US cities: "what if"?

[Yuri]

What if?



I asked myself: what if some metro areas kept the same share they used to have in previous decades, in the 2010 US total population? I've chosen 1940, 1950, 1960 and 1970, as most of very important US cities peaked (in relative terms) in one of those years:


1940
Detroit ----------- 6,934,000
Pittsburgh -------- 6,246,000
Cleveland -------- 4,776,000
St. Louis --------- 4,162,000
Cincinnati -------- 2,794,000
Buffalo ----------- 2,769,000
Scranton-Wilkes -- 1,923,000
Rochester -------- 1,633,000
Youngstown ------ 1,318,000
Toledo ----------- 1,186,000
Wheeling ----------- 898,000


1950
Detroit ----------- 7,675,000
Pittsburgh -------- 5,730,000
Cleveland -------- 4,931,000
St. Louis --------- 4,137,000
Cincinnati -------- 2,782,000
Buffalo ----------- 2,723,000
Rochester -------- 1,572,000
Scranton-Wilkes -- 1,482,000
Youngstown ------ 1,281,000
Toledo ----------- 1,179,000
Wheeling ----------- 763,000


1960
Detroit ----------- 8,142,000
Cleveland -------- 5,261,000
Pittsburgh -------- 5,159,000
St. Louis --------- 4,100,000
Cincinnati -------- 2,878,000
Buffalo ----------- 2,698,000
Rochester -------- 1,559,000
Youngstown ------ 1,281,000
Toledo ----------- 1,164,000
Scranton-Wilkes -- 1,136,000
Wheeling ----------- 648,000


1970
Detroit ----------- 8,166,000
Cleveland -------- 5,097,000
Pittsburgh -------- 4,535,000
St. Louis --------- 4,035,000
Cincinnati -------- 2,757,000
Buffalo ----------- 2,455,000
Rochester -------- 1,633,000
Youngstown ------ 1,173,000
Toledo ----------- 1,111,000
Scranton-Wilkes -- 1,000,000
Wheeling ----------- 556,000



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Their actual population in 2010:

Detroit ----------- 5,389,392
Cleveland -------- 3,186,301
St. Louis --------- 2,971,220
Pittsburgh -------- 2,574,959
Cincinnati -------- 2,301,251
Buffalo ----------- 1,392,886
Rochester -------- 1,175,001
Toledo ------------- 740,588
Youngstown -------- 673,614
Scranton-Wilkes ---- 659,809
Wheeling ----------- 293,881


Their actual population in 1970, 1960, 1950 and 1940:

Detroit ----------- 5,374,245 --- 4,728,828 --- 3,762,146 --- 2,968,221
Cleveland --------- 3,354,435 --- 3,055,011 --- 2,417,121 --- 2,045,169
Pittsburgh -------- 2,985,376 --- 2,996,726 --- 2,808,917 --- 2,673,634
St. Louis --------- 2,656,681 --- 2,381,996 --- 2,028,507 --- 1,781,564
Cincinnati -------- 1,814,571 --- 1,670,548 --- 1,363,845 --- 1,196,474
Buffalo ----------- 1,615,870 --- 1,567,314 --- 1,335,142 --- 1,186,113
Rochester --------- 1,075,152 ----- 905,250 ----- 769,668 ----- 699,148
Youngstown ---------- 771,488 ----- 743,529 ----- 627,418 ----- 563,726
Toledo -------------- 732,303 ----- 676,029 ----- 578,742 ----- 507,885
Scranton-Wilkes ----- 659,415 ----- 659,690 ----- 726,851 ----- 823,290
Wheeling ------------ 365,352 ----- 376,093 ----- 373,146 ----- 384,445

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Definition (CSAs, MSAs and µSAs as 2012):

Buffalo, NY --- the five northwesternmost NY counties

Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN --- Cincinnati CSA and Ripley, Switzerland, Mason, Adams and Highland counties

Cleveland, OH --- Cleveland CSA, Sandusky MSA and Ashland, Norwalk and Wooster µSAs

Detroit, MI --- Detroit CSA, Adrian µSA and Shiawassee County

Pittsburgh, PA --- the ten southwesternmost PA counties

Rochester, NY --- Rochester CSA and Yates County

St. Louis, MO-IL --- St. Louis CSA and Greene, Randolph, Gasconade, Montgomery and Ste. Genevieve counties

Scranton-Wilkes Barre, PA --- Scranton-Wilkes Barre MSA and Susquehanna and Wayne counties

Toledo, OH --- Toledo CSA and Henry County

Wheeling-Steubenville, WV-OH --- Wheeling and Steubenville MSAs and Harrison County

Youngstown, OH-PA --- the current CSA



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--- Pittsburgh peaking in 1940, meaning today 6,246,000 people. It would be as heavy as Houston. Note with this size, Pittsburgh would capture other counties around, including the heavily populated Wheeling-Steubenville area, pushing the 7 million people barrier;

--- St. Louis also peaked in 1940, but the decline was not as pronounced as Pittsburgh's;

--- Buffalo-Rochester with 4,402,000 people (1940) or 4,295,000 (1950) or 4,257,000 (1960) or 4,088,000 (1970), posing a big challenge to Toronto's "supremacy" over Lake Ontario;

--- Youngstown's decline really accelerated in the 1970's, like Detroit's and unlike it's next door neighbour, Pittsburgh.

[AaronPGH]

Weird to think about. Pittsburgh's topography combined with a 6 million+ metro population would really look crazy. I don't even know how we'd have managed to build enough infrastructure here to support that within the ravines and valleys.

I guess it would be more of a collection of very dense river town centers on steroids. Many "downtowns" linked by a heavy-duty rapid transit lines? There's not a ton of room for more freeways without destroying A LOT of stuff. Fun to think about. I think the maximum comfortable size for this city would be a 3-4 million person metro. Basically fill up what was lost.

[Centropolis]

badass photo of PGH

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Weird to think about. Pittsburgh's topography combined with a 6 million+ metro population would really look crazy. I don't even know how we'd have managed to build enough infrastructure here to support that within the ravines and valleys.

I guess it would be more of a collection of very dense river town centers on steroids. Many "downtowns" linked by a heavy-duty rapid transit lines? There's not a ton of room for more freeways without destroying A LOT of stuff. Fun to think about. I think the maximum comfortable size for this city would be a 3-4 million person metro. Basically fill up what was lost.

I imagine there would be lots of midcentury lowrise residential towers sprinkled along certain corridors. they started building those through the central corridor of st. louis, but construction died down as the population started to plummet.

[10023]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Weird to think about. Pittsburgh's topography combined with a 6 million+ metro population would really look crazy. I don't even know how we'd have managed to build enough infrastructure here to support that within the ravines and valleys.

Ever been to Hong Kong?

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by 10023

Ever been to Hong Kong?

No. But PA is pretty incapable of building proper infrastructure. lol

[MayDay]

For Youngstown, the bottom fell out in the late 70s when Youngstown Sheet and Tube (one of the largest employers) closed abruptly, putting 5,000 people out of work overnight, and then the companies that supported and supplied them consequently went under. When the mafia activity declined, crack cocaine decimated what was left. I can't fathom what the area would be like if it had maintained its population.

[JivecitySTL]

St. Louis proper actually peaked in 1950, not 1940, and the metro area is larger today than it's ever been and it continues to grow at a modest pace.

Very interesting thread.

[ChiSoxRox]

Another what if that I've pondered is, what if New York City hadn't pulled itself out of the 1970s decline and followed the path of the Great Lakes industrial cities?

For this scenario, in the 1970s New York dropped by 10.4% and Chicago dropped by 10.7%, so I'm applying Chicago's growth rates from the 1980 Census on to New York, including the 1990s bump.

Hypothetical New York:
1970...7,894,862....+1.5%
1980...7,050,111...−10.7%
1990...6,528,402...−7.4%
2000...6,756,896...+3.5%
2010...6,297,427...−6.8%
2012...6,342,138...+0.7%

Actual:
1980...7,071,639...−10.4%
1990...7,322,564....+3.5%
2000...8,008,288....+9.4%
2010...8,175,133....+2.1%
2012...8,336,697 ...+2.0%

While in this fantasy, I wonder what areas would see the losses to make a New York with two million fewer people. I'd imagine areas of northern Brooklyn would see 70s South Bronx-like drops, while Queens' population stagnates earlier, without the Bronx numbers improving significantly. Assuming upstate and Long Island developed similarly to reality, this also means New York state is passed by Florida somewhere around 2003.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Weird to think about. Pittsburgh's topography combined with a 6 million+ metro population would really look crazy. I don't even know how we'd have managed to build enough infrastructure here to support that within the ravines and valleys.

I guess it would be more of a collection of very dense river town centers on steroids. Many "downtowns" linked by a heavy-duty rapid transit lines? There's not a ton of room for more freeways without destroying A LOT of stuff. Fun to think about. I think the maximum comfortable size for this city would be a 3-4 million person metro. Basically fill up what was lost.

Very interesting approach. When I was organizing this list I tried to picture how the cities would like, specially their skylines and how far their suburbs would go (if there is someone good with photoshop, map editing, please give us a picture).

Pittsburgh would probably be the most interesting case due its very special geography.

Originally Posted by JivecitySTL

St. Louis proper actually peaked in 1950, not 1940, and the metro area is larger today than it's ever been and it continues to grow at a modest pace.

Very interesting thread.

I was talking about metro area and its relative peak. This one was in 1940 (I guess, I didn't check 1920 and 1930).

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Another what if that I've pondered is, what if New York City hadn't pulled itself out of the 1970s decline and followed the path of the Great Lakes industrial cities?

That's a depressing "what if". Let's think of how Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland would like if followed New York's recovery.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Weird to think about. Pittsburgh's topography combined with a 6 million+ metro population would really look crazy. I don't even know how we'd have managed to build enough infrastructure here to support that within the ravines and valleys.

Pittsburgh at 6 million would awesome. It's nothing unimaginable though. The bulk of that population could fit within its current urban footprint and it'd still only be about as dense as Los Angeles or Toronto.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

That's a depressing "what if". Let's think of how Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland would like if followed New York's recovery.

I see it the other way: imagining what a decayed New York would be like reinforces how remarkable of a turnaround it has undergone.

[nei]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Another what if that I've pondered is, what if New York City hadn't pulled itself out of the 1970s decline and followed the path of the Great Lakes industrial cities?

For this scenario, in the 1970s New York dropped by 10.4% and Chicago dropped by 10.7%, so I'm applying Chicago's growth rates from the 1980 Census on to New York, including the 1990s bump.

Hypothetical New York:
1970...7,894,862....+1.5%
1980...7,050,111...−10.7%
1990...6,528,402...−7.4%
2000...6,756,896...+3.5%
2010...6,297,427...−6.8%
2012...6,342,138...+0.7%

Actual:
1980...7,071,639...−10.4%
1990...7,322,564....+3.5%
2000...8,008,288....+9.4%
2010...8,175,133....+2.1%
2012...8,336,697 ...+2.0%

While in this fantasy, I wonder what areas would see the losses to make a New York with two million fewer people. I'd imagine areas of northern Brooklyn would see 70s South Bronx-like drops, while Queens' population stagnates earlier, without the Bronx numbers improving significantly. Assuming upstate and Long Island developed similarly to reality, this also means New York state is passed by Florida somewhere around 2003.

The 70s decline wasn't limited to the city proper, so I'd imagine suburban population change would be affected. Population change 1970-1980:

Westchester County: -3.1%
Nassau County: -7.5% (followed by -2.6% in the 80s)

The city's population recovery was almost entirely immigration driven, though less so in the last five years. The huge immigration inflows in the 80s and 90s hid a large net domestic outflow. The city grew by nearly a million people in the 90s, but the net domestic outmigration was close to 70s levels.

Anyhow, I'm not sure if a NYC with a declining population would be too depressing. Think about how cheap the rent would be!

[TarHeelJ]

I think this just goes to show that popularity doesn't remain constant. The current most popular cities may be big losers in a couple of decades.

[ue]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Another what if that I've pondered is, what if New York City hadn't pulled itself out of the 1970s decline and followed the path of the Great Lakes industrial cities?

For this scenario, in the 1970s New York dropped by 10.4% and Chicago dropped by 10.7%, so I'm applying Chicago's growth rates from the 1980 Census on to New York, including the 1990s bump.

Hypothetical New York:
1970...7,894,862....+1.5%
1980...7,050,111...−10.7%
1990...6,528,402...−7.4%
2000...6,756,896...+3.5%
2010...6,297,427...−6.8%
2012...6,342,138...+0.7%

Actual:
1980...7,071,639...−10.4%
1990...7,322,564....+3.5%
2000...8,008,288....+9.4%
2010...8,175,133....+2.1%
2012...8,336,697 ...+2.0%

While in this fantasy, I wonder what areas would see the losses to make a New York with two million fewer people. I'd imagine areas of northern Brooklyn would see 70s South Bronx-like drops, while Queens' population stagnates earlier, without the Bronx numbers improving significantly. Assuming upstate and Long Island developed similarly to reality, this also means New York state is passed by Florida somewhere around 2003.

Cool thread. I'd be more interested in seeing growth extrapolations for the Tri-State area, like what was done for Pittsburgh and St. Louis, though, for a bigger picture.

[Yuri]

Cleveland, Detroit and Toledo:

1940
Detroit ------------ 6,934,000
Cleveland --------- 4,776,000
Toledo ------------ 1,186,000


1950
Detroit ------------ 7,675,000
Cleveland --------- 4,931,000
Toledo ------------ 1,179,000


1960
Detroit ------------ 8,142,000
Cleveland --------- 5,261,000
Toledo ------------ 1,164,000


1970
Detroit ------------ 8,166,000
Cleveland --------- 5,097,000
Toledo ------------ 1,111,000



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Their actual population in 2010:

Detroit ------------ 5,389,392
Cleveland --------- 3,186,301
Toledo -------------- 740,588


Their actual population in 1970, 1960, 1950 and 1940:

Detroit ----------- 5,374,245 --- 4,728,828 --- 3,762,146 --- 2,968,221
Cleveland --------- 3,354,435 --- 3,055,011 --- 2,417,121 --- 2,045,169
Toledo -------------- 732,303 ----- 676,029 ----- 578,742 ----- 507,885

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Definition (CSAs, MSAs and µSAs as 2012):

Cleveland, OH --- Cleveland CSA, Sandusky MSA and Ashland, Norwalk and Wooster µSAs

Detroit, MI --- Detroit CSA, Adrian µSA and Shiawassee County

Toledo, OH --- Toledo CSA and Henry County



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--- Detroit peaking in 1970, meaning today 8,116,000 people. At this point, its CSA would include Toledo, Jackson and Lansing regions as well breaking the 10 million people barrier. In a such scenario, I believe the city of Detroit wouldn't go much below 1.5 million people;

--- Cleveland-Pittsburgh corridor would dwarf Golden Horseshoe, with over 12 million inhabitants at its peak. There is a shift between them: in 1940, Pittsburgh is way bigger, while in 1960, Cleveland is already ahead;

--- Toledo declines during all the 1940-1970 period, but in a very soft way.

[Evergrey]

Do Scranton Wilkes-Barre!

[Centropolis]

god damn. how motherfucking great would it have been if we had all of these 5-6 million plus hearty ass cities peppering the midwest. undoubtedly most of them would have heavy rail. it was proposed here and in practically all of the other big old line midwestern cities besides the ones that actually built heavy rail. unlike vast swaths of the country, our geography was capable of handling the crush of millions in an intelligent way. we were fuckin' ready.

*sigh*

[10023]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

That's a depressing "what if". Let's think of how Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland would like if followed New York's recovery.

Well, large parts of Chicago are following New York's recovery. Chicago is in a very different place from Cleveland or Detroit. It's just not as big/important as New York (the principal city and financial center for the world's largest economy), and frankly there are large swaths of the South and West sides that were never as nice and don't have the potential of NY's boroughs.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Do Scranton Wilkes-Barre!

I would bring them in the next round!

It's one of the most interesting ones as they've been declining since 1930.

Originally Posted by 10023

Well, large parts of Chicago are following New York's recovery. Chicago is in a very different place from Cleveland or Detroit. It's just not as big/important as New York (the principal city and financial center for the world's largest economy), and frankly there are large swaths of the South and West sides that were never as nice and don't have the potential of NY's boroughs.

New York grew 17.9% (1980-2010) and Chicago shrunk 10.3% over the same period. If they had followed New York, the population in 2010 would be 3,332,625, almost 700,000 than the actual one. So I believe Chicago is worth-mentioning in this context.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by TarHeelJ

I think this just goes to show that popularity doesn't remain constant. The current most popular cities may be big losers in a couple of decades.

This is true. That's why the "let's extrapolate current growth rates out far into the future" threads are nonsensical. No one really has a clue about the long-term future.