SkyscraperPage Forum - City Discussions

Birthplaces of U.S. presidents as of July 2026

iheartthed — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:02:44 GMT

It's been 250 years since the United States of America declared independence from Great Britain. Since then a total of 45 people have become president of the United States (as of July 1, 2026). As such, I thought it would be fun to see which "metro areas" produced the most presidents.

For the purpose of this exercise a "metro area" means the loosest official definition of an urban area or urban relationship. So, in most cases, the aggregate count is rolled up to the CSA. What this means is that Theodore Roosevelt, born in New York City, is counted as being from the same "metro area" as his cousin Franklin Roosevelt, who was born in Dutchess County which is located outside of the NYC MSA but within the NYC CSA.

If a president was born in a location that is not part of a CSA but is located in an MSA then I aggregated according to the MSA. Birthplaces that were not located in either a CSA or MSA were mostly counted as "none". The single exception to that rule is Virginia's Northern Neck region, which was birthplace to several presidents. While the Northern Neck is located just outside of the current boundaries of the Washington-Baltimore CSA, I included these birthplaces to the count for Washington-Baltimore.

#.......Birthplace region
6……….none | Chester A. Arthur, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton
5……….Boston CSA | John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush
5……….Washington-Baltimore CSA | George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, Zachary Taylor, James Buchanan
4……….New York CSA | Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Donald Trump
3……….Cincinnati CSA | Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harris, William Howard Taft
2……….Charlotte CSA | Andrew Jackson, James Polk
2……….Columbus, OH CSA | Rutherford B. Hayes, Warren G. Harding
2……….Richmond, VA CSA | William Henry Harrison, John Tyler
1……….Albany, NY CSA | Martin Van Buren
1……….Charlottesville, VA MSA | Thomas Jefferson
1……….Cleveland CSA | James Garfield)
1……….Dallas CSA | Dwight Eisenhower
1……….Dixon-Sterling, IL CSA | Ronald Reagan
1……….Honolulu MSA | Barack Obama
1……….Iowa City MSA | Herbert Hoover
1……….Los Angeles CSA | Richard Nixon
1……….Louisville CSA | Abraham Lincoln
1……….New Haven, CT CSA | George W. Bush
1……….Omaha, NE MSA | Gerald Ford
1……….Raleigh, NC CSA | Andrew Johnson
1……….Scranton, PA CSA | Joe Biden
1……….Staunton–Stuarts Draft, VA MSA | Woodrow Wilson
1……….Syracuse, NY CSA | Millard Fillmore
1……….Youngstown, OH CSA | William McKinley

May 2025-May 2026 Metro Area Job Growth

dimondpark — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:20:17 GMT

This was released today, July 1, 2026

Largest US Metro Areas by
Change in Non-Farm Jobs, May 2025-May 2026
+48,600------New York-Newark-Jersey City
+24,700------Dallas-Ft Worth-Arlington
+24,500------Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas
+23,600------Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler
+21,300------Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands
+19,000------Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia
+18,300------Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford
+17,800------Salt Lake City-Murray
+17,600------San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara
+16,700------Raleigh-Cary
+14,900------Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos
+13,400------San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad
+9,100-------Fresno
+6,700-------San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont
+6,300-------Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom
+5,900-------Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington
+5,400-------Minneapolis-St Paul-Bloomington
+5,300-------Cincinnati
+4,800-------San Antonio-New Braunfels
+4,200-------Nashville-Murfreesboro-Frankin
+3,600-------Birmingham
+3,200-------Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford
+2,900-------Kansas City
+2,700-------Columbus
+2,100-------Honolulu
+1,900-------Cleveland
+1,000-------Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell
+800---------Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue
+100---------Tucson
-300---------Chicago-Naperville-Elgin
-500---------Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater
-700---------Memphis
-1,100-------Rochester
-1,400-------Buffalo-Cheektowaga
-1,400-------Tulsa
-2,000-------Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario
-2,300-------New Orleans-Metairie
-3,000-------Jacksonville
-3,900-------Oklahoma City
-3,900-------St Louis
-6,100-------Louisville
-6,400-------Richmond
-7,400-------Milwaukee-Waukesha
-8,000-------Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk
-9,100-------Miami-Ft Lauderdale-West Palm Beach
-9,300-------Providence-Warwick
-9,400-------Denver-Aurora-Centennial
-10,700------Baltimore-Columbia-Towson
-11,200------Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim
-12,600------Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood
-15,400------Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor
-15,700------Boston-Cambridge-Newton
-35,000------Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro
-100,500-----Washington-Arlington-Alexandria

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm

Some notes:

The key word here imho is Stagnation. Most of these changes are marginal.

These are the only Metros where growth or loss
was 1% or greater--only 3 have growth that qualify as moderate growth(2%+) and 2 have moderate losses(-2%+)
+2.2%--Raleigh
+2.1%--Las Vegas
+2.1%--Salt Lake City
+1.5%--San Jose
+1.4%--Charlotte
+1.2%--Orlando
+1.1%--Austin
+1.0%--Phoenix
-1.1%--Indianapolis
-1.2%--Providence
-2.8%--Portland
-3.0%--Washington DC

Note to self: Take a closer look at Portland.

The gains are significantly off their peak,
for example, NY, Dallas and Houston were
each adding 100,000+ annually just
a few years ago.

DC continues to be affected by govt austerity

However, 3 Metro Areas, Las Vegas, Detroit and
Fresno, have unemployment rates that are over 5%,
this is significant because many economists
conclude that unemployment under 5% is
"full employment".

will the world always be made up of mostly small cities?

dubu — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 21:01:34 GMT

my big city project is almost done and just though of this.

Could something like this ever get built in the US?

James Bond Agent 007 — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 20:42:10 GMT

In my excursions on Google maps I've recently encountered the Münchner Haus at the summit of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak at 9,700+ feet, and I'm rather flabbergasted that the thing exists at all. Granted, it was first constructed in the late 19th century, but obviously it's been expanded and modernized, probably many times, since then ...

--> Good image of its precarious location <--
--> Another one <--

... Which got me wondering: Would any place in the US ever permit something like that to be built? :shrug: I'm not sure that even in the late 1800's anywhere in the US (and maybe Canada) would have the guts to build such a large and well-used structure on such a precarious location. But maybe I'm wrong? I know there are plenty of ski huts and clubs at the top of ski slopes in the US, but AFAIK there's nothing in remotely such a precarious position.

We can turn this into a discussion of things that got built elsewhere that would never be permitted to get built in the US.