UPDATE: City Comparisons: Charlotte vs. Atlanta

by Ari Meier | Dec 28, 2023 | City vs City

I’m not a fan of online ‘city vs city’ threads. They can be brutal exchanges where the reader won’t get much hard information about the cities in the comparison battle. They’d get a bunch of opinions about the quality of life, how many amenities this city has over that city. I’d have to admit that I find it fascinating how the data of the compared cities can be skewed by overzealous residents/supporters. The idea to compare Charlotte and Atlanta was born out of driving through Charlotte on the way back from a sci-fi, fantasy and comics convention held in High Point, NC. I was impressed with Charlotte’s skyline, the bustling central business district (they call it uptown), the light rail system and all the new housing and office construction. I’d heard many people refer to Charlotte as ‘baby Atlanta’, I secretly wondered just how close our baby sister city had come to Atlanta.

Charlotte is similar to Atlanta, right?

Growing up, I visited Charlotte a lot and looked at the city as the North Carolina version of Atlanta. After all, it had a Six Flags-like amusement park, only smaller (Carowinds). It had a relatively impressive skyline and interstate 85. This comparison was shattered when I moved to Atlanta to attend college. I found Atlanta much larger, more cosmopolitan, it has a freaking subway and a faster bustle. The cities have competed for many years for Fortune 500 headquarters, and a NASCAR Hall of Fame. Charlotte has been a major banking center for decades, and Atlanta, dubbed ‘Hollywood of the South,’ has been one of the top places to film movies and television shows.

This is not a complete city comparison. You won’t find quality of life metrics such as ‘best neighborhoods based on these amenities’ rankings, the number of museums, entertainment facilities or how the parks compare. The scope of this article is to compare population, density, size in square mileage, public transit size and ridership, the number of tall buildings, median household income, and poverty. These are the base attributes that most would agree define a city.

Population & Income

Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Charlotte boosters can technically say Charlotte is BIGGER than Atlanta in population and size. In fact, the city of Charlotte is 1.75 times larger than the city of Atlanta in population and more than double the size of Atlanta as measured in square miles. There are asterisks though. The first one, Charlotte’s city population is the result of it gobbling up land through annexations over the past two decades. Charlotte’s footprint is almost 175 square miles larger than city of Atlanta’s footprint. If the city of Atlanta were to annex all of unincorporated Dekalb County, which is roughly 150+ square miles. The city of Charlotte would still have about 25 square miles more than Atlanta.

The other asterisk is Atlanta’s metro area is more than twice as large as Charlotte’s metro area. The census defines a metropolitan area as counties of a region where the majority of the working population commutes into the center city. This is a more reliable indicator of dominance than city population alone.

The cities couldn’t be more different in density. The city of Atlanta has almost 1,000 more people per square mile than Charlotte, or 1.3 times more densely populated. I was struck by the Charlotte City Limits sign when we were driving on U.S. 29. The landscape didn’t change it was very rural looking. Metro Atlanta is less dense than metro Charlotte, a respective 710 persons per square mile compared to 803 persons per square mile. With metro Atlanta gobbling much of northern Georgia, consisting of 30 counties, covering an area roughly the size of Massachusetts, it’s not hard to see why Atlanta remains a sprawling monster.

Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Map of Charlotte Sprawl

 U.S. Census Bureau

Map of Atlanta Sprawl

Note: Maps are not to scale

Public Trains and Buses: How Does Charlotte’s Transit System Stack up to Atlanta’s?

So, how does Charlotte’s public transit compare with Atlanta’s? Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), the rebranded Charlotte Transit, became official in 1999. The system has seen growth since then, with the recent introduction of light rail and streetcars. Today, CATS carry over 34,630 riders each day (buses, light rail, and streetcar), in a system with 43 stations, on 22.6 miles of rail.

In 1979, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) opened heavy rail transit service in Atlanta, giving Atlanta the distinction of being the first city in the deep south to get such service. In 2020, MARTA was the 10th largest transit system (counting all modes of transportation) in North America, based on the number of unlinked trips. Its heavy rail system was the 7th largest in North America based on the number of unlinked trips. Today, MARTA carries 140,904 riders every day (bus, heavy rail and streetcar combined), on 48 miles of rail, with 50 stations.

Data from American Public Transportation Association

Data from American Public Transportation Association

Buildings Going Up Everywhere: How Does Charlotte’s Skyline Compare to Atlanta’s?

Skyscrapers and city skylines have been a fascination of mine since my first trip to New York City as a small child. Seeing stacks of buildings in Manhattan made an indelible impression and set up my love affair for architecture and city planning. In comparing Charlotte and Atlanta, the number of skyscrapers, skyscraper density and top five tallest will be compared.

The Charlotte skyline has really expanded over the past decade, with gleaming high-rise condos and office buildings sprouting out of the ground like trees. Charlotte’s skyline, while greatly expanded, is still pretty much limited to staying within the uptown area. It makes a great showing when driving on I-277.

Atlanta’s skyline has greatly expanded (and it’s still going) in the last few decades. Growing up, I’d been to Charlotte many more times than Atlanta. I remember thinking as a teenager that Charlotte’s and Atlanta’s skylines were roughly the same in size. Truth set in when I came to Atlanta to attend college. I felt not only Atlanta had way more tall buildings, but it just felt much bigger. The vibe, the pace was electric. I remember feeling like I wasn’t in Georgia, even after nearly a year of living in Atlanta. Let’s see how Charlotte and Atlanta compare in the skyline department.

According to Skyscraperpage.com, Atlanta ranked 51 globally in the number of high-rises, with 357 (considered as buildings 12 floors and higher or 115 feet and higher). Charlotte ranked at 150, with 100 high-rises. These numbers include the high-rises in all sub-markets in each city.

Data source – Skyscraperpage.com

 Data source – Skyscraperpage.com

I combined the top ten tallest buildings in both cities (20 total) in a mash-up to see how they would rank side-by-side. In the top half, eight are in Atlanta, and eight of the bottom ten are in Charlotte.

Can Charlotte Catch Up or Pass Atlanta?

Charlotte is a rapidly growing city (mainly through annexations) and metro area. The only other major sunbelt city that it can be compared to in terms of growth is Atlanta. This makes it easy for many to call it the ‘next Atlanta’, or ‘baby Atlanta.’ Atlanta has seemingly welcomed growth ‘at all costs’, wherein Charlotte leaders seemed to have been more deliberate (controlled sprawl?) in how Charlotte grows. The big question is will Charlotte ever catch up to or pass Atlanta in metro population, public transit infrastructure, and skyline size and density?