can confirm as i took a quick walk thru skid row last week on a visit. i saw some construction happening.

of note there were a lot more homeless there and all around town than my last visit a couple years ago. and very different types of homeless we dont see much of around nyc. like hardcore apocalyptic zombie looking people. very sad and i dk what can be done. :shrug:

Downtown Seattle

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...151d5ac4_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 50,837 ----- 34,522 ----- 29,078 ----- 17,002 ---- 47.3% ---- 18.7% --- 71.0% ------- 4.1 km² -- 12,393.2 inh./km²

Seattle ----------------------- 737,015 ---- 608,660 ---- 563,204 ---- 516,262 ---- 21.1% ----- 8.1% ---- 9.1% ----- 217.1 km² --- 3,394.8 inh./km²

Seattle Metro Area -------- 4,871,272 -- 4,199,312 -- 3,707,144 -- 3,088,224 ---- 16.0% ---- 13.3% --- 20.0% -- 25,604 km²


Everything doing perfect for Seattle, metro area, city proper and Downtown all growing fast. Now Downtown Seattle packs 51,000 people in only 4 km² area.

Downtown LA is really that bad? Do they approach you, act agressively?

I moved Downtown SP, in an impulsive decision. The region has a massive problem of driver addicts/homelessness but we adapted quite fast and I’m completely in love. The energy, creativity of the region is unmatched. We go out pretty much everyday.

He said skid row. It's avoided by 95 percent of people, residents or tourists. Probably 99 percent.

Awesome, thanks.

What boundaries or tracts did you use?

Some define it more broadly. One definition is by the Downtown Seattle Association. It's a reasonable map, with my main objection being that SoDo is basically industrial. https://downtownseattle.org/about/where-we-serve/

The Loop and Downtown Boston are mostly office buildings. The Near north side where most of the residential high-rises are is, as expected, denser than Downtown Miami. Funny how everyone complains that Miami's skyline looks bad because it is mostly high-rise residential buildings and then wonders why its downtown population density is higher than cities with mostly high-rise office buildings. I lived in the Back Bay in Boston for 5 years. Its super dense (way denser than Miami), but its not really "Downtown" so its probably not included.

From the point of view of San Francisco officialdom and possibly in reality there really aren't that many--enough they argue--SROs left in the Tenderloin. Decades ago San Francisco put in bans on conversion to tourist "by the night" hotels and to a certain extent that preserved some of them, but many others have been taken over for other uses including student dormitories and non-profit housing (after extensive renovation in many cases), and some have just flat been torn down and replaced with new buildings. If you walk around the Tenderloin today, there's an impressive amount of newly constructed low income housing mostly built by non-profit developers using funds provided by the city's mandate that for-profit developers provide a percentage of low income housing on or off site or contribute to the pool of funds available to the non-profits. And what's not new is usually renovated. There really are few old-fashioned, poorly maintained flop houses left.

Finally, much of the non-profit housing, both new and old, is occupied by recent immigrant families, many of them Asian. So much of the Tenderloin now has a distinctly Asian flavor. So much so that part has been christened "little Saigon".

Adding the newest additions to the list.

Again, credit to yuriandrade.

City ---- 2020 ---- 2010 ---- 2000 ---- 1990 ---- Area ---- Density

Lower Manhattan ---- 88,744 ---- 71,847 ---- 46,581 ---- 35,316 ---- 23.5% ---- 54.2% ---- 31.9% ---- 3.5 km² ---- 25,384.4 inh./km²

San Francisco ---- 134,974 ---- 110,719 ---- 97,737 ---- 88,944 ---- 21.9% ---- 13.3% ---- 9.9% ---- 8.0 km² ---- 16,886.5 inh./km²

Chicago Near North Side ---- 105,481 ---- 80,484 ---- 72,811 ---- 62,842 ----- 31.1% ----- 10.5% ----- 15.9% ---- 6.8 km² ---- 15,500 inh./km²

Miami ---- 58,439 ---- 31,697 ---- 12,885 ---- 9,218 ---- 84.4% ---- 146.0% ---- 39.8% ---- 4.34 km² ---- 13,500 inh./km²

Seattle ---- 50,837 ---- 34,522 ---- 29,078 ---- 17,002 ---- 47.3% ---- 18.7% ---- 71.0% ---- 4.1 km² ---- 12,393.2 inh./km²

Boston ---- 47,825 ---- 39,046 ---- 33,151 ---- 28,800 ---- 22.5% ---- 17.8% ---- 15.1% ---- 3.9 km² ---- 12,332.4 inh./km²

Chicago Loop ---- 42,298 ---- 29,283 ---- 16,388 ---- 11,954 ---- 44.4% ---- 78.7% ---- 37.1% ---- 2.9 km² ---- 10,800 inh./km²

Philadelphia ---- 91,510 ---- 68,836 ---- 57,552 ---- 51,302 ---- 32.9% ---- 19.6% ---- 12.2% ---- 8.92 km² ---- 10,300 inh./km².

San Diego ---- 39,538 ---- 27,918 ---- 15,482 ---- 12,771 ---- 41.6% ---- 80.3% ---- 21.2% ---- 4.7 km² ---- 8,457.3 inh./km²

Denver ---- 15,198 ---- 7,998 ---- 4,181 ---- 2,795 ---- 90.0% ---- 91.3% ---- 49.6% ---- 2.3 km² ---- 6,736.7 inh./km²

Atlanta Midtown ---- 32,240 ---- 20,225 ---- 13,643 ---- 9,631 ---- 59.4% ---- 48.2% ---- 41.7% ---- 5.0 km² ---- 6,415.9 inh./km²

Oakland ---- 21,616 ---- 18,547 ---- 13,652 ---- 11,357 ---- 16.5% ---- 35.9% ---- 20.2% ---- 3.6 km² ---- 6,044.7 inh./km²

Baltimore ---- 24,228 ---- 18,766 ---- 16,207 ---- 14,210 ---- 29.1% ---- 15.8% ---- 14.1% ---- 4.1 km² ---- 5,913.6 inh./km²

Los Angeles ---- 74,349 ---- 52,538 ---- 40,836 ---- 32,786 ---- 41.5% ---- 28.7% ---- 24.5% ---- 14.86 km² ---- 5,003 inh./km²

Kansas City ---- 9,743 ----- 5,089 ----- 3,755 ---- 3,856 ---- 91.5% ---- 35.5% ---- -2.6% ---- 2.3 km² ---- 4,275.1 inh./km²

Atlanta Downtown ---- 21,026 ---- 14,615 ---- 12,089 ---- 8,635 ---- 43.9% ---- 20.9% ----- 40.0% ---- 5.1 km² ---- 4,114.7 inh./km²

Houston Midtown ---- 10,820 ----- 7,441 ---- 4,710 ---- 2,761 ---- 45.4% ---- 58.0% ---- 70.6% ---- 2.8 km² ---- 3,861.5 inh./km²

Houston Downtown ---- 17,138 ----- 14,342 ----- 11,882 ------ 7,029 ---- 19.5% ---- 20.7% --- 69.0% ---- 4.5 km² ---- 3,834.9 inh./km²

Detroit Midtown ---- 16,921 ---- 14,550 ---- 16,877 ---- 16,692 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.8% ---- 1.1% ---- 5.4 km² ---- 3,141.7 inh./km²

San Jose ---- 14,589 ---- 10,656 ---- 10,145 ---- 9,249 ---- 36.9% ---- 5.0% ---- 9.7% ---- 5.7 km² ---- 2,549.2 inh./km²

Cleveland ---- 13,338 ---- 9,471 ---- 6,312 ---- 4,561 ---- 40.8% ---- 50.0% ---- 38.4% ---- 7.8 km² ---- 1,705.6 inh./km²

Detroit Downtown ---- 6,151 ---- 5,287 ---- 6,141 ---- 5,970 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.9% ----- 2.9% ---- 3.7 km² ---- 1,668.3 inh./km²

Very impressive growth! While we all knew Seattle was making great strides, I think this shows that Seattle has definitely built its way solidly into the big leagues now.

For Seattle, it went with a middle ground definition. Based on your map, the census tracts I used roughly include everything minus Uptown, South Lake Union, West Capitol Hill and Sodo.


Since 2000 Census, we started to think about the Big 12 regarding the largest US metro areas as they had a clear head over others. Now, both Seattle and Phoenix are about to overtake Detroit population wise whereas preserve a good lead over Minneapolis and Denver.

But Seattle is indeed a special case, as it's surpassed Phoenix on population growth while it's a massive economic powerhouse. And obviously, it's becoming increasingly urban in this process.

Our Canadian colleagues could provide us with Vancouver data. I know this comparison it's a cliché, but as Vancouver started its densification process earlier, it's interesting to see how Seattle is now.

I lived in Kansas City for a year in the 90s. I hadn't been back for 25 years until this past June. Wow, it was amazing. There is still some room for improvement but the city has taken a complete 180 from steady decline to energetic growth.

A quick drive along Brush Creek that sunny June day felt glamorous - it already had exotic cars buzzing around so if they had palm trees it would have felt like Los Angeles.

Vancouver's "housing first" model in core districts dates to the 1960s iirc. Its lack of freeways (and rail back then) was a huge reason people wanted to live within walking distance to work. And its healthcare and social safety net have always kept it relatively free of urban ills, aside from the highly-concentrated Lower East Side. For this thread I wouldn't do the whole peninsula, but I'd guess they could be 20k/sk depending on the area.

Your definition for Seattle is fine. South Lake Union and Uptown (Lower Queen Anne) are fairly commercial and mixed, but they're mostly not tall (a lot of 160' office buildings in SLU, the Space Needle on LQA). On average they're not as dense with residents yet, particularly in 2020. The Capitol Hill segment has some of our densest residential tracts, but is mostly lowrise/midrise residential with some retail. SoDo should clearly be omitted.

Downtown St. Louis

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...21053d22_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ---------------------- 9,642 ------ 6,998 ------ 3,385 ------ 3,250 ---- 37.8% --- 106.7% ---- 4.2% ------- 3.2 km² --- 3,034.0 inh./km²

St. Louis --------------------- 301,578 ---- 319,294 ---- 348,189 ---- 396,685 ---- -5.5% ---- -8.3% -- -12.2% ----- 159.9 km² --- 1,886.0 inh./km²

St. Louis Metro Area ------ 2,754,124 -- 2,717,079 -- 2,648,607 -- 2,492,525 ----- 1.4% ----- 2.6% ---- 6.3% -- 16,489 km²


St. Louis Downtown lost traction compared to the previous intercensus period, but still posting a very solid growth, which is even more remarkable as the city continues losing people. I've seen some pics on the street level and it seems a very pleasant place with plenty of nice architecture.

I feel like there are a pretty clear big 2, big 3, and big 12 metro areas in the US.

Well, it's included because it's over 5 million people, and up to 2010 Census Detroit, Atlanta, Washington, Miami and Boston had pretty much the same population, ranging from 5.2 to 5.6 million people.

Now, with the 2020 Census, all of them (plus Philadelphia) are above 6 million people, so maybe now we could talk about the "Big 11" leaving Detroit out, but it would be a bit weird to place the threshold on 6 million mark instead of 5 million. And now, as Seattle is about to join the 5 million club, with a GDP larger than Miami's, it would be even more problematic to move the mark up.

Downtown Dallas-Fort Worth

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1a0a93fc_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown Dallas -------------- 36,456 ----- 19,975 ------ 9,510 ------ 7,520 ---- 82.5% --- 110.0% --- 26.5% ------ 10.8 km² --- 3,365.6 inh./km²

CBD Dallas ---------------------- 6,514 ------ 3,712 ------ 1,920 ------ 2,841 ---- 75.5% ---- 93.3% -- -32.4% ------- 2.0 km² --- 3,310.0 inh./km²

Downtown Fort Worth -------- 11,977 ------ 6,435 ------ 6,739 ------ 6,443 ---- 86.1% ---- -4.5% ---- 4.6% ------ 11.8 km² --- 1,018.3 inh./km²

CBD Fort Worth ---------------- 6,345 ------ 3,210 -------- 857 -------- 489 ---- 97.7% --- 274.6% --- 75.3% ------- 2.0 km² --- 3,214.3 inh./km²

Dallas MSA ---------------- 7,637,387 -- 6,366,542 -- 5,156,217 -- 3,984,437 ---- 20.0% ---- 23.5% --- 29.4% -- 22,469 km²


What was a shame here for Dallas was the shape of their census tracts, not making possible to take the whole freeway loop area, which would be the best definition for their Downtown. So I came up with one strict (3 tracts), covering only half of the loop and a broader one, comprising 10 census tracts and including Uptown and Victoria Park north of loop and Cedars south. And to make Fort Worth comparable to Dallas, I also brought two definitions, one with 1 tract and the other comprising 3.

But back to the numbers, Downtown Dallas growing super fast and already reached a good density giving we're talking about a large area (almost 11 km²).

Downtown Fort Worth, on the other hand started its process only in the 2010's but they're already moving on the right direction.

And regarding the MSA, as Houston, it doesn't seem to slow. By the 2030 Census, the CSA will be quite close to the 10 million mark.

Yeah, the more that I thought about this, the more it became problematic. At least we can agree that NYC is number 1.

Loving the data and commentary Yuri! Keep it coming :)

yeah this is an interesting thread! :tup:

I've always been bullish on downtown Dallas. It has so much potential.

However, they are going to have to step up their game over the next two decades.

More residential conversions, parks, D2, etc. are needed to give the area more life.

These threads truly are heaven. Thanks for the data!

BTW, I mis-typed my guess on Vancouver's equivalent...20k/sk, not 20k/sm. In other words about 60k/sm...guessing.

That is probably the most accurate boundary for Downtown Los Angeles. I may even take out skid row. These numbers are much more a true representation.

^^
Thank you guys! You're kind! :)


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


Downtown Pittsburgh

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d83fcf8a_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ----------------------- 4,729 ------ 2,831 ------ 4,364 ------ 3,114 ---- 67.0% --- -35.1% --- 40.1% ------- 1.4 km² --- 3,331.6 inh./km²

Central Pittsburgh ------------- 15,497 ----- 13,101 ----- 12,195 ------ 9,739 ---- 18.3% ----- 7.4% --- 25.2% ------- 4.8 km² --- 3,225.2 inh./km²

Pittsburgh -------------------- 302,971 ---- 305,306 ---- 334,325 ---- 369,962 ---- -0.8% ---- -8.7% --- -9.6% ----- 143.4 km² --- 2,112.8 inh./km²

Allegheny County ---------- 1,250,578 -- 1,223,348 -- 1,281,666 -- 1,336,449 ----- 2.2% ---- -4.6% --- -4.1% --- 1.891 km² ------- 601.3 inh./km²

Pittsburgh MSA ------------ 2,370,930 -- 2,356,285 -- 2,431,088 -- 2,468,289 ----- 0.6% ---- -3.1% --- -1.5% -- 13,683 km²


Downtown Pittsburgh, the Golden Triangle, is so tiny that comprises only 1 census tract. Giving half of it is taken by the park, the highways and there are still plenty of office buildings there, it's a quite decent density. I also worked a broader definition, including 4 census tracts adding the Bluff, Craford-Roberts and the Strip districts.

Pittsburgh MSA and Allegheny County growing for the first time since 1950-1960 while the city of Pittsburgh almost ended positive, which would be the first time since 1940-1950. Very promising for the area.

Thanks for all your work, Yuri!

Interesting that Kansas City and St Louis have almost identical downtown populations.

Great series of posts! Thanks for undertaking this project.
Could you prepare one for Minneapolis & St. Paul?

Downtown Minneapolis-St. Paul

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8e367db4_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown Minneapolis --------- 41,093 ----- 29,725 ----- 24,149 ----- 21,157 ---- 38.2% ---- 23.1% --- 14.1% ------- 7.5 km² --- 5,471.0 inh./km²

Downtown St. Paul ------------- 11,808 ------ 9,050 ------ 7,999 ------ 6,711 ---- 30.5% ---- 13.1% --- 19.2% ------- 3.2 km² --- 3,663.7 inh./km²

Minneapolis ------------------- 429,954 ---- 382,603 ---- 382,824 ---- 368,397 ---- 12.4% ---- -0.1% ---- 3.9% ----- 139.9 km² --- 3,073.3 inh./km²

St. Paul ----------------------- 311,527 ---- 285,103 ---- 287,029 ---- 272,065 ----- 9.3% ---- -0.7% ---- 5.5% ----- 134.6 km² --- 2,314.5 inh./km²

Minneapolis Metro Area ---- 3,635,128 -- 3,279,833 -- 2,968,806 -- 2,538,834 ---- 10.8% ---- 10.5% --- 16.9% -- 15,609 km²


Both Downtowns are doing quite well, growing much faster this decade than the previous ones. Minneapolis is one of the most populated in the country, with 41,000 people. St. Paul's, that is completely overlooked by Minneapolis', it's in fact more populated than St. Louis', for instance.

Regarding the metro area, it's one of the very few in the country that grew faster this decade than the past one.

I love the stats for density and growth figures. But comparing downtown populations isn't fair here. The numbers aren't parallel enough.

First - thanks for all the stats and work you put in to this. Great job, very interesting outcomes.

Second - I knew Tenderloin was dense, but I had no idea it was super dense.

Downtown Tampa

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...211ac2f1_z.jpg


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ------------------------ 3,777 ------ 1,134 -------- 709 ------ 1,171 --- 233.1% ---- 59.9% --- -39.5% ------- 1.9 km² --- 2,015.5 inh./km²

Channel District ------------------ 4,422 ------ 1,844 ---------- 0 ----------- 6 --- 139.8% ----- (-) ----- -100.0% ------- 0.8 km² --- 5,264.3 inh./km²

Tampa MSA ----------------- 3,175,275 -- 2,783,243 -- 2,395,998 -- 2,067,959 ---- 14.1% ---- 16.2% ---- 15.9% --- 6,514 km²

Tiny population, but growth is very promising. I brought together Channel District, just east of Downtown, in former dockyards or something like that. It's under a condo boom and already reached high density.

the expectation, pre-covid, had been that the population of "greater center city" was going to exceed 200,000 in 2020. would be interesting to see if it had achieved that.

I wouldn't include all of Westlake east of Hoover, just some of the downtown adjacent census tracts that were considered a part of downtown before the freeways carved up those neighborhoods. Westlake itself is too big and residential to be considered a part of downtown imo. It actually has more people at a higher density than DTLA.

But since we're also tallying numbers for downtown adjacent districts in this thread, we can estimate that Koreatown-Westlake-DTLA has now surpassed 300k population in ~7.7 square miles for a density upwards of 40k ppsm.

Koreatown - 124,281 (2008 estimate) - 2.7 sqm - 46,030 ppsm
Westlake - 117,756 (2008 estimate) - 2.72 sqm - 43,292 ppsm
DTLA - 52,691 (2020 census, unofficial borders) in 2.3 sqm - 22,909 ppsm

http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhood...hborhood/list/

Downtown Milwaukee

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5bb366fb_z.jpg


--------------------------------- 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ---------------------- 13,556 ----- 10,518 ------ 7,557 ------ 5,736 ---- 28.9% ---- 39.2% --- 31.7% ------- 3.6 km² --- 3,784.5 inh./km²

Milwaukee --------------------- 577,222 ---- 594,503 ---- 596,783 ---- 628,568 ---- -2,9% ---- -0,4% --- -5,1% ----- 249.1 km² --- 2,317.2 inh./km²

Milwaukee Metro Area ------ 1,772,458 -- 1,751,316 -- 1,689,572 -- 1,607,183 ----- 1.2% ----- 3.7% ---- 5.1% --- 4,629 km²


Downtown Milwaukee seems to be a very charming place and apparently it's regarded highly for its inhabitants way before "flight back to city" to become a trend. It's in a better shape and more populated than the ones of cities much bigger (Cleveland or Detroit).

where are you getting that metro population figure from?

The MSA is at 1,574,731

the CSA is at 2,049,805

If I write "Metro Area" instead of "CSA" or "MSA", it means definition is mine, the same I posted on the census thread.

In Milwaukee's case, it's Milwaukee MSA plus Racine MSA. I usually exclude rural counties (rural, not exurbs) that are losing population, showing no signs of getting the metro spill over.

I also work with the list of the Census Bureau historical definitions opened and favour the ones that lasted long and finally go to Wikipedia's page for each metro area to see if the regional planing offices definitions are more sensible.

In any case, I prefer to go with either MSA or CSA and only other definition if one is too strict and the other too broad. That's Milwaukee's case. Others are San Francisco and Boston. I also did this with New York and Washington excluding far flung and often declining counties.

Downtown Washington

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1f18f865_z.jpg


-------------------------------- 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 30,279 ----- 27,025 ----- 18,704 ----- 17,457 ---- 12.0% ---- 44.5% ---- 7.1% ------ 11.0 km² --- 2,743.7 inh./km²

Georgetown -------------------- 13,603 ----- 14,231 ----- 12,991 ----- 12,181 ---- -4.4% ----- 9.5% ---- 6.6% ------- 3.2 km² --- 4,268.3 inh./km²

Washington DC --------------- 689,545 ---- 601,723 ---- 572,059 ---- 606,900 ---- 14.6% ----- 5.2% --- -5.7% ----- 158.3 km² --- 4,355.9 inh./km²

Arlington-Alexandria-F.C. ---- 412,768 ---- 359,925 ---- 328,113 ---- 291,697 ---- 14.7% ----- 9.7% --- 12.5% ----- 111.3 km² --- 3,708.3 inh./km²

Washington Metro Area ----- 6,105,431 -- 5,388,326 -- 4,635,194 -- 3,997,373 ---- 13.3% ---- 16.2% --- 16.0% -- 12,403 km²


Washington Downtown is very different from everything. Firstly, the Mall and Potomac Park takes half of it (1 census tract). The other 10 census tracts comprise Foggy Bottom and everything between the Massachusetts Avenue and the Mall. As this region is full of big government offices, embassies, hotels, it's hard to make any assumption about its residential population trends.

As bonus, I brought Georgetown, formed by 4 census tracts.

This article says 80K live in downtown LA, up from 28K in 2000. It says that LA is planning for 125K more residents downtown by 2040.
https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/n...ily/tbd-110017

I remember when I lived in DC, reading in about 2004 an article where the Mayor of DC had a goal of turning around population loss and trying to get the city to grow again. Looks like that goal was realized!

oh, gotcha.

and adding racine to milwaukee makes a lot of sense if washington and ozaukee counties are included. racine gets pinched a little bit, with its "out of county" commuters getting split between milwaukee's MSA to the north, and chicago's MSA to the south, such that it doesn't meet the threshold to be added to either MSA.

as you said, racine county is in milwaukee's CSA, but the CSA adds some truly hardcore rural counties that have no business being included in a "metropolitan area", so the CSA is far too bloated.

sometimes, it really does make the most sense to just make up your own rules because the CB's rigid commuter thresholds don't always align with the other less quantifiable realities on the ground.




in that case, we should delete dekalb, newton, and jasper counties from chicago's MSA too. all of them are extremely rural and declining in population.

i would also argue in favor of getting rid of grundy county as well, but it's growing modestly (+4.9%)

As US population growth eases and exurb explosive growth is no longer nowhere near what we've seen till the early 2000's, I started to see an interesting phenomenon while adding up counties to make the metro areas: more and more very small and declining counties are being added. I guess as their population and economy declines, a higher share of their population ends up looking for a job on the suburbs of the next big metro area.

Up to the 2000's, far away small counties used to be added, but they usually getting all the impact of the neighbouring metro areas (e.g. counties west of Chicago or Livingstone County, MI, etc. etc.


Indeed. I decided to keep Chicago intact because the present definition is around for quite a while, if I'm not mistaken since 1999 or 2003 revisions. It seemed very consolidated by now, so I decided to keep it that way.

I work with several definitions for each metro area, usually using several historical ones: 1950, 1961, 1963, 1973 etc. in case I want to make a historical list or work with a more strict one.

Interestingly, up to 2000 or 2010, the broader definition, the fast the growth. Now, it's opposite: the majority of more strict ones get the fastest growth.


Yes, I didn't mention it because it happened in the last decade, but I remember it was a big thing on 2010 Census that reversal. Some expected Baltimore could come flat, but that didn't materialized.

Washington DC came below 2019 Estimates, so results seemed a bit underwhelming, but it's still a 14% growth, and higher than the metro area as a whole.

This is a very common effect. As economic activity hypercongregates into urban areas, the immediately surrounding rural areas lose some of their economic vitality and their residents opt to join the labor market of the nearby economic powerhouse urban area.

Metropolitan areas are most properly understood as a measure of the size of a labor market, which can include both urban and rural settings. Stripping away certain counties in an ad hoc basis from "metro areas" because those places are rural begets a certain misunderstanding of what a metropolitan areas is in the first place (it suggests a misunderstanding that metropolitan areas should be urban). If anything, you should be adding some rural counties around certain metropolitan areas. For instance, Houston's metropolitan area will add Montgomery County to its list of core counties, which also has the effect of changing the math for outlying counties (and more outlying rural counties may now be included because of this simple change).

If you want to strip out the more rural counties of a metropolitan area and still rely on official census designations, my suggestion is to simply add up the populations of "Core Counties" and leave off all "Outlying Counties." That way you're consistent in the way you apply.

wwmiv, even though I love those stats, I don't access US Census Bureau site anymore, preferring secondary references such as City Population or Wikipedia. It's easier to navigate there. Hence I don't know where I can find their definition/description of "Core Counties". That would be interesting.

I agree with you about the labour market and I don't have much problem with wider metropolitan definitions. However, I'm not US-based and I tend to compare US with other countries, and many of them have different threshold for commute rates and many of them have no official definition whatsoever. And as the US metro areas expand much further, sometimes I prefer to work with a more strict definition available in order to try making things more comparable internationally (or work with wider definitions elsewhere to make them more comparable with the US).

As this thread is basically about a very vague concept (Downtowns), where we hardly find any official definition for it, I don't see much problem calling, let's say, the five inner counties of Boston + Worcester + the two bordering NH counties "Boston Metro Area". It's just a generic and unpretentious label as much as calling that peninsula in central Boston "Downtown", even though formed by distinct and traditional neighbourhoods.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-conten...etin-20-01.pdf

Starting on page 41, any county listed in italics.

As for your last paragraph, you may not see an issue with it, sure, but the issue with it is that by using the term metro area you are inviting your audience to misunderstand your numbers, because we use the term metro area very specifically precisely because the census bureau had claimed that label already. Why not a label that hasn’t been claimed, like “region” or just simply “area”?

Thank you for the link! It's really informative. Some things I didn't understand (Lorain don't be a core county of Cleveland MSA), but overall it's interesting nonetheless.

About last paragraph, I don't quite agree. Firstly, that's an informal internet forum, not a paper. And I was careful enough to call them "metro area" when using my definition, while on others I wrote MSA (Chicago, Tampa, Pittsburgh, San Diego) or CSA (Los Angeles, Denver). And I specifically mention this fact on my metro area series of posts starting on Page 124 of the Census thread. Moreover, there are several local governmental and non-governmental agencies in the US that uses the term "metro area" independently of the census definition.

And the same apply for "Downtown". Many cities don't even use the term (like Boston) and others might defined it differently or not defining at all, and we're still here talking about "downtowns" all over the country and around the globe.

I am pretty sure that it will meet that mark too but the definition of downtown is too broad. Badrunner's definition of Downtown more fits the actual area IMO and is where all 90% growth is occurring, regardless.

When I was downtown a couple weeks ago I was amazed at all the new residential towers (and big ones too) that are still going up. San Francisco it appears all but dried up in comparison. Lots of residential just finished but I don't see much at all in the way of visible new construction.

The US Census Bureau may own "MSA" and "CSA", but it does not own "metropolitan area", which is a generic term used by thousands of bodies around the world and defined in an uncountable number of ways.

Downtown Portland

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...70a7b80d_z.jpg


--------------------------------- 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown --------------------- 12,568 ----- 11,585 ------ 8,939 ------ 8,298 -------- 8.5% ---- 29.6% ----- 7.7% ------- 2.1 km² --- 6,004.8 inh./km²

Portland MSA -------------- 2,512,859 -- 2,226,009 -- 1,927,881 -- 1,523,741 ----- 12.9% ---- 15.5% ---- 26.5% -- 17,321 km²


Downtown Portland hasn't followed the national trend, posting a rather modest growth and slower than its own metro area. It's an already dense area, but Downtown Seattle haven't stopped by it. Density is twice higher and growth was insane up there.

DT. Portland has boomed if you include the Pearl District, and to a lesser extent Goose Hollow. Some would add the South Waterfront which is basically new.

As LA forumers requested, bringing the main neighbourhoods bordering Downtown LA, north and westwards:


------------------------------ 2020 ------ 2010 ------ 2000 ------ 1990 ------ Growth ------ Density

Downtown ---------------------- 74,349 ----- 52,538 ----- 40,836 ----- 32,786 ----- 41.5% ---- 28.7% ---- 24.6% ------ 14.8 km² --- 5,008.0 inh./km²

Chinatown ----------------------- 5,434 ------ 5,204 ------ 5,602 ------ 5,516 ------ 4.4% ---- -7.1% ----- 1.6% ------- 1.7 km² --- 3,119.4 inh./km²

Echo Park ---------------------- 29,830 ----- 31,847 ----- 36,951 ----- 38,486 ----- -6.3% --- -13.8% ---- -4.0% ------ 10.0 km² --- 2,969.9 inh./km²

Westlake --------------------- 106,160 ---- 107,043 ---- 102,144 ---- 104,269 ----- -0.8% ----- 4.8% ---- -2.0% ------- 7.7 km² -- 13,699.8 inh./km²

Los Angeles CSA ---------- 18,644,680 - 17,877,006 - 16,373,645 - 14,531,529 ------ 4.3% ----- 9.2% ---- 12.7% -- 87,982 km²


Chinatown had its southern section counted inside Downtown LA due census tracts shapes. It also contains low density area near the freeways, railways and the river.

Echo Park has the park inside its borders, formed by a big census tract 3.8 km² with only 144 people inside, therefore its actual density would be somewhat higher, around 4,600 inh./km².

Westlake with a very high density but population is flat. By the numbers of censos tracts, it was the biggest area I made so far, with 33.

And here we can see clearly how Downtown LA stands out, growing at insane rates, surrounded by dense residential neighbourhoods with flat/declining growth though.

This is great info. Thanks for posting.

I assumed both downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul would have large populations. What neighborhoods or boundaries did you use for each downtown area?

Thank you!

I used the traditional definitions, the ones that come up in Google Maps. For Minneapolis census tracts match perfectly with this definition, which is the freeway loop plus a few blocks south of it, a place called Stevens Square. For St. Paul, census tracts also include an area north of capitol, so it's basically what Google Maps bring as Downtown, Capitol and Mt. Airy.