[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

This isn't really a power shift but I just stumbled on something pretty interesting about Detroit and Milwaukee. They were basically twins until the early 20th century when Detroit's population exploded as the auto industry consolidated there.

Census-----Detroit ----- Milwaukee
1850 ----- 21,019 ----- 20,061
1860 ----- 45,619 ----- 45,246
1870 ----- 79,577 ----- 71,440
1880 ----- 116,340 ----- 115,587
1890 ----- 205,877 ----- 204,468
1900 ----- 285,704 ----- 285,315
1910 ----- 465,766 ----- 373,857
1920 ----- 993,678 ----- 457,147
1930 ----- 1,568,662 ----- 578,249
1940 ----- 1,623,452 ----- 587,472
1950 ----- 1,849,568 ----- 637,392
1960 ----- 1,670,144 ----- 741,324
1970 ----- 1,514,063 ----- 717,099
1980 ----- 1,203,368 ----- 636,212
1990 ----- 1,027,974 ----- 628,088
2000 ----- 951,270 ----- 596,974
2010 ----- 713,777 ----- 594,833

what's also interesting is that the census bureau is now estimating that milwaukee (city proper) is growing again, ever so slightly, and that detroit (city proper) is continuing it's population free-fall.

if milwaukee (city proper) creeps back up to around 605,000 and detroit (city proper) experiences another 20+ % drop* this decade, they will swtich places by 2020.

(*) but i hope to god detroit doesn't see another drop like that. dear lord, please let detroit bottom out at around 650,000 or so.