Cities that belong in other states

[benp]

The biggest differentiation between Detroit and Chicago was the number and percentage of residents living in single family homes and large apartments.

In 1950, before depopulation started:
-- 52% of Detroit households were owner-occupied housing vs 30% of Chicago
-- 48% of Detroit households were single family detached vs 17% of Chicago
-- 17% of Detroit households were in 5+unit apartments vs 41% of Chicago

Because Detroit was so top heavy in owner occupied units and single family homes compared to Chicago, central city household economic issues and resultant depopulation had a much greater geographic effect on its communities. Management and maintenance of large apartment communities was able to continue with a reduced number of renters, while single family homes often went through long periods of vacancy and deferred maintenance, leaving them subject to decay and vandalism, and reducing desirability or even capability to house future tenants.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by benp

In 1950, before depopulation started:
-- 52% of Detroit households were owner-occupied housing vs 30% of Chicago
-- 48% of Detroit households were single family detached vs 17% of Chicago
-- 4% of Detroit households were in 5+unit apartments vs 41% of Chicago

Wait............ WHAT?!?!?!?

In 1950, only 4% of Detroit households were in 5+ unit MFH?

That doesn't seem............. possible.

And yeah, those are some pretty significant differences.



I assume these figures are from the CB?

[benp]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Wait............ WHAT?!?!?!?

In 1950, only 4% of Detroit households were in 5+ unit MFH?

That doesn't seem............. possible.

And yeah, those are some pretty significant differences.



I assume these figures are from the CB?

Oops - that was homes without running water, my mistake!

5+ was 17% in Detroit. Still way lower than Chicago. I will fix it.

Yes, it was Census Bureau.

https://www.census.gov/library/publi...on-vol-03.html

[Yuri]

Guys, can you go back to the Philadelphia-Pennsylvania discussion?

I'm into alternate history and I'm working with some ideas with surviving New Netherland and New Sweden up today. For this, we should find a path for them to go to west and I'm aware on how the Great Lakes were reached from New York and an alternate Dutch New York could follow the same path to reach the continent hinterland.

However, what about Pittsburgh? I'm aware British took the fort from the French on their border wars, but how its growth was fueled on the next century? People arrived there primarly from Philadelphia or Baltimore and New York played a big role as well? How did they get there? By railways only crossing the complicated Pennsylvania geography?

My question is: a New Sweden beachhead formed by DE, south NJ, PA southeast corner would be able to expanding west to get Pittsburgh and from there go down the river freely? Or no, it wasn't only from there that western PA was settled and it's not possible to expand into that region by only having the control of southeast PA and you'd have to control NY and MD as well.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by benp

Oops - that was homes without running water, my mistake!

5+ was 17% in Detroit. Still way lower than Chicago. I will fix it.

Yes, it was Census Bureau.

https://www.census.gov/library/publi...on-vol-03.html

Ok, thanks.

That makes WAY more sense now.


So in broad strokes, back in 1950 Chicago & Detroit had fairly similar missing middle shares (SFH-attached + 2-4 unit MFH), but their SFH-detached vs. apartment units (5+ unit buildings) were more or less inverted.

Very interesting. I knew that Detroit was very SFH-detached heavy these days, but I never realized that Detroit was already so heavily SFH-detached way back in 1950.


Chicago (1950):

SFH - detached: 17%
Missing middle: 42%
Apartment units: 41%


Detroit (1950):

SFH - detached: 48%
Missing middle: 35%
Apartment units: 17%

[benp]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Ok, thanks.

That makes WAY more sense now.


So in broad strokes, Chicago & Detroit had fairly similar missing middle shares (attached SFH + small scale MFH), but their SFH-detached vs. apartment buildings were more or less inverted.

Very interesting. I knew that Detroit was very SFH-detached heavy these days, but I never realized that Detroit was already so heavily SFH-detached way back in 1950.


Chicago(1950):

SFH - detached: 17%
Missing middle: 42%
Apartment units: 41%


Detroit(1950):

SFH - detached: 48%
Missing middle: 35%
Apartment units: 17%

To put a few numbers into it, Detroit had 59,000 more SFH than Chicago did by 1950, despite having only half the population of Chicago. That's 7 additional square miles of homes.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by benp

The biggest differentiation between Detroit and Chicago was the number and percentage of residents living in single family homes and large apartments.

In 1950, before depopulation started:
-- 52% of Detroit households were owner-occupied housing vs 30% of Chicago
-- 48% of Detroit households were single family detached vs 17% of Chicago
-- 17% of Detroit households were in 5+unit apartments vs 41% of Chicago

Because Detroit was so top heavy in owner occupied units and single family homes compared to Chicago, central city household economic issues and resultant depopulation had a much greater geographic effect on its communities. Management and maintenance of large apartment communities was able to continue with a reduced number of renters, while single family homes often went through long periods of vacancy and deferred maintenance, leaving them subject to decay and vandalism, and reducing desirability or even capability to house future tenants.

Yes, and this again goes back to land use and sprawl. The city of Detroit ran out of room very quickly because it dedicated so much land to single family housing. Most of the lower density housing was built in the land that was annexed between 1915 and 1926, which accounts for roughly 2/3s of Detroit's land area.

All of the developable land in the current footprint of Detroit was developed by the 1940s. There were only two options for growth after that: annex a lot of land, or convert more areas to higher density. All of the municipalities surrounding Detroit had incorporated by the 1950s, so annexing more land was mostly out of the question. The most logical way to continue growing Detroit's population was to build density, but that would have required permissive zoning, more rapid transit, and fewer freeways. But 1950s era Detroit basically did the opposite: they built a ton of freeways, they got rid of their rail transit systems, and the locked in zoning laws that made it hard to build density.

[edale]

Originally Posted by benp

The biggest differentiation between Detroit and Chicago was the number and percentage of residents living in single family homes and large apartments.

In 1950, before depopulation started:
-- 52% of Detroit households were owner-occupied housing vs 30% of Chicago
-- 48% of Detroit households were single family detached vs 17% of Chicago
-- 17% of Detroit households were in 5+unit apartments vs 41% of Chicago

Because Detroit was so top heavy in owner occupied units and single family homes compared to Chicago, central city household economic issues and resultant depopulation had a much greater geographic effect on its communities. Management and maintenance of large apartment communities was able to continue with a reduced number of renters, while single family homes often went through long periods of vacancy and deferred maintenance, leaving them subject to decay and vandalism, and reducing desirability or even capability to house future tenants.

This also gets at the point I tried to make-- which is that Detroit never had anything approaching the urban culture of Chicago. When the city offers a roughly similar lifestyle to the suburbs, it's easy to see why people would decamp to communities offering the newer, better version of what they currently have, especially as the city started to show signs of deterioration and dysfunction.

Imagine a family living in one of Detroit's single family home neighborhoods in the 1960s. They have a modest sized home with a yard and at least one car. They drive to the grocery store and to run errands, dad drives to work. The family shops at the mall, kids play in the yard...they live basically a typical suburban lifestyle. When the city starts to deteriorate (in real terms or even just in perception, i.e. demographics start to change), what is holding that family in Detroit, when they can have the same lifestyle in Warren or Southfield, without the ills of the city? They're still driving everywhere, still living in a detached house with a yard that the kids play in...

Contrast that to a family living in Chicago- and let's omit the bungalow belt for this conversation. Maybe this family lives in a 3-flat or a walkup...maybe even a high rise apartment. They walk to most errands and maybe don't even have a car. Dad takes the El to work in the Loop. The family takes transit to shop downtown or in one of the plethora of intact neighborhood business districts. When the city starts to deteriorate, and this family is looking at the prospect of moving to the suburbs, they're faced with a big lifestyle change. Plenty of people still moved out to the suburbs, of course, but lots of people chose to stay in the city, and Chicago never lost all its wealthy and middle class people to the burbs. Of course, they also had the benefit of getting lots of mostly Mexican immigrants to backfill those who did leave, but that's another factor not really related to the point I'm trying to make here.

Detroit offered way more of a suburban lifestyle, and it really couldn't keep up when the freeways opened up the hinterlands for unfettered suburban sprawl. Everyone wants the newest, best version of the burbs, so they go further and further out to chase it. Without having a strong urban core with all the corresponding urban amenities and lifestyle, what pull factors existed to keep people in the city, especially as the city began to greatly struggle?

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by edale

Detroit offered way more of a suburban lifestyle, and it really couldn't keep up when the freeways opened up the hinterlands for unfettered suburban sprawl. Everyone wants the newest, best version of the burbs, so they go further and further out to chase it. Without having a strong urban core with all the corresponding urban amenities and lifestyle, what pull factors existed to keep people in the city, especially as the city began to greatly struggle?

Detroit also lacked a rapid transit system and commuter rail centered around its downtown. It also lacks a major university other than Wayne State anywhere close to its downtown. By contrast, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago have all of these things.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

This also gets at the point I tried to make-- which is that Detroit never had anything approaching the urban culture of Chicago. When the city offers a roughly similar lifestyle to the suburbs, it's easy to see why people would decamp to communities offering the newer, better version of what they currently have, especially as the city started to show signs of deterioration and disfunction.

Nobody is arguing that Detroit had the urban culture of Chicago. Chicago was the second largest U.S. city in the prewar era by a comfortable margin. Detroit did have an urban culture, though. And Detroit was the fourth largest "urban" city by a comfortable margin. It was much more dense than L.A. in 1950 whether you look at it from the city (4,201 vs 13,306 ppsm) or urban area (4,587 vs 6,510 ppsm). And while half of Detroit lived in single family housing, the other half didn't. Half of Detroit in 1950 was nearly 1 million people, which was more people than any other city besides NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

[Steely Dan]

Did the successes of the UAW perhaps lead to the "American dream" coming to Detroit a bit earlier than other places? In the first half of the 20th century the motor city's auto industry had likely created the most broadly prosperous industrial middle class that the planet had ever seen.

I'm just thinking out loud about that nearly 50% SFH stat for 1950 Detroit.



Anyway, it's also interesting to look at how the housing typologies has changed between the two over the decline decades.


Chicago ------------ 1950 ----- 2022

Total HUs----------- 1,085,600 -- 1,262,463

SFH - detached ------ 16% ------- 25%
Missing middle: ------45% ------- 30%
Apartment units: -----39% ------- 45%


Detroit ------------- 1950 ----- 2022

Total HUs----------- 526,700 -- 311,291

SFH - detached ------ 48% ------- 65%
Missing middle: ------36% ------- 16%
Apartment units: -----16% ------- 19%

[benp]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Nobody is arguing that Detroit had the urban culture of Chicago. Chicago was the second largest U.S. city in the prewar era by a comfortable margin. Detroit did have an urban culture, though. And Detroit was the fourth largest "urban" city by a comfortable margin. It was much more dense than L.A. in 1950 whether you look at it from the city (4,201 vs 13,306 ppsm) or urban area (4,587 vs 6,510 ppsm). And while half of Detroit lived in single family housing, the other half didn't. Half of Detroit in 1950 was nearly 1 million people, which was more people than any other city besides NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

A good proportion of the multi-family was duplex houses in neighborhoods of homes.

Detroit had 387,823 households living in single or duplexes, and 134,602 households living in 3-unit or larger apartments.

Homes at the time had a median household size of between 3 and 4, while apartments averaged between 2 and 3 (average estimate from reviewing Census data). Using a similar household size for duplex homes as well as single-family (based on my experience growing up in a duplex), this works out to about 85% of Detroit population living in singles or duplexes. Using similar calculations, Chicago was just under 50% in single or duplexes.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Did the successes of the UAW perhaps lead to the "American dream" coming to Detroit a bit earlier than other places? In the first half of the 20th century the motor city's auto industry had likely created the most broadly prosperous industrial middle class that the planet had ever seen.

I'm just thinking out loud about that nearly 50% SFH stat for 1950 Detroit.



Anyway, it's also interesting to look at how the housing typologies has changed between the two over the decline decades.


Chicago ------------ 1950 ----- 2022

Total HUs----------- 1,085,600 -- 1,262,463

SFH - detached ------ 16% ------- 25%
Missing middle: ------45% ------- 30%
Apartment units: -----39% ------- 45%


Detroit ------------- 1950 ----- 2022

Total HUs----------- 526,700 -- 311,291

SFH - detached ------ 48% ------- 65%
Missing middle: ------36% ------- 16%
Apartment units: -----16% ------- 19%

I think it was more because of housing policy than incomes. Incomes in Detroit in 1950 were a little higher than other major cities, but not drastically higher, and Chicago was just behind Detroit. OTOH, starting in the 1930s, criteria to secure a mortgage for a home loan strongly favored detached single family housing. A lot of Chicago's housing stock was built before the creation of the FHA in the 1930s, which caused single-family housing to be the strongly preferred housing type in America.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by benp

A good proportion of the multi-family was duplex houses in neighborhoods of homes.

What do you mean by neighborhoods of homes? Duplexes were a very common type of housing in Detroit, yes, but they were mostly located in neighborhoods dominated by multi-family housing, and those areas are mostly located in the dense 1/3rd of the city. Detroit also had a number of 4-plexes as well, but much less common than the duplexes.



The darkest two shades that hug the center of the city are where the multi-family housing is/was located. Everything outside of that is 95% single-family housing. Also keep in mind that the multi-family housing neighborhoods in Detroit were decimated much earlier than the single-family areas. A disproportionate amount of Detroit's urban prairie areas were previously multi-family housing areas.

source: https://drawingdetroit.wordpress.com...ation-density/

[edale]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Nobody is arguing that Detroit had the urban culture of Chicago. Chicago was the second largest U.S. city in the prewar era by a comfortable margin. Detroit did have an urban culture, though. And Detroit was the fourth largest "urban" city by a comfortable margin. It was much more dense than L.A. in 1950 whether you look at it from the city (4,201 vs 13,306 ppsm) or urban area (4,587 vs 6,510 ppsm). And while half of Detroit lived in single family housing, the other half didn't. Half of Detroit in 1950 was nearly 1 million people, which was more people than any other city besides NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

Well you didn't acknowledge that as a factor when you declared that land use policy was the only reason to explain Detroit hollowing out while Chicago stayed much more in tact...

Though I think we might be getting somewhere on this front. Land use policy + urban culture + transit + immigration patterns + economic diversity + race + probably a myriad of other factors played a role in explaining why Detroit and Chicago experienced different fates in spite of massive suburbanization and sprawl in both regions.

[benp]

Neighborhoods of homes = detached housing similar in style to single family, often owner-occupied.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/KaSh1hJYbRy9dr6J7

My point was not that they didn't add to neighborhood density - when they were occupied - but that small individual structures are/were more susceptible to ravages of aging, decay, vacancy, and teardown during bad economic times than larger apartments which can continue to operate and be maintained when not at full occupancy. Maintaining 100 separate homes is more costly and time consuming than maintaining 100 apartment units in a single (or few) buildings.

In my city, and certainly Detroit, doubles became less desirable to own as they aged, as many owner-occupied houses originally had extended family members in the other unit, and when grandma died these units remained vacant as the owner didn't desire to share the house. Eventually, when the house was sold, fewer new buyers desired to own and share a double with strangers, and more likely just wished to rent both units out with as few improvements as possible.

For several decades, there were few new low income residents (migrants and immigrants) arriving who would typically fill these homes with extended family members. Eventually, as maintenance issues stacked up, these homes became less desirable to renters, and even if rented out unaffordable to maintain, so they became vacant at a higher rate than comparable owner-occupied single family homes. In Detroit, eventually even single-family home values fell, as deferred maintenance and aging pushed many owners to rent them out, until they also became unlivable.

It's only in the last few years that a housing shortage in Buffalo has developed, and doubles, in any condition, are now worth a premium price and in high demand. I believe this is similarly happening to areas like Hamtramck, which saw its population and density increase in the last decade. Unfortunately, this came years after large sections of homes in the cities were already torn down. If the immigration had begun a couple of decades earlier (ie if the city had the jobs to support them) much of the wealth and housing lost could have been preserved.

[3rd&Brown]

We've had this discussion before. Densities generations ago were going to be much more dense than they are today all else being equal because family sizes were so much bigger, regardless of housing type. That's why you can see pockets of Detroit that have 20-30K people per square mile in 1950. Every unit of housing probably had 6-8 people living in it. On top of that, people often had boarders or sponsored recently arrived immigrants from their own extended families. Household sizes were massive.

The only way to maintain density today given that household sizes are so much smaller is to build much more densely (i.e. multi-family)...no city no matter how dense will get even more dense unless it builds more multi-family housing.

I think that's what you see here in the Chicago data.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The darkest two shades that hug the center of the city are where the multi-family housing is/was located. Everything outside of that is 95% single-family housing. Also keep in mind that the multi-family housing neighborhoods in Detroit were decimated much earlier than the single-family areas. A disproportionate amount of Detroit's urban prairie areas were previously multi-family housing areas.

So what it sounds like is that Detroit switched to building-out mid-ring neighborhoods almost exclusively with SFH's way earlier than Chicago did.

I guess there were never any Detroit neighborhoods like my Chicago neighborhood of Lincoln Square: roughly 6.5 miles out from downtown, primarily built-out from 1910-1930, 15% SFH - 60% missing middle - 25% apartment bldgs.

I guess such neighborhoods in Detroit would've been much closer in, built earlier, and are now largely gone.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The darkest two shades that hug the center of the city are where the multi-family housing is/was located. Everything outside of that is 95% single-family housing. Also keep in mind that the multi-family housing neighborhoods in Detroit were decimated much earlier than the single-family areas. A disproportionate amount of Detroit's urban prairie areas were previously multi-family housing areas.

Yeah, this is more or less true, but the darkest shaded areas were also the 1950-era black areas, which had horrible overcrowding. 1950-era Detroit, like 2000-era LA, was a high-cost, high-demand environment with a lot of not particularly dense housing overstuffed with newcomers.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I guess there were never any Detroit neighborhoods like my Chicago neighborhood of Lincoln Square: roughly 6.5 miles out from downtown, primarily built-out from 1910-1930, 15% SFH - 60% missing middle - 25% apartment bldgs.

The Jewish corridor was built like this. Basically heading Northwest from downtown, mostly along Dexter/Linwood to about 7 Mile Rd. Palmer Park area, the furthest distant prewar apartment hood (and the former gayborhood) was built with multifamily through about 1960. It was a vibrant and desirable gayborhood until maybe 1985 or so.

But you're right. Multifamily was never a big thing, especially on the more working class East Side. Even compared to St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, I think Detroit built proportionally less.

There were also some 1960's-era garden-style apartment corridors built further out, such as the Greenfield corridor, but this was already post-urban.