UPDATE: City Comparisons: Charlotte vs. Atlanta

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

 AtlantaCharlotteHow Charlotte compares to Atlanta
Population (City) (est. 2022)499,127897,720City of Charlotte is 1.8 times larger in population than city of Atlanta
Population Density (City)3,6892,888City of Charlotte is 1.3 times less dense than city of Atlanta
Population (Metro)6,222,1062,756,069Metro Charlotte is 2.3 times smaller in population than metro Atlanta
Population Density (Metro)743862Metro Charlotte is 1.13 times more dense than metro Atlanta
Size in Square Mileage (City)135.3310.8City of Charlotte’s land area is 2.30 times bigger than city of Atlanta’s land area
Size in Square Mileage (Metro)8,3763,198Metro Charlotte’s land area is 2.62 times smaller than metro Atlanta’s land area
Median Household Income$83,251$74,401The median household income in the city of Charlotte is 11% lower than the median household income in the city of Atlanta
Persons in Poverty17.30%11.80%City of Charlotte’s percentage of person’s in poverty is 32% lower than the city of Atlanta’s percentage of persons in poverty

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


U.S. Census Bureau

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

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?

City Comparisons: Atlanta vs. Houston

Battle for King of the South.

Atlanta vs. Houston

Although Atlanta and Houston are not rivals like Atlanta and Charlotte, or Houston and Dallas, they still draw comparisons because they are regional powerhouses. Although on paper, the city of Houston dominates Atlanta in population, and Harris County (where much of Houston is located) dominates Fulton County (where much of Atlanta is located) in population, don’t be fooled by what’s counted inside artificial lines (city and county boundaries).

The saying, ‘everything is bigger in Texas,’ doubly applies here, but this is no apples to apple comparison when it comes to determining population and density between these big southern cities. Both Harris County and the city of Houston are huge in square mileage. The latter is a result of Texas having liberal annexation laws compared to Georgia. All told, the city of Houston is nearly five times larger than the city of Atlanta in square mileage and even covers 60 plus square miles more land than Atlanta’s Fulton County.

So, Houston is Bigger, but

As with the other city comparisons, How does Charlotte Compare to Atlanta and How does Atlanta Compare to New York City, this is not a subjective-filled love fest for both cities. It’s all about the hard numbers. In city comparisons, most people think their city is the best. Online forums and travel blogs are peppered with discussions on ‘Atlanta has the worst traffic,’ ‘Houston is more diverse,’ or ‘Atlanta is more beautiful because of the hills and trees, etc.’ I’ve even heard a few Houstonians visiting Atlanta, say that Atlanta is bigger (and faster) than Houston. This is when I break out the Census Bureau figures to show that Atlanta is smaller. I have nothing to refer to how fast Houston is in comparison to Atlanta.

The city of Atlanta is a little more densely populated than the city of Houston, but Houston’s metro area is more than twice as dense as Atlanta’s metro area. Both cities are sprawling monsters, with metro Atlanta gobbling much of northern Georgia, with 30 counties, covering an area roughly the size of Massachusetts. Houston is worse, and it covers an area that’s 1,686 square miles larger than Atlanta’s metro area but doing so with only nine counties.  

Here is how Atlanta and Houston compare on basic city demographics:

  Atlanta Houston ATL as a percentage of Houston Houston is this many times bigger than ATL
Population (City) 498,044 2,325,502 21.4% 4.67X
Population Density (City) 3,547 3,501 101.3% .99X
Population (Metro) 5,949,951 6,997,384 85% 1.18X
Population Density (Metro) 1,350 2,978.5 45.3% 2.21X
Size in Square Mileage (City) 134 637.4 21% 4.76X
Size in Square Mileage (Metro) 8,376 10,062 83.2% 1.2X
Median Household Income $51,701 $49,399 104.7% .96X
Persons in Poverty 22.4% 21.2% 105.7% .95X
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          All Data from U.S. Census Bureau

Atlanta Metro Area Population Density – 2010     Source: U.S. Census Bureau  

Houston Metro Area Population Density – 2010    Source: U.S. Census Bureau  

Public Transit Showdown

So, how does Atlanta compare with Houston on public transit? Both cities, nestled in a region that has been traditionally opposed to major public transit spending and expansion, are still mostly car-dependent.

Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) has existed as an entity since 1971 but opened heavy rail transit service to the Atlanta region in 1979, making Atlanta the first city in the deep south to get such service. Between January and September 2019, more than 87 million unlinked trips were made on MARTA buses and trains, with 56% of these trips on rail.

Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) opened in 1979, after taking over HouTran, the city-run bus system. METRO opened METRORail, its light rail system in 2004, after a 20-year battle to get rail service in the Houston area. From January through September 2019, more than 67 million unlinked trips were made on METRO buses and trains, with 21% of these trips on rail.

So, Atlanta, head of a region where residents complain about its public transit options, beat out a city with nearly five times the population and more than twice the metro population density.

Data source – American Public Transportation Association

Data source – American Public Transportation Association

Data source – American Public Transportation Association

Atlanta Skyline vs. Houston Skyline

Skyscrapers and big cities go together like, well skyscrapers and big cities (except for Washington, DC). Atlanta and Houston are big cities with lots of high-rises, and they both have tall buildings in non-traditional areas (also known as edge cities). Atlanta and Houston’s skyscraper game is put to the test by simply looking at the number of skyscrapers, the number of skyscrapers per square mile (skyscraper density), and the top ten tallest in each city.

According to Skyscraperpage.com, Atlanta has 461 buildings 12 floors and higher or 115 feet and higher). Houston has 574 high-rises with 12 floors or 115 feet and higher. These numbers include high-rises in all sub-markets in each city.

Rank Top 10 Tallest Atlanta Buildings Height (Feet) Floors Top 10 Tallest Houston Buildings Height (Feet) Floors
1 Bank of America Plaza 1,023 55 JPMorgan Chase Tower 1,002 75
2 SunTrust Plaza 869 60 Wells Fargo Bank Plaza 992 71
3 One Atlantic Center 820 50 Williams Tower 901 64
4 191 Peachtree Tower 770 50 Bank of America Center 780 56
5 Westin Peachtree Plaza 723 70 Heritage Plaza 762 53
6 Georgia-Pacific Tower 697 52 609 Main at Texas 757 49
7 Promenade II 691 38 Enterprise Plaza 756 55
8 AT&T Midtown Center 677 47 CenterPoint Energy Plaza 741 53
9 3344 Peachtree 665 47 1600 Smith Street 732 55
10 1180 Peachtree 657 41 Fulbright Tower 725 52
  Atlanta Top 10 Average Height/Floors 751 51 Houston Top 10 Average Height/Floors 815 58

Houston has 113 more high-rises than Atlanta, and when comparing each city’s top 10 skyscrapers by height and number of floors, Houston’s top 10 skyscrapers average 64 feet and seven stories higher than Atlanta’s top 10 average. Skyscraper density is another important factor in measuring skyline intensity. To determine this, I added together with the square mileage of all business districts in Atlanta (Downtown, Midtown, and Buckhead) and Houston (Downtown, Uptown/Galleria and Westchase and divided the total number of high-rises that are only in the business districts, by the total number of square mileage in each city.

The city of Atlanta’s business districts totaled 7.28 square miles and Houston’s, 7.74 square miles. Atlanta has a density of 51 high-rises per square mile, while Houston has 66 high-rises per square mile. Houston is winning in this category with 15 high-rises more than Atlanta per square mile.

The Atlanta vs. Houston Summary

The city of Atlanta is much smaller in size and population than the city of Houston, while the size and population of the respective metro areas are not as far apart. Atlanta’s city core comprises a much smaller part of its metro area (8.37%), while the city of Houston is a larger part of its metro footprint (33.23%). This underlines two things: that Atlanta is a majorly sprawling metro area, and that continuous annexation by the city haven’t been too successful.

If Atlanta’s city population was in the same proportion to its metro as Houston’s city population is to its metro area population, the city of Atlanta’s population would be 1,977,399, about 400,000 residents shy of Houston’s population. This is about the population of Fulton and Gwinnett County combined (1,977,895).

The median household income of Atlanta residents is nearly 5 percent higher than the median household income of Houston residents. Atlanta has almost 6 percent more residents in poverty too. Despite Houston being several magnitudes larger than Atlanta, Atlantans use its main public transit system, MARTA, to the tune of 20 million more unlinked trips than Houston residents do.

At first glance, it may appear that Atlanta’s and Houston’s skylines are similar in the number of tall buildings and high-rise density. Houston’s skyline is a little more built-up than Atlanta in both numbers of high-rise buildings and density.

City Comparisons: Atlanta vs. New York City


Real data with a little fantasy thrown in for good measure

Atlanta vs. New York City

For a long time, many have compared Atlanta and New York City. Why, I don’t know. But I’ve heard many refer to Atlanta as “the New York of the South”. One of the many nicknames Atlanta has, the “Big Peach” references NYC’s nickname the “Big Apple”. Even the states the cities are in have similar nicknames, with New York state nicknamed the “Empire State” and one of Georgia’s nicknames “Empire State of the South”.

Most of us know there are no real similarities between both cities outside of the fact that both cities have big skylines (of course New York’s skyline is much larger) and they are regional powerhouses (with New York more international). I love my home city of Atlanta, and I love New York, but comparing the two are, well like comparing apples to peaches. (Sorry).

But Atlanta Feels So Big

I will agree with many (from NYC and other places) about Atlanta: It feels big. I’ve argued with people from Houston and Dallas that maintain that their cities are smaller than Atlanta, when in fact their cities are way larger. The numbers don’t lie. Here is how Atlanta and New York City compare on basic city demographics:

AtlantaNew York CityATL as a Percentage of NYC NYC Stats are These Many Times Bigger than ATL
Population (City)486,2908,622,6985.617.7X
Population Density (City)3,62928,49212.77.7X
Population (Metro)5,884,73620,320,87629.03.5X
Population Density (Metro)7031,52646.12.2X
Size in Square Mileage (City)134302.6444.32.3X
Size in Square Mileage (Metro)8,37613,31862.91.6X
Median Household Income$51,701$57,78289.51.1X
Persons in Poverty19.6%22.4%87.51.1X

All Data from the U.S. Census Bureau

The Takeaway for Comparing Atlanta and New York City

For the “I want a summary of all this” readers, Atlanta is much smaller (in both population and land area, less densely populated, less wealthy, and less poor than New York.

The city of Atlanta (sitting mostly in one county, with a little spilling over into another), compared to NYC which encompasses 5 counties (boroughs) has a population less than 6 percent of NYC’s. New York’s metro area population is three and a half times bigger than Atlanta and has a little over 1 and a half times more land area than Atlanta. With the city populations so far apart and the metro areas closer, this shows that the city of Atlanta comprises a much smaller part of its metro area in both population and land area compared to the relation NYC has to its metro area.

Atlanta City Boundaries (Maps to scale)                 New York City Boundaries

NYC is almost eight times more densely populated than the city of Atlanta and New York’s metro area is a little more than two times more densely populated than metro Atlanta. This is surprising as Atlanta has been the very definition of sprawl for decades. These numbers show that most of the NYC metro density is concentrated closer to the core city, while Atlanta’s metro area population density is more evenly distributed throughout.

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Atlanta Sprawl – U.S. Census Bureau

New York City Sprawl – U.S. Census Bureau

Atlanta and New York City are Similar in this Way

The two cities were the most similar in two areas: income and the number of persons in poverty. Atlanta’s median household income is almost 90% that of NYC’s and the number of people in poverty in New York City is 1.1 times the number of people in poverty in Atlanta.

Fantasyland: What if…?

Okay, now for the fantasy part of this. All the realists can stop reading at this point. I know the die-hard Atlanta folks would love to see their city compare more favorably to NYC on paper. Some may say that it’s an unfair comparison when NYC consists of five counties, while Atlanta is in one and a little bit in another.

If Atlanta was comprised of the five core counties in its metro area (we’ll call this ‘New Atlanta’), the population wouldn’t reach NYC’s population. New Atlanta’s population would be 3,755,843 compared to NYC’s 8,622,698 or about 44% of NYC’s population, while taking up 1,366 square miles, compared to NYC’s 303 square miles. The city of Atlanta would be four and a half times bigger in land area while holding less than half the population. Not good.

Even scaling New Atlanta down to just two counties (Fulton and DeKalb) would give us a city that’s over 794 square miles, or 2.64 times larger in area than New York City, while the population comes in at only 1,794,676. A population that’s nearly five times smaller than New York’s. New Atlanta in this scenario, would be still smaller than Brooklyn, and Queens, but larger than the other boroughs in population.

New York’s density is a super intense 28,188 people living in every square mile, compared to New Atlanta’s 2,449 (five-county New Atlanta, and 2,807 with two county New Atlanta). Let’s stick to the two-county New Atlanta going forward (it’s less sprawling). If we switched the cities’ densities around, meaning that New York City’s population per square mile would be applied to New Atlanta’s land area, Atlanta would have 22,387,473 people. New York would have only 849,571 people if it had the density of New Atlanta applied to its land area.

Too Much Data and Even More Time

While this is totally useless information and might excite 8 people on the whole planet, it shows how big New York City is in area and population and how packed with people it is. It also shows (about 99%), how bored I must be to compare Atlanta and New York City and then come up with a fantasy of Atlanta expanding to try and get closer to New York in population status. Other things to note:

More of How ATL Compares to NYC

New York City has a population of almost 2 million people less than the whole state of Georgia (the Empire State of the South, Peach State, etc.) and they all live in an area a little smaller than metro Atlanta’s Cobb County. This fact alone should have stopped me in my quest to compare these two cities. To put a better perspective of Manhattan’s size (13.4 miles by no more than 2.3 miles wide), to Atlanta, Manhattan would stretch in length from Atlanta City Hall downtown up to where the King and Queen (Concourse Office Towers) buildings are in Sandy Springs. This area would be no more than a little over two miles wide and have a population of 1,664,727.