Raleigh and Statistical Area Population

That’s highly doubtful. First we have to get the Triangle reunited! Adding Fayetteville would take decades, if ever. I will say that the likelihood of Harnett and Lee Counties bouncing back to Raleigh from Fayetteville seems reasonable as we look forward. A lot of that would be contingent on the future development of southern Wake County. If a large employer came to the southern reaches of the county, and enabled more commutes to it from either county, they could come back into either Raleigh’s or the Triangle’s fold.
FWIW, it seems that the MSA and CSA designations follow a different time track than the Census. Their designations seem to come out in years that end in 3 and 8. I’d expect the next update to them in 2023.

3 Likes

what, where, who would we campaign with to get RDU hold again? I have feeling that being two smaller MSA’s hurts when some companies look at places to expand.

Do you think the new Amazon center in Garner helps this?

2 Likes

I don’t think it’s far enough south.

1 Like

Not based on any known fact, just my opinion…

Although I am not an advocate, I believe that the extension (completion) of 540 will make the biggest impact on Southern Wake county and will be the largest direct impact on the commutes between Wake, Lee, and Harnett counties…:thinking:

4 Likes

I think that the biggest opportunity for Wake to attract commuters from Harnett County would come from a growth explosion of Fuquay-Varina & Holly Springs. They are the only sizeable communities in Wake that are closer to Harnett’s northern side than Fayetteville is to its southern side.

1 Like

Fuquay Varina is currently requesting an ETJ expansion and if approved by Wake County then their ETJ will cover all the way to the Harnett County line. And I foresee Fuquay Varina annexing into Harnett County sometime in the future. Also, Angier has been annexing into Wake county already and has several subdivisions and businesses in our county. With these two things happening it would blend the two counties more tightly and might help put Harnett back into Wake’s statistical area.

https://tofv.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=58544e3822594532b9d279e7fef107b1

5 Likes

One would think that that would be the case, yet Chatham County has the same situation with Cary and Apex abutting, and in the case of Cary, jumping the county line.
Basically, Raleigh’s MSA has been losing the battles of the land area to its two smaller neighbors.

3 Likes

What exactly are these statistical areas used for?

Interesting article about filling the void of quality bagels in NC.
Highlights Benchwarmers and Ashevilles Button and Co.

Found this stat interesting but not surprising “Between 2012 and 2016, New York and New Jersey were the largest source of new residents to North Carolina, according to Carolina Population Center data.”

6 Likes

No surprise that they are leaving those two highly taxed, heavily regulated, and very cold states to come down here to North Carolina…

5 Likes
3 Likes

Wow. About one million migrating out of New York to other states in the past decade. That is stunning.

2 Likes

I can only speak for water and sewer rates, but those in NC are very artificially low and have been rising pretty fast to keep up with repairs of existing and expansions of new. Raleigh, rich as it is, is notably behind on its CIP and will be in a big catchup phase at some point in my lifetime. I imagine roads, schools et.al are in similar situations. The relocated companies of the 60’s-80’s brought all of their northern cultivated talent and essentially exploited the low tax environment here. It really doesn’t look like NC or it’s municipalities have well thought out long term plans to me. The bagels will be in the midwest (the next low cost of living destination I believe) eventually.

4 Likes

A stat that should come as no surprise to anyone in NC.

5 Likes

Yeah, a lot of NC growth has happened in the past 30 years. That means soon we will have a massive amount of infrastructure that needs maintenance constantly. Prepare to start seeing higher utility rates and taxes.

7 Likes

This is the narrative that needs to be explained to the suburban oriented naysayers to dense development in Raleigh’s core, and in other nodes throughout the city and county. The way to shore up our tax base to cover aging infrastructure is to make our existing footprint more financially productive: meaning more tax revenue per acre. If we can slow down the expansion of utilities, which creates more to maintain in the future, and put more focus on maintaining what we have, we might be okay. However, we MUST significantly increase our density and tax revenues.

14 Likes

That is seemingly counter intuitive as most of the large cities are the ones with high taxes and excessive problems with infrastructure and quality of life. I think we are more than okay and those issues that you are worried about are many many years away. Because our taxes are so low, there is plenty of room to increase taxes slowly over time and still be far below those taxes of a state (and city) like New York. Plus we are not being crushed financially with pensions like those of our very liberal counterparts to the north.

1 Like

I like to also discuss it as required infrastructure per person or per until. All kinds of trailer parks, 10 miles from Raleigh get no Raleigh water service because the pipes cost millions and the revenue generated is a few thousand per month. A closer in trailer park (my mention) or a far away North Hills (your mention) are both ways of bridging that gap. I would love to look at really in depth numbers to see what densities and tax rates come into balance over all the various life cycles in play. If there is a negative livability associated with a particular tax rate or density, those can be points to weigh the analysis against.

1 Like

Isn’t that just kicking the can down the road to be some future generation’s problem?

4 Likes