Just from personal experience/anecdotes or cities you see that have the potential to.

43 comments

  2. Hopefully not Chicago because that’s where I consider moving. Surprisingly affordable considering the sheer size and status of this city. It just cannot stay that way for long.

  3. Midwest towns, especially those with ample water.

    Chicago is severely underpriced. I can see Milwaukee and Minneapolis growing fast.

    Absolutely can see big growth in Iowa too with some companies relocating there.

    Edit: actually my #1 answer is NW Arkansas. A mix of red state taxes, water, good businesses, good schools and natural beauty.

  4. With WFH, I imagine the bigger cities will lose people to the smaller cities. IMO, I don’t think there will be any “one” city though.

  5. I’ve heard Huntsville, Alabama is supposed to be the next Nashville.

  8. Might sound odd, but I would say Anchorage. City is set up well for a huge boom even though it may take longer than 15 years.

  9. The few remaining moderately priced cities in Blue states — Albuquerque, Buffalo, Providence, Sacramento, Spokane, etc.

  10. Charleston, Columbia SC, Huntsville AL, Fayetteville AR, Chattanooga, Jackson Hole, any city in Montana, any city in Idaho

  11. Austin has already exploded ya’ll. It’s been the hot new thing for 10-15 years lol.

  13. San Antonio and northern Dallas (Frisco, McKinney) have been growing and have nothing to slow the rate.

    Disagree on Chicago. It has seen declines in population and has significant issues (high tax rates, huge pension liability, crime) that make it unattractive. I lived there a long while. Fun city, but those issues are real.

  15. Vegas. They’re getting an MLB team and probably an NBA team soon. Big market and more people are living there now

  16. Pittsburgh or Detroit. Both were some varying degree of a fallen city that are making a comeback these days.

  17. Albany, NY has been the ‘next silicon valley’ for the past 30 years. So any day now.

  18. Detroit. Visited it a decade ago and it was a dump. Visited it a couple months ago and downtown Detroit is thriving again with tech and the Arts.

  20. If they ever fucking build HSR (or like, expand current rail) from NY to New Haven fucking New Haven would go bananas

  23. My small city (Winston-Salem NC) is showing a lot of signs of following the path of larger NC cities (in particular the triangle Raleigh Durham area). Idk if explode is the correct term but 10-15 years from now I expect it to be a substantial larger city.

    Edit: I don’t mean to say it’ll be bigger than Raleigh or Charlotte, just that Winston looks a lot like what Durham did 10-15 years ago, share similar post tabaco instruct histories, and seem to be following a similar development mold that worked to significantly change the metropolitan size of the triangle in the past couple of decades.

  24. Places like Boston, Portland (Maine), Portsmouth (NH), Tampa, Austin. Basically, smaller cities that will cater to young professionals who will be willing to live an extremely high cost of living and never own anything

  25. Duluth, Minnesota

    Grand Rapids, Michigan

    Madison, Wisconsin

    Fox Valley, Wisconsin (Fox Valley includes Green Bay, Appleton, Neenah, etc.)

  26. Where I live, Northwest Arkansas. Home to Walmart, Tyson Foods, and several other companies related to chicken and logistics. There’s still a lot of affordable housing, relative to other areas. You can get a solid home for 350k-450k and those prices are post-pandemic inflated real estate prices. Everywhere I go it’s construction.

  27. Columbus. 14th largest city in the US. One of Amazon’s four US data centers is in Columbus. Google is building its 3rd Columbus data center now. Facebook has a data center in Columbus. Intel is building the world’s largest chip prefab plant in Columbus. Population growth has been a solid 1-2% annually for decades now. It’s nothing like the rest of Ohio or anywhere in the rustbelt, despite being Ohio’s capital.

  28. Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo. The lower Lakes region has a huge amount of freshwater and probably the most stable climate in the US.

  29. Raleigh, Houston, Nashville, Atlanta, Charleston (SC), Florida cities, and Richmond.

  30. At the tail end of the 15 years I expect to see Syracuse explode in population. Upstate NY is blessed with essentially unlimited water and very little seismic activity. Micron is going to build a chip processing plant that will bring up to 50,000 jobs to the area along with $100,000,000,000+ in private investment.

    Long term will be cities with access to water. The Great Lakes region is a great long term investment.

  31. Atlanta GA. Lots of development in midtown and surrounding areas. They have multiple multimillion dollar projects planned for the future

  32. Any city in North Carolina, but especially the suburbs around Raleigh. The amount of growth we’re experiencing right now is crazy.

  33. Columbia, SC will probably see a spike. Not explode, but i would expect it to grow rapidly like Greenville did.

    Columbia is finally getting the big factories and plants that Greenville and Charleston have had for 15+ years.

  34. Madison, Wisconsin. It’s been growing steadily. I can see explosive growth in the next 15-30 years. City is currently 270k, I wouldn’t doubt it could reach 400k by 2060. People will increasingly move back to the Midwest because of climate and affordability, which will amplify the growth here and in the fox valley, reverse losses in Milwaukee and Chicago, grow places like Duluth and Green Bay into considerable cities. Maybe more long term, but the Midwest will revive.

  35. I don’t know about exploding, but Duluth, MN is quietly building a brewing and foodie scene. The west side is gentrifying. The city has smartly moved away from its historical dependence on mining.

    Plus it has been featured as a “climate refuge,” so a lot of people have at least heard of it. These trends combined with absolutely outstanding outdoor recreation has it primed for a boom.

  36. Im not sure if its 10, or 20 or 30 years, but I predict Atlanta is going to become fucking monstrous in the future. Once the flood insurance bottom falls out in Florida, coastal home values will collapse, and people will look to move inward to safe, but recognizably similar cities. I think ATL could be one of a few benefactors from this. Its already grow at an intense pace as is.

  37. Charlotte, NC, will continue to grow, as well as its South Carolina suburbs

  38. Portland, Maine. It’s already getting expensive but shows no sign of slowing down. It’s a beautiful, clean, and hip place with a tiny population for it’s list of amenities. Not to mention a lot of the Casco Bay islands have city water and electricity.

  39. Not sure if it counts since it pretty much exploded in growth in the last 10 years, but I think Atlanta is just going to keep growing. I live in Athens now and I joke that before long it will just be a suburb of ATL.

  40. Several small stars of the south could blow up. Huntsville, Al already mentioned. Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tn are growing fast. Spartanburg/ Greenville, SC metro have lots to offer. Louisville, Ky is underrated. Lots of love on here for Madison, Wi. I’ve never understood why it hadn’t already blown up.

  41. I think the Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus area will see some growth. Cincy and Dayton are automation and aerospace hubs. Columbus has Honda, Amazon, and soon will have Google in the area.

  42. Anywhere where housing is affordable. This is, unfortunately, mostly in red states since they tend to have less restrictive zoning laws.

  43. In other words, which cities to avoid living in because in 10 years they will become an endless construction zone with plastic fake caricatures of civilization as landlord parasites suck everything good and cultural from them leaving only a hollow shell, and which will thus become nothing but retirement cities of people who got their houses 40 years ago, with a strange assortment of remote workers who live there but don’t work there and retail/service workers that work there but can’t afford to live there. And the city will die. Just like every city the cancer has hit.

    In other words, if I knew, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell anyone. A city where a local bakery can’t afford to rent a place on main street but some kitschy outdoor clothing shop or bougie housewares place can is not a city worth living in.

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