Quote:
Originally Posted by allovertown
Yup, count me as optimistic on Philadelphia's growth as well, but no way in hell we'll be at 2.1 million again anytime soon. People tend to think that if we were at 2.1 million before we could get back there again without needing to build much, but that fails to account for the enormous drop in average household sizes since the time Philadelphia had 2.1 million people. Philadelphia has enough housing stock to house 2.1 million if people were living 5 people or more to each housing unit like they were in the early 20th century. Considering our average household size is like half what it was during that time, we'd have to build a ton to get back up to 2.1 million.
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NYC is basically the only old east coast city that has matched and surpassed its boom time peak population. Even DC hasn't recovered all of its lost population in spite of crazy growth over last 20 years. Baltimore is actually still losing population. I dont know Boston's peak off the top of my head but Im pretty sure it's been higher than it is now.
edit- Boston's population peaked in 1950 at 800k- its estimated to be 694k now. It bottomed out in 1980, roughly 20 years before Philly hit its low point.