Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
Did Milwaukee try to save itself through annexation?
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yes, milwauke did some fairly significant post-war land annexation in the 60's and 70s, taking on vast tracts of formerly unincorporated milwaukee county land, growing from 50 sq. miles in 1950 to 96 sq. miles by 1980, nearly doubling in land area.
1950 U.S. Census - 10 largest midwest cities, ranked by average density:
- Chicago: 3,620,962 / 207.5 sq. miles = 17,450 ppsm
- St. Louis: 856,796 / 61.0 sq. miles = 14,046 ppsm
- Detroit: 1,849,568 / 139.6 sq. miles = 13,249 ppsm
- Milwaukee: 637,392 / 50.0 sq. miles = 12,748 ppsm
- Cleveland: 914,808 / 75.0 sq. miles = 12,197 ppsm
- Minneapolis: 521,718 / 53.8 sq. miles = 9,697 ppsm
- Columbus: 375,901 / 39.4 sq. miles = 9,541 ppsm
- Indianapolis: 427,173 / 55.2 sq. miles = 7,739 ppsm
- Cincinnati: 503,998 / 75.1 sq. miles = 6,711 ppsm
- Kansas City: 456,622 / 80.6 sq. miles = 5,665 ppsm
source:
http://www.census.gov/population/www...0027/tab18.txt
of those cities, milwaukee, KC, columbus, and indy all did extensive post-war annexation, making apples to apples population comparisons between now and 1950 difficult to obtain.
milwaukee went from 50 sq. miles to 96 sq. miles (92% increase)
KC went from 81 sq. miles to 315 sq. miles (288% increase)
columbus went from 39 sq. miles to 217 sq. miles (456% increase)
indy went from 55 sq. miles to 361 sq. miles (556% increase)
the rest all stayed more or less the same physical size*, making it easier to compare then and now.
(*) chicago added about 20 sq. miles (10% increase) in the '60s, but almost all of that was for ohare airport, which remains uninhabited land, so using the 1950 land area for chicago today would be a pretty accurate apples to apples density comparison.
fortunately, several years ago, someone over at SSC calculated milwaukee's current population for the old 50 sq. mile pre-war city limits and found the old city is currently home to ~447,000 people today.
here's a post i made several years ago talking about apples to apples population decline in major midwest cities from 1950:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
midwest cities by 2016 percentage of 1950 peak population:
minneapolis: 413,651 / 521,718 = 79.3%
chicago: 2,704,958 / 3,620,962 = 74.7%
milwaukee: 447,006 / 637,392 = 70.1% *
cincinnati: 298,800 / 503,998 = 59.3%
cleveland: 385,809 / 914,808 = 42.2%
detroit: 672,795 / 1,849,568 = 36.4%
st. louis: 311,404 / 856,796 = 36.3%
columbus, indy, and KC are not included because they went crazy with annexation in the postwar period which makes their 1950 population figures a meaningless point of comparison to their 2016 population figures, since the land areas of those cities have increased many times over what they were in 1950.
(*) milwaukee also went on a bit of a postwar annexation binge, but i was able to find a relatively accurate 2016 population figure on SSC for the original 50 square mile 1950 city limits to make for an apples to apples comparison with the city's 1950 population figure.
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as you can see, milwaukee falls much more in line with minneapolis and chicago on this metric than it does with cleveland, detroit, and st. louis. cincy falls in the middle.