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Just visited Charleston for the first time two weeks ago - lovely city.

Charleston is locked in by water on three sides, and the city can't annex any more area due to North Charleston boxing it in. Everything is deemed historic and protected, which has preserved most of the city while also turning it into a "living museum." Homes in downtown Charleston run 1+ million to 6 million along the battery. It's like a celebrity retirement home than a functioning city, where the working class have to live up in North Charleston.

For comparison, look at a city like Charlotte. Charlotte's population in 1920 was 46,338. The Charleston population in 1920 was 67,957.

Now in 2015 Charlotte's population is 827,097 and Charleston is 132,609.

This is largely due to the fact that Charlotte had plenty of cheap land to sprawl into in post-WWII era, and plenty of space for mills and manufacturing, plus a willingness to raze any and everything in it's downtown for developers.