Charlotte sees flight to suburbs
Sprawl brings trouble with roads, clean air
EARNEST WINSTON & ADAM BELL

The suburban exodus out of Charlotte picked up steam in the late 1990s, continuing a trend that saw the metropolitan area sprawl deeper into neighboring counties.

Migration from Mecklenburg County to its largest neighbors increased 62 percent from the 1985-90 period to 1995-2000, according to census data released this week. In all, 34,000 people left Mecklenburg to resettle in Union, Cabarrus, York (S.C.), Gaston and Iredell counties. That's up from 21,000 who left between 1985 and 1990, the most recent comparable period.

In all, more than 130,000 people moved out of Mecklenburg County between 1995 and 2000. But that was more than offset by the incoming tide of about 167,000 newcomers from other parts of the Carolinas and the rest of the country.

Outside the Carolinas, Atlanta and Los Angeles were the top two sources of newcomers to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, each sending around 2,200 here during the period. All together, the county netted 37,000 new residents from migration.

The people who left Mecklenburg for surrounding counties did so for a number of reasons: cheaper houses, more land, lower taxes and the appearance of more stable schools.

Still, most of the departing residents still work in Mecklenburg where jobs are more plentiful and the pay is typically better. Almost a third of the county's jobs are held by noncounty residents, the census says. New stretches of Interstate 485 that opened late in the past decade, as did a wider I-77 in South Carolina and U.S. 321 to Hickory, made it easier for more people to live farther from where they work and shop.

Yet the costs of suburbanization continue to grow -- more congestion, less open space, dirtier air, along with increasing taxes in outlying counties to pay for more roads and schools.

Dennis Rash of UNC Charlotte's transportation studies department said the growth shows a greater need for regional cooperation.

"If they're not leaving the region, then it says to me as a county I must give much more attention to government on a regional basis," Rash said. "If they're coming to Mecklenburg to work and choosing to live somewhere else, how are we collaborating with those counties?"

Just last month, planners from across the region gathered in Cornelius to discuss a plan to create a regional planning alliance for the Charlotte area. The alliance would promote integrated planning for issues including land use, transportation and air quality.

About 135 people who attended a town hall meeting in March to discuss the challenges of growth called for such a regional planning approach.

Growth is nothing new to the Carolinas, and in particular, the Charlotte region. The state has more than 8 million residents, and it had the country's fourth-highest rate of net immigration between 1995-2000, pulling in 337,883 more people than it lost to other states. South Carolina ranked seventh.

Additionally, Union and York, S.C., are the fastest-growing counties in their respective states, based on a recent census release.

People are moving to the Charlotte region primarily for one reason.

"They're coming here for jobs," said Tony Crumbley, the Charlotte Chamber's vice president of research. Between 1995 and 2000, he said, Mecklenburg added more than 106,000 jobs.

Sherri and Jeff Hodge and their two boys moved to Mecklenburg from Cortland, N.Y., near Syracuse, in October 1998 for the better economy, warmer weather and more racial diversity.

"We thought it was absolutely hysterical that the boys didn't have to wear winter jackets on Halloween," said Sherri Hodge, 40.

Guilford (Greensboro), 3,410

Wake (Raleigh), 3,246

Gaston, 2,968

Cabarrus, 2,839

Union, 2,763

Fulton, Ga. (Atlanta) 2,246

Los Angeles 2,173

Erie, N.Y. 2,093

Fairfax, Va. 1,810

Miami-Dade, Fla. 1,776

*Fulton, Ga. 1,787

*Cobb, Ga. 1,190

*DeKalb, Ga. 917

*Gwinnett, Ga. 822

Duval Co., Fla. 644

*part of metro Atlanta

SOURCE: Census 2000