News:

Thank you for your patience during the Forum downtime while we upgraded the software. Welcome back and see this thread for some new features and other changes to the forum.

Main Menu

Under the Radar: Darkhorse small cities that could one day be very big

Started by Stephane Dumas, August 04, 2017, 04:51:47 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

CapeCodder

I wonder if the "urban rhombus" as I call it in SE Mass will grow? Attleboro seems to be okay. Taunton is growing. New Bedford also seems to be doing somewhat well. It's Fall River I'm concerned about. That city seems to be stuck in the 1930's/ early 40's.


Desert Man

Indio CA expect to have over 100,000 (or already there, if you include migrant laborers and seasonal residents). Imagine 250,000 people living there in 2065-2075. The Palm Springs area might have over a million residents in 2070, hopefully there's enough ground water to sustain the resort economy. Might have less agriculture by then, more for the golf courses.
Get your kicks...on Route 99! Like to turn 66 upside down. The other historic Main street of America.

LM117

Quote from: The Nature Boy on August 05, 2017, 03:41:54 PM
Quote from: LM117 on August 05, 2017, 03:13:13 PM
Greenville, NC comes to mind. It recently surpassed 90,000 and is set to reach 100,000 within the next decade.

Greenville's growth is tied closely to ECU and Vidant so it'll probably top out at just over 100,000. I'm not sure what industries they can attract to drive further growth since they have to compete with RTP for top tier tech companies. Right now, it's benefiting greatly from a low COL that will surely be going up in a few years. The upcoming mayoral election is going to be an interesting barometer on where the city's residents see it going and what growth policies they support.

Indeed. ECU saved Greenville from the same fate that struck other towns in eastern NC. I know many people were upset when Allen Thomas resigned in June. He was a very good mayor. Now he's the executive director of the Global Transpark in Kinston. If there's anyone that can turn around that 26-year money pit, it's him.

Wilson had the chance to be the home of ECU, but the city turned it down. Even without ECU, Wilson could be a bit bigger and better if they really wanted, but there's a lot of old money that runs that city that does NOT like change. Having a condescending mayor that's been in office since 1992 doesn't help, either. The word "progress" is not in their vocabulary.
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

bing101

Quote from: DandyDan on August 06, 2017, 05:24:14 AM
I would be inclined to think any city with a major state university has a shot at getting huge one day, especially if located next to an interstate. In Iowa, I have to believe Iowa City and Cedar Rapids will fuse together at some point. Ames may eventually fuse with Des Moines.

You mean like Davis, CA. It has the Univerity of California in the area and has been named as a land grant college plus its basically the Sacramento version of Berkeley and Palo Alto. UC Merced is San Joaquin Valley's UC campus but for now I don't hear any comparisons to becoming a New Silicon valley for now.

DandyDan

Quote from: TravelingBethelite on August 06, 2017, 08:08:56 AM
Quote from: DandyDan on August 06, 2017, 05:24:14 AM
I would be inclined to think any city with a major state university has a shot at getting huge one day, especially if located next to an interstate. In Iowa, I have to believe Iowa City and Cedar Rapids will fuse together at some point. Ames may eventually fuse with Des Moines.

On that note, I seem to think that Columbia, MO, and Lincoln, NE, seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.
Speaking of cities, or at least metro areas fusing together,  having only moved away from Omaha last year, I think it's inevitable Omaha and Lincoln will be one area eventually, like Dallas and Fort Worth.
MORE FUN THAN HUMANLY THOUGHT POSSIBLE

PColumbus73

Florence, South Carolina seems to be going through a pretty good growth period.

sparker

Here in CA -- particularly in the San Joaquin Valley -- there are "clusters" of cities that, if eventually joined by development, could become collective regional powers.  Tulare-Visalia-Hanford could be one of them, aided by the fact that the two major perpendicular corridors (CA 99, CA 198) intersect right between two of them and connect that point directly to the third.  Further to the north -- and it's happening right now -- a linear corridor from Merced NW along CA 99 all the way to Stockton is gradually being "infilled"; while much of the land to the west of CA 99 remains in the hands of large agribusinesses, the area east of the highway -- actually east to multi-county route J7, which is also the route of the BNSF/Amtrak main line -- is gradually becoming a mixture of housing and industrial parks.  Couple that with several universities (UC Merced, Cal State Stanislaus in Turlock, and the University of the Pacific in Stockton), and very active chambers of commerce and other "booster" groups, and you can see an area that will only increase in both size and influence.  And while much of the housing growth, particularly in the north part of this corridor (Modesto to Stockton) is due to "commuter" residences related to Bay Area employment, more and more firms are opening facilities in the Valley, seeing both exemplary access and service (both road and rail); Honda's farm and recreational division is located between Stockton and Manteca, while Foster Farms, based in Livingston between Merced and Turlock, has greatly expanded their operation (although shrinking their roadside/CA 99 restaurant).  The entire corridor's population is about 1.7M at present; it's expected to add another million by 2030.  As the corridor is flanked by profitable agricultural areas, it's likely that a large part of the increased business will be related enterprises such as food processing and warehousing.  If all this occurs on schedule, don't be surprised to see a renewed push for Interstate designation of CA 99 -- and possibly CA 120 between I-5 and CA 99 as well! 

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: The Nature Boy on August 06, 2017, 11:45:21 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on August 06, 2017, 11:35:44 PM
A real "dark horse" might be a city that grows a lot for reasons we might not currently expect.

Past examples of this would be Las Vegas and Phoenix. Go back 60-70 years and these cities were a lot smaller than today, and it probably was not anticipated that they would grow into what they are today. But, the proliferation of air conditioning has dramatically increased the willingness of many to live in these kinds of desert cities, and the fact that it's just about always sunny makes them attractive.


So a good question to ask might be... what cities are in an area that is currently not heavily populated but might become more attractive due to an advancement in technology?

Funny you mention that. I think that both cities are due for a decline, especially as water becomes more scarce and droughts more common. The American Southwest is an ecological nightmare and we probably shouldn't have settled it as densely as we did. We'll probably look back on that in about a century or so and realize our mistake.

But yeah, predicting boom towns is always a fool's game. You never know what's going to catch on and why.
I disagree. I think if it comes down to it, water pipelines could be built drawing from desalination plants.

jwolfer

Quote from: Plutonic Panda on August 23, 2017, 02:01:12 AM
Quote from: The Nature Boy on August 06, 2017, 11:45:21 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on August 06, 2017, 11:35:44 PM
A real "dark horse" might be a city that grows a lot for reasons we might not currently expect.

Past examples of this would be Las Vegas and Phoenix. Go back 60-70 years and these cities were a lot smaller than today, and it probably was not anticipated that they would grow into what they are today. But, the proliferation of air conditioning has dramatically increased the willingness of many to live in these kinds of desert cities, and the fact that it's just about always sunny makes them attractive.


So a good question to ask might be... what cities are in an area that is currently not heavily populated but might become more attractive due to an advancement in technology?

Funny you mention that. I think that both cities are due for a decline, especially as water becomes more scarce and droughts more common. The American Southwest is an ecological nightmare and we probably shouldn't have settled it as densely as we did. We'll probably look back on that in about a century or so and realize our mistake.

But yeah, predicting boom towns is always a fool's game. You never know what's going to catch on and why.
I disagree. I think if it comes down to it, water pipelines could be built drawing from desalination plants.
Are water bills in Phoenix amd Las Vegas high compared to wetter cities?


LGMS428


SP Cook

Quote from: Duke87 on August 06, 2017, 11:35:44 PM
So a good question to ask might be... what cities are in an area that is currently not heavily populated but might become more attractive due to an advancement in technology?


That is the best way to put it.  The major advancement in technology (that I can anticipate, who knows) seems to be that more and more jobs are becoming more and more portable.  To build something, you need a lot of people in a factory.  But you can do a lot of technical things and even office work from anywhere, provided you have good internet.  Therefore I see more people looking for places that a pleasant to live in terms of weather, lifestyle, infastructure, taxes, etc.   

The second thing is, of course, there are more and more retirees.  Still today, most people remain near their home area in retirement, but not everybody.  Florida is, for want of a better word, full.   And it is not for everybody.  We have seen new retirement areas open up, from Myrtle Beach to Asheville, to, of all places Michigan (very retiree tax friendly, getting a lot of people out of other midwestern states who don't want to go south) and eastern Pennsylvania.  That will continue.  Smart states will align their tax systems for retiree friendliness. 


triplemultiplex

The US 90 corridor between Lafayette and Morgan City.

The reason is because the Mississippi River is going to migrate its delta.  It's been trying to shift the majority of its flow west for 100 years but man-made infrastructure keeps most of the water flowing toward New Orleans.  But even properly maintained, that infrastructure is not going to hold forever.  Eventually, the difference in elevation between the current Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Basin will become too great.  All it will take is one massive tropical storm (like Harvey!) at the wrong time and the levees will be breached.  The release of all that energy will rapidly carve a new channel to The Gulf via the much shorter distance of the Atchafalaya River.  The monumental scale and cost of engineering and construction it would take to get the river to go back to flowing to New Orleans will be too great.  It will be easier to build new port facilities along the new river channel.  The next New Orleans will grow somewhere in Iberia or St. Mary Parish.
"That's just like... your opinion, man."

AlexandriaVA

Quote from: SP Cook on August 23, 2017, 10:07:11 AM
Quote from: Duke87 on August 06, 2017, 11:35:44 PM
So a good question to ask might be... what cities are in an area that is currently not heavily populated but might become more attractive due to an advancement in technology?


That is the best way to put it.  The major advancement in technology (that I can anticipate, who knows) seems to be that more and more jobs are becoming more and more portable.  To build something, you need a lot of people in a factory.  But you can do a lot of technical things and even office work from anywhere, provided you have good internet.  Therefore I see more people looking for places that a pleasant to live in terms of weather, lifestyle, infastructure, taxes, etc.   

The second thing is, of course, there are more and more retirees.  Still today, most people remain near their home area in retirement, but not everybody.  Florida is, for want of a better word, full.   And it is not for everybody.  We have seen new retirement areas open up, from Myrtle Beach to Asheville, to, of all places Michigan (very retiree tax friendly, getting a lot of people out of other midwestern states who don't want to go south) and eastern Pennsylvania.  That will continue.  Smart states will align their tax systems for retiree friendliness.

That's a really bold and probably incorrect assumption. Increases in productivity continually reduce the amount of labor inputs needed in manufacturing.

US 89

Quote from: triplemultiplex on August 28, 2017, 09:22:25 PM
The US 90 corridor between Lafayette and Morgan City.

The reason is because the Mississippi River is going to migrate its delta.  It's been trying to shift the majority of its flow west for 100 years but man-made infrastructure keeps most of the water flowing toward New Orleans.  But even properly maintained, that infrastructure is not going to hold forever.  Eventually, the difference in elevation between the current Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Basin will become too great.  All it will take is one massive tropical storm (like Harvey!) at the wrong time and the levees will be breached.  The release of all that energy will rapidly carve a new channel to The Gulf via the much shorter distance of the Atchafalaya River.  The monumental scale and cost of engineering and construction it would take to get the river to go back to flowing to New Orleans will be too great.  It will be easier to build new port facilities along the new river channel.  The next New Orleans will grow somewhere in Iberia or St. Mary Parish.

So after New Orleans gets destroyed by another hurricane, or floods, or the river shifts away (what disasters can't happen there?) it's going to move to Morgan City?

Also, what would happen to the old river if the Mississippi changed course?

triplemultiplex

Quote from: roadguy2 on August 29, 2017, 01:16:06 AM
So after New Orleans gets destroyed by another hurricane, or floods, or the river shifts away (what disasters can't happen there?) it's going to move to Morgan City?

Not so much move the city as much as some small city in that area will grow to become the "new" New Orleans.  New Orleans will slowly fade as the new city rises.

Quote from: roadguy2 on August 29, 2017, 01:16:06 AMAlso, what would happen to the old river if the Mississippi changed course?
The lower volumes of water mean the old channel will slowly sediment in over time.  It will still be navigable for some time, depending on how far into the future the delta switch occurs, but it will be smaller and not able to handle nearly as much shipping traffic.  With far less sediment being transported, the old (current) delta will gradually erode and subside.  Wave action will form a new chain of barrier islands in Plaquemines Parish.  In a couple centuries, what is now the Mississippi will resemble any of the smaller bayous that characterize the broader delta system of Louisiana.

Meanwhile at what is now the outlet of the Atchafalaya, the surge in water volume and commensurate sediment transport will begin to add a considerable amount of land to Louisiana.  Deposition rates will probably even outpace sea level rise.  If humans are smart about how they populate the new delta, they might have themselves a port city that is less vulnerable to catastrophe than the current set-up.
"That's just like... your opinion, man."

inkyatari

I don't know about it getting huge, but I could see the LaSalle - Peru Illinois area  becoming big.
I'm never wrong, just wildly inaccurate.

dvferyance

Quote from: inkyatari on August 30, 2017, 10:58:02 PM
I don't know about it getting huge, but I could see the LaSalle - Peru Illinois area  becoming big.
Nah Peoria would be a far likelier candidate and even then I am very doubtful of anything in Illinois that is small becoming big. It's the state that has lost the most population recently. I think Billings and Bismark are possibilities though.

JJBers

In Connecticut, it's a game of what city is gonna die out first. My bets are on Waterbury or Hartford.
*for Connecticut
Clinched Stats,
Flickr,
(2di:I-24, I-76, I-80, I-84, I-95 [ME-GA], I-91)

kkt

Quote from: bandit957 on August 05, 2017, 12:18:38 PM
Nobody wants to live in a city where a bunch of corporate thugs bust the unions.

I'd like to see stronger unions everywhere, but high union membership seems to be negatively correlated with population growth, not positively.  Corporate thugs want to add jobs where they don't have to worry about unions.

jwolfer

Quote from: triplemultiplex on August 29, 2017, 09:37:08 AM
Quote from: roadguy2 on August 29, 2017, 01:16:06 AM
So after New Orleans gets destroyed by another hurricane, or floods, or the river shifts away (what disasters can't happen there?) it's going to move to Morgan City?

Not so much move the city as much as some small city in that area will grow to become the "new" New Orleans.  New Orleans will slowly fade as the new city rises.

Quote from: roadguy2 on August 29, 2017, 01:16:06 AMAlso, what would happen to the old river if the Mississippi changed course?
The lower volumes of water mean the old channel will slowly sediment in over time.  It will still be navigable for some time, depending on how far into the future the delta switch occurs, but it will be smaller and not able to handle nearly as much shipping traffic.  With far less sediment being transported, the old (current) delta will gradually erode and subside.  Wave action will form a new chain of barrier islands in Plaquemines Parish.  In a couple centuries, what is now the Mississippi will resemble any of the smaller bayous that characterize the broader delta system of Louisiana.

Meanwhile at what is now the outlet of the Atchafalaya, the surge in water volume and commensurate sediment transport will begin to add a considerable amount of land to Louisiana.  Deposition rates will probably even outpace sea level rise.  If humans are smart about how they populate the new delta, they might have themselves a port city that is less vulnerable to catastrophe than the current set-up.
Cities come and go.. Timbuktu was at one point in time a major trading post.. But the spead of the Sahara Desert, changes in transportation, lack of water caused it to decline so now its a small village in the middle of nowhere.

Every major city was at one time a small new village.

I was surprised to learn Birmingham, AL was founded in 1871.. I always thought it had been there a lot longer.

I am sure in 1960 no one thought Orlando would be a world wide known city at the center of a metro area of nearly 3 million

LGMS428

ColossalBlocks

I am inactive for a while now my dudes. Good associating with y'all.

US Highways: 36, 49, 61, 412.

Interstates: 22, 24, 44, 55, 57, 59, 72, 74 (West).

michravera

Quote from: The Nature Boy on August 05, 2017, 03:41:54 PM
Quote from: LM117 on August 05, 2017, 03:13:13 PM
Greenville, NC comes to mind. It recently surpassed 90,000 and is set to reach 100,000 within the next decade.

Greenville's growth is tied closely to ECU and Vidant so it'll probably top out at just over 100,000. I'm not sure what industries they can attract to drive further growth since they have to compete with RTP for top tier tech companies. Right now, it's benefiting greatly from a low COL that will surely be going up in a few years. The upcoming mayoral election is going to be an interesting barometer on where the city's residents see it going and what growth policies they support.

So have Chico, Redding, Santa Barbara, and San Marcos, CA (and probably a dozen others in California). In California, 100K barely gets your town its own name (as opposed to "Wide Spot in the Road north of Sacramento" or "East Bakersfield").
Let's talk about cities that went from 250K to 500K from 2000-2010 and could have 2 million by 2030 and whose name people who have never been to the state would likely not have heard. Are there any cities like that? I suspect that Texas, Florida, and Arizona each have a couple. New Braumfels? Fort Stockton? The Villages? Tempe?

Scott5114

Oklahoma City is already a fairly big city (the biggest in its state) but it's never been big enough to be on the level of Dallas or Kansas City or even Denver. As a result, OKC has this inferiority complex culture where we keep trying things, building things, trying to improve the city so that we'll be noticed.

So far it's been a slow march onward since the mid-1990s. We build a few projects, private development picks up, feeding off those projects, build something else, and so on. Sooner or later we're going to hit on something that will really put us over the top. When that happens, I expect lots of companies will give OKC a second look. Our development patterns don't play nice with most companies' sales forecasting models, so they pass up expanding here, but every company that has taken a risk and expanded here anyway has gotten a really pleasant surprise. A few more of those, plus the ongoing investment into the city from the citizens through the local goverment, means there's a perfect storm brewing for OKC to break into the big time in the next 20 years or so.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

adventurernumber1

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2017, 07:09:20 PM
Oklahoma City is already a fairly big city (the biggest in its state) but it's never been big enough to be on the level of Dallas or Kansas City or even Denver. As a result, OKC has this inferiority complex culture where we keep trying things, building things, trying to improve the city so that we'll be noticed.

So far it's been a slow march onward since the mid-1990s. We build a few projects, private development picks up, feeding off those projects, build something else, and so on. Sooner or later we're going to hit on something that will really put us over the top. When that happens, I expect lots of companies will give OKC a second look. Our development patterns don't play nice with most companies' sales forecasting models, so they pass up expanding here, but every company that has taken a risk and expanded here anyway has gotten a really pleasant surprise. A few more of those, plus the ongoing investment into the city from the citizens through the local goverment, means there's a perfect storm brewing for OKC to break into the big time in the next 20 years or so.

I could see that happening, and I hope it does. Oklahoma City's population is also climbing, and has been only increasing for a long time from what I can tell. I think the city has potential.  :nod:

Furthermore, should projects occur such as an I-44 extension, that would facilitate access into the city even more. Unfortunately, tornadoes are a monstrous foe for the region, but I know you always bounce back, and hopefully advancements in technology can help make those catastrophes less devastating, and facilitate growth for the city.

Quote from: triplemultiplex on August 28, 2017, 09:22:25 PM
The US 90 corridor between Lafayette and Morgan City.

The reason is because the Mississippi River is going to migrate its delta.  It's been trying to shift the majority of its flow west for 100 years but man-made infrastructure keeps most of the water flowing toward New Orleans.  But even properly maintained, that infrastructure is not going to hold forever.  Eventually, the difference in elevation between the current Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Basin will become too great.  All it will take is one massive tropical storm (like Harvey!) at the wrong time and the levees will be breached.  The release of all that energy will rapidly carve a new channel to The Gulf via the much shorter distance of the Atchafalaya River.  The monumental scale and cost of engineering and construction it would take to get the river to go back to flowing to New Orleans will be too great.  It will be easier to build new port facilities along the new river channel.  The next New Orleans will grow somewhere in Iberia or St. Mary Parish.

That is a very intriguing fact of which I was not aware of. I know rivers shift over time, but I did not know that something that big was boiling.  :wow:
Now alternating between different highway shields for my avatar - my previous highway shield avatar for the last few years was US 76.

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127322363@N08/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-vJ3qa8R-cc44Cv6ohio1g

Scott5114

Quote from: adventurernumber1 on September 06, 2017, 07:45:01 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2017, 07:09:20 PM
Oklahoma City is already a fairly big city (the biggest in its state) but it's never been big enough to be on the level of Dallas or Kansas City or even Denver. As a result, OKC has this inferiority complex culture where we keep trying things, building things, trying to improve the city so that we'll be noticed.

So far it's been a slow march onward since the mid-1990s. We build a few projects, private development picks up, feeding off those projects, build something else, and so on. Sooner or later we're going to hit on something that will really put us over the top. When that happens, I expect lots of companies will give OKC a second look. Our development patterns don't play nice with most companies' sales forecasting models, so they pass up expanding here, but every company that has taken a risk and expanded here anyway has gotten a really pleasant surprise. A few more of those, plus the ongoing investment into the city from the citizens through the local goverment, means there's a perfect storm brewing for OKC to break into the big time in the next 20 years or so.

I could see that happening, and I hope it does. Oklahoma City's population is also climbing, and has been only increasing for a long time from what I can tell. I think the city has potential.  :nod:

Furthermore, should projects occur such as an I-44 extension, that would facilitate access into the city even more. Unfortunately, tornadoes are a monstrous foe for the region, but I know you always bounce back, and hopefully advancements in technology can help make those catastrophes less devastating, and facilitate growth for the city.

Indeed, an I-44 extension would certainly help, as would some sort of northwest connection to Denver. Oklahoma City could certainly capitalize on the boom in ecommerce and logistics to become a hub for those industries, as it's very well placed relative to the US's four major metropolitan areas. Amazon is investing in a multimillion square foot warehousing and fulfillment center here.

While tornadoes do plague the region, in some sense they are a better problem to have than other sorts of natural disasters. An earthquake, flood, hurricane, or fire can destroy an entire city in one go. Even the worst tornadoes are only 1 mile wide and up to about 20 miles long. While the landscape can be obliterated in the affected area, only a small percentage of the city will be affected by any one storm, and the probability that any given property will be in the path of a storm is exceedingly low.

Forecasting and knowledge of common sense precautions to take during tornadoes helps to reduce the death toll from storms to numbers in the dozens rather than hundreds. Most of the deaths are due to people being in the wrong place at the wrong time (i.e. not paying attention to forecasts and going out in it), or freak occurrences such as rainwater welling up underneath shelters and pushing them out of the ground or shelters getting flooded and the occupants drowning.

What will kill the momentum the city is making is if the state government continues to do its Brownback impression and/or enacting other policies that work at cross purposes to what the city is attempting to achieve. The current governor has signed several laws outlawing OKC city ordinances soon after they are passed, and fiscal mismanagement (mostly resulting from tax cuts on the state's primary industry, oil) has led to a real crisis in the state's educational system, resulting in four-day school weeks and teacher shortages. Fixing the budget, especially with regards to education, will be the number one priority of the next governor, to be elected in 2018, and what happens then could very determine if twenty years from now OKC will be the city that came out of nowhere or just a reminder of what could have been.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

brad2971

Quote from: triplemultiplex on August 28, 2017, 09:22:25 PM
The US 90 corridor between Lafayette and Morgan City.

The reason is because the Mississippi River is going to migrate its delta.  It's been trying to shift the majority of its flow west for 100 years but man-made infrastructure keeps most of the water flowing toward New Orleans.  But even properly maintained, that infrastructure is not going to hold forever.  Eventually, the difference in elevation between the current Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya Basin will become too great.  All it will take is one massive tropical storm (like Harvey!) at the wrong time and the levees will be breached.  The release of all that energy will rapidly carve a new channel to The Gulf via the much shorter distance of the Atchafalaya River.  The monumental scale and cost of engineering and construction it would take to get the river to go back to flowing to New Orleans will be too great.  It will be easier to build new port facilities along the new river channel.  The next New Orleans will grow somewhere in Iberia or St. Mary Parish.

Frankly, should that fateful summer happen when the runoff from the upper Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio rivers overruns Old River Control, quite a few transit-related things will happen long before a Morgan City (should it still exist) gets major port facilities. For starters, the Tenn-Tom waterway will see much heavier use, which would results in major port expansions for Mobile. For another, the biggest user of barges on the Mississippi, grain, would use the US Land Bridge (aka rail system). The removal of regulations that require rail transit through Chicago would very quickly happen under these circumstances. And we haven't got to expanded use of the ports around Beaumont and Lake Charles.

As for the next "darkhorse" big city, in all likelihood that "darkhorse" will be within 1-2 hours commute of an already existing metro area's CBD. Think Buckeye, AZ. Or Victorville, CA. Or even Waco, TX. Bear in mind that this nation has seen a large ramp-up of physical and industrial infrastructure to handle the boom from shale oil and gas fracking. The most visible symbol of that, Williston ND, has AT MOST 55000 people surrounding it as of 2016 estimates.



Opinions expressed here on belong solely to the poster and do not represent or reflect the opinions or beliefs of AARoads, its creators and/or associates.