighborhoods like Bates-Hendricks.
My last job there sucked and I was commuting from Carmel to Fishers (which sucks), didn't get off until 6 (can't really go to Pacers/Indians games and get DT with traffic starting at 6), so I probably grew to dislike it a lot more than I should due to the bad personal situation. Compared to working at Keystone at the Crossing and 96th/College, the traffic in Fishers was absolutely nightmarish. I felt like I did nothing for six months but sit in traffic.
My biggest gripe with the area was the lack of scenery and outdoor activities. IMO, it's easily the worst of this bunch for outdoor rec. I like to hike, and it was at least an hour to any somewhat decent hiking from Carmel (Turkey Run, Brown County). Geist and Morse are small lakes at best that are overdeveloped with little in the way of privacy. For truly decent hiking and boating, you can easily be going a couple of hours in any direction. Monroe was the best lake around, and it was still an hour and a half from where I was. I can find hiking as nice as Turkey Run within ten minutes of my house, and an 1.5-2 hrs opens up numerous state parks, several national forests and Cumberland Gap National Park in VA/TN/NC/KY, there are two reasonably large lakes within fifteen minutes of my house, etc. For someone who likes outdoor recreation, there is next to nothing in central Indiana.
You can still find a 1br in Pittsburgh's most desirable urban neighborhoods for under $1000/mo. You can still buy a condo for under 200k.
Ok, let me put it in a way so you can understand better. This and this are cohesive mixed-use projects, this and this is supposedly what you'll see in Charlotte. Picking up what I'm putting down?
So you're cherry picking a few new residential developments in Charlotte that don't have ground-floor retail space and trying to make it seem like that's the norm. Sorry, but that won't fly.
In the first Charlotte, just a block or two to the south, you'll see this and right around the corner is this. Turn another corner and you'll see this, and then another and you'll see this. And this is only in South End where there's an effort to build more mixed-use developments along key pedestrian corridors.
We could look at some more new developments in Uptown with active ground-floor uses like this, this (the other corner of the same building looks like this), this, etc. Now does every single new residential development have retail on the ground floor? No, and that's not necessary for all of them (although a couple of them should have had them). There are lots of new apartments going up in the former industrial parts of South End that really aren't pedestrian corridors, so they aren't needed. But all in all, Charlotte is headed down the right path in terms of increasing walkability and generating pedestrian activity.
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And what I meant by connecting areas/neighborhoods within the core is trying to infill the areas between two already significant areas; which means adding business, urban housing, and retail to continue the flow of activity. In Seattle there's no drop-off between Downtown and Queen Ann/Capitol Hill, or in Miami with Downtown and BV.
I know exactly what you mean, but there are two things you don't seem to know about Charlotte. One, Uptown is entirely constrained by the I-277 loop, which prevents a seamless flow from Uptown to surrounding neighborhoods in most places; there's no such boundary between DT Seattle and Queen Anne. However, there are some efforts in place to connect Uptown and South End along Tryon Street. Secondly, Charlotte's emphasis up until now has been infill in the significant areas, which still had a lot of gaps. Just look at this aerial of Uptown from 2005 and see all the surface lots; the goal has been to get those surface lots developed, and thankfully most of them have been. Now that infill within
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I have no beef with Charlotte, I just hate the path it's going down. I'm not the only one who's said this as well, there's been others.
I've been pretty active on this board for a while, both in this subforum and the Charlotte subforum, and this is the first time I've ever heard anyone who claims to be familiar with Charlotte say what you're saying. It gets criticized for plenty of other stuff, but most people easily recognize the positive direction the city is going in when it comes to new additions to the built environment.
I don't think Charlotte's development looks very different at all from modern infill you see across the country. Hell, the contemporary stuff from Pittsburgh is no better overall (it's just Pittsburgh has a lot of historic urban fabric, so the meh infill doesn't destroy the cohesion of neighborhoods when it happens).
One big difference I see between Charlotte and Nashville is Charlotte is concentrating all of its redevelopment in Uptown and the South End it seems, while Nashville's is more organically spread in Downtown and nearly all nearby neighborhoods. Indy is more the Charlotte model - almost all the redevelopment is in the area around Downtown ringed by highways, though it has areas like Broad Ripple and Fountain Square which are a bit walkable outside of its urban core.
I don't think Charlotte's development looks very different at all from modern infill you see across the country. Hell, the contemporary stuff from Pittsburgh is no better overall (it's just Pittsburgh has a lot of historic urban fabric, so the meh infill doesn't destroy the cohesion of neighborhoods when it happens.
One big difference I see between Charlotte and Nashville is Charlotte is concentrating all of its redevelopment in Uptown and the South End it seems, while Nashville's is more organically spread in Downtown and nearly all nearby neighborhoods. Indy is more the Charlotte model - almost all the redevelopment is in the area around Downtown ringed by highways, though it has areas like Broad Ripple and Fountain Square which are a bit walkable outside of its urban core.
The majority of new development is happening in those areas because a lot of Charlotte's new development is actually TOD, but there's also some in Plaza-Midwood, NoDa, Dilworth, etc. And with the extension of light rail to University City, the neighborhoods north of Uptown are in the process of seeing an influx of new development as well.
I don't think Charlotte's development looks very different at all from modern infill you see across the country. Hell, the contemporary stuff from Pittsburgh is no better overall (it's just Pittsburgh has a lot of historic urban fabric, so the meh infill doesn't destroy the cohesion of neighborhoods when it happens.
One big difference I see between Charlotte and Nashville is Charlotte is concentrating all of its redevelopment in Uptown and the South End it seems, while Nashville's is more organically spread in Downtown and nearly all nearby neighborhoods. Indy is more the Charlotte model - almost all the redevelopment is in the area around Downtown ringed by highways, though it has areas like Broad Ripple and Fountain Square which are a bit walkable outside of its urban core.
Broad Ripple is quite walkable - however, there is a street through the "strip" that is always congested and tough to drive through.
Not sure about Charlotte, but most of the nice neighborhoods in the core of Indianapolis are surrounded by questionable neighborhoods, to put it diplomatically. There are also large parts of the city that aren't urban at all and are suburban to quasi-rural with Unigov. Outside of Center and Washington townships, there isn't actually a lot there.
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