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Not to sound like I am bashing Greenville, but I have always seen that place as a good choice for "families." The many times I have been there, and stayed on Main Street, I have been bored out of my mind. The city reminds me of a Disney Land suburb. I guess it just depends on what people want. I like the grit and realness of Columbia, and think that is becoming very appealing to late 20's early 30's. Greenville should continue to attract young, conservative families and retirees. Nothing wrong with either, but Greenville certainly is not an Austin, Nashville or Pittsburgh.
I think the information in this report is the latest anyone has heard about the brewery, but no doubt the development is exceptionally good hands with Scott Garvin.
Not to sound like I am bashing Greenville, but I have always seen that place as a good choice for "families." The many times I have been there, and stayed on Main Street, I have been bored out of my mind. The city reminds me of a Disney Land suburb. I guess it just depends on what people want. I like the grit and realness of Columbia, and think that is becoming very appealing to late 20's early 30's. Greenville should continue to attract young, conservative families and retirees. Nothing wrong with either, but Greenville certainly is not an Austin, Nashville or Pittsburgh.
I agree; there are really few similarities between Columbia and Greenville. They each have their niche and I much prefer Columbia, which is why I live here. There is nowhere else I would live in South Carolina.
Columbia's issue with retaining talent following college graduation is that it is very much a transient city, and I dont mean that in a bad way, but alot of the reasons people come here are for something that will not keep them here.
My company recruits at USC and we were advised by the University that we should lead our pitch with the fact that we are a nationwide company with offices in Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte, DC, Denver, LA, etc.. The people on the panel stated that the majority of grads were looking to move to larger cities with more opportunities and we should take advantage of that.
That said Columbia is solidly a college town and most college towns I know aren't able to retain a large share of their grads. I wouldn't take it as a knock on the city but something that will take work to overcome.
Columbia will not retain the majority of USC grads unless and until its job market becomes large enough to absorb them. There will always be new graduates who want to move to larger cities ranging in size from New York to Charlotte, but working to retain a larger percentage of them than has been the case by history is the focus. It is a challenge, to repeat myself (see two posts above), but key leaders are focused on achieving that goal. One point of focus is showing new graduates that they don't have to leave Columbia to get a good job and have a good career.
Columbia is a college town, but not in the sense of Clemson or Athens or Chapel Hill. It's more of a college city, where universities play a big part but aren't the only game in town, similar to its SEC counterpart cities of Knoxville, Baton Rouge, and Lexington, KY. Those cities also face similar challenges in retaining young professionals:
Here's an article I ran across last year about how Charleston has made progress in attracting and retaining young professionals; it still has its challenges with cities like Charlotte, Atlanta, and Raleigh in relatively close proximity, but its coastal location doesn't exactly hurt and it has also made strides in shoring up its tech sector, which is popular among young professionals: 'Post-college towns' brim with youth, jobs
Is not retaining the 20-30 somethings a bad thing? I mean Columbia does an OK job and there are enough that do stay to support the local economy and what not.. but if MORE did stay even if the economy was expanding to absorb them then it could lead to other issues like need for more schools(assuming they settle down and have kids), housing for the after college -cant live in the new student housing developments nor afford to stay in the "high end" apartments downtown, more competition for the entry level jobs that are here not to mention the 'dumbing down' of their degree.. Competing with high school students for jobs at the mall when you have a bachelor's degree would be demoralizing for many if there is no real career path forward.. so by all means move to NYC or Charlotte and chase better opportunities....
Is not retaining the 20-30 somethings a bad thing? I mean Columbia does an OK job and there are enough that do stay to support the local economy and what not.. but if MORE did stay even if the economy was expanding to absorb them then it could lead to other issues like need for more schools(assuming they settle down and have kids), housing for the after college -cant live in the new student housing developments nor afford to stay in the "high end" apartments downtown, more competition for the entry level jobs that are here not to mention the 'dumbing down' of their degree.. Competing with high school students for jobs at the mall when you have a bachelor's degree would be demoralizing for many if there is no real career path forward.. so by all means move to NYC or Charlotte and chase better opportunities....
Retaining as many people who have the education and/or training to add to the city and region's GDP is always a good thing. Things like more schools and the other needs you mention that would result from the addition of the retained 20- 30-year-olds would take care of themselves via the market in general.
Sorry, but young professionals are visible in Columbia, too. No city in SC has retained them on as large a scale as we would like, but it's not like none have stayed Here. Columbia's got a live music scene, so that helps. Offerings for young professionals are here, and they're only going to get better.
Oh I dont disagree with that at all, there are some here and they are somewhat around, but as a 26 year old (23-25 when I lived on Main St in Cola), I saw a handful of people my age who never did anything. Also most people my age that I knew in Columbia hated Columbia and were moving as soon as they could get a job somewhere else.
It killed me to see that because as a Cola native, I wanted so bad for it to thrive as a place for young prof's because I did and still do love Columbia and want to see it grow the RIGHT way, but with every new student housing announcement for the Vista or Main St and more and more students rather than post grads filling my apartment, I saw a place like Greenville where they cater to young professionals more than any age group, and decided to move because I sort of felt like an outsider since I wasnt a USC student in Columbia quite frankly...and I grew up there!
Look I am not bashing Columbia whatsoever and I really do hope all of these developments there become reality soon because until then, its going to be hard to get any 20 something to move there when the ones like me who wanted to be there were turned off.
Not to sound like I am bashing Greenville, but I have always seen that place as a good choice for "families." The many times I have been there, and stayed on Main Street, I have been bored out of my mind. The city reminds me of a Disney Land suburb. I guess it just depends on what people want. I like the grit and realness of Columbia, and think that is becoming very appealing to late 20's early 30's. Greenville should continue to attract young, conservative families and retirees. Nothing wrong with either, but Greenville certainly is not an Austin, Nashville or Pittsburgh.
Well im not too sure when you were there, but ive lived here for over 2 months now, and most of the people I see are 20-30 somethings. Of course there are a lot of families here too, but most of your downtown people are younger.
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