http://www.demographia.com/db-msaproj2030.pdf

The number's are very crazy how much growth can happen over the U.S. over 22 nearly 21 year's.

Atlanta Metropolitan will grow by 3,607,600
Charlotte Metropolitan will grow by 1,373,900
Raleigh Metropoltian will grow by 993,000
DFW, TX will grow by 3,554,300
Houston Metropoltian will grow by 3,232,000
Baltimore Metropoltian will grow by 225,500
Washington Metropolitan will grow by 1,161,000
Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan grow by 1,386,500
Greenville, SC Metropoltian will grow by 69,700
Spartanburg, SC Metropoltian will grow by 28,500 (putting greenville and spartanburg metropolitan growth to 98,200)
Greensboro Metropoltian will grow by 72,900
Miami Metropoltian will grow by 704,600 (which is a lot but not a lot compared to other cities but I cant be talking both of my favorite cities didnt get this high)

This list is crazy, what do you guy's think, and represent your city or metro put how much your metro is projected to grow by. :banana:

Some of these projections seem too rediculous to even print. They think the Greenville metro will grow by only 70k in 22 years? What are they on?
Just the county grows by 7k a year. Same for the COla metro. What are these supposed to be based on? :nuts:

I was thinking the same thing over the county part, here's my theory Greenville County currently grow's by around 6-8k a year, so that mean's we will grow by 184,000 at our current growth rate by 2030, and our population boom is said to havent started yet it is or was said to start in like 2012 or somewhere around there, so by that time we will be growing by around 20k a year so from 2008 to 2012 we will gain 32,000 resident's in 4 year's (est I dont think it's that high maybe like 15,000 but that's just by the caculator), then over those other years we will gain maybe another 200,000 in the county alone (the caculator say's 360,000 but like I said before that's to high) so this conclude's my theory so I think the metropolitan will be in the million's in around 2030, and not what there saying (they make it seem like 2090 is when will get hit a million people). :lol: sorry if I confuse some people but I am little sleepy.

Looks like they over projected a lot of the faster growing metros and under projected a lot of the slower growing and smaller metros. In reality its all a waste of time since we have no idea what America will be like at the end of this week, much less where people are going to be moving for the next 20 years.

Somebody mentioned it in a post not to long ago that if you go back 30-40 years ago places like Buffalo were projected to be over 2 million people by now. Things can change pretty quickly.

I see what your saying because Buffalo, was growing fast but it wasnt projected to stop growing so your saying a city could be hot right now for developer's but it will have to stop sooner or later.

These lists are not scientifically based and are basically a group of people guessing. It's stupid. I'll give you a classic example: New Orleans has more today that what they project us "to grow to" in 30 years. I won't even go into other cities. You could take this list, ball it up and throw it in the trash. It has 0% merit. Of course you could read it for entertainment and thoughts, but, it is nothing more than garbage.

Actually it is very much scientifically based. They appplied the growth rate during the last 3 years and the growth rate in the last 7 years to each city and used median of the two to come up with a projection.

A projection by definition means that things won't necessarily turn out this way and growth rates will certainly change for many cities in the next 20 years.

If Atlanta gains 3.6 million people, they need to work on expanding up, not out. Otherwise Athens, Macon and Dalton will be Atlanta suburbs.

Preety much. Atlanta need's to stop all the suburbanzation, and start becoming more dense.

i think the numbers for DFW, houston and atlanta are a bit much. charlotte seems realistic though.

Is that Raleigh or Raleigh/Durham metropolitan area? Is that Greensboro or Greensboro/Winston-Salem metropolitan area? In the case of the latter, I reckon it's only Greensboro since Greensboro and Winston-Salem are separate metropolitan areas now. So, why isn't Winston-Salem listed?

Ther are a lot of factors that can change these growth numbers. One water, and another is climate changes. Atlanta is in trouble with it's water supply now, how can it take on 3.6 million more people?

Oklahoma City will grow by 392,900 according to that.

I believe it will grow by a lot more seeing as its becoming more of a destination to live, work, and play. Especially with the economy as it is right now. Oklahoma City has a very strong economy, one of the lowest unemployments and a great housing market. It makes Oklahoma and the rest of the strong south (especially Texas) highly desireable markets.

Ther are a lot of factors that can change these growth numbers. One water, and another is climate changes. Atlanta is in trouble with it's water supply now, how can it take on 3.6 million more people?


Atlanta was in trouble with the excessive drought...as was much of the Southeast. With rainfall getting back to normal and often recently above normal, along with the Army Corps releasing less daily from Lake Lanier per court order, the water levels in Atlanta's reservoirs are working back up. They aren't dangerously low anymore...

There were plans to build a couple of lakes in the near future to give the city some insurance. Hopefully there won't be another 100 year drought anytime soon.

Preety much. Atlanta need's to stop all the suburbanzation, and start becoming more dense.

You better call the mayor and other city leaders to let them in on that secret. I doubt they have heard about Atlanta's suburban growth over the past 3 decades...

There have been many noticeable changes in growth and development patterns around the Atlanta metro in the past 3-4 years...like high-density mixed-use developments around MARTA stations and along the future Beltline route...and tremendous population growth in the city along with more racial diversity around in-town neighborhoods...and development of a regional transportation plan with expansion possibilities into former anti-transit counties...and numerous low and midrise residential infill development all over the city...etc...etc...


i think the numbers for DFW, houston and atlanta are a bit much. charlotte seems realistic though.


In the 17 years since 1990, Atlanta's metro has grown by 2.7 million residents...so an increase of 3.6 million over the next 22 years sounds very possible.

Atlanta city only recently began to reverse the decreasing population and make significant gains, but since 1990 Atlanta city has grown by 125,000 residents.

Are the annexation laws for Georgia's cities roughly similiar to South Carolinas?

^I'm not sure. Ours are pretty retrictive compared to most of our neighbors, especially NC. The City of Atlanta just recently annexed the first land since the 50's, and it was a relatively small annexation of about 6,500 people and a couple of square miles on the SW side. The people annexed in requested it.

Are SC's laws pretty liberal, or are your cities pretty much hemmed in also?

i don't trust those projections. :no:

According to the Mayans, in 2030 these Metros will have this population.

Atlanta Metropolitan will be 0
Charlotte Metropolitan will be 0
Raleigh Metropoltian will be 0
DFW, TX will be 0
Houston Metropoltian will be 0
Baltimore Metropoltian will be 0
Washington Metropolitan will be 0
Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan will be 0
Greenville, SC Metropoltian will be 0
Spartanburg, SC Metropoltian will be 0
Greensboro Metropoltian will be 0
Miami Metropoltian will be 0

(hopefully they will be wrong about this and the world won't end in 2012)

I don't know how columbia, sc got that big when it's hard to annex in sc.

Most of the areas around the city of Atlanta are incorporated cities and towns, so there hasn't been a lot of opportunity for annexation. I think Georgia annexation laws are similar to N.C...it's fairly easy for a city to annex unincorporated areas, no matter if the affected residents accept or oppose the annexation.

I don't know how columbia, sc got that big when it's hard to annex in sc.

Most of Columbia's metro population is in unincorporated areas. The city proper only has about 125,000 or so, while the metro is around 727,000. The census projections from 2000 were way off as Columbia was already bigger in 2007 than the census bureau projected for 2010 and almost what they projected for 2015.