Indianapolis: over 50 years of urban "cheating"?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

This had real political implications for the historic urban core, with city government literally hostile to the interests of the traditionally urban center. Made it much easier to clear out the center for office buildings and stadiums - utilizing the CBD for the interests of suburbanites to an even greater degree than typical for the city. Which is part of the reason I think the decline of the urban core was so marked.

Looking even more closely in than the 71 square mile "old city", we can also look at the 42 square mile "center township" of Marion county which has had fixed boundaries over time and has downtown Indy right at its very heart.

Center township 1950 (peak): 337,211

Center township 2010 (nadir): 142,787

Change: -58%


That's some Cleveland-level population decline right there!

But none one ever thinks of Indy as a hollowed-out Cleveland type of city. Thanks Uni-gov!


The good news, though, is that from 2010 - 2020, center township's population turned around and rose 7.5%, climbing to 153,549 people, so at least things are going a lot better for it these days.

[Docere]

Both Indianapolis and Winnipeg had top-down mergers around the same time (Winnipeg in 1972 I think), where the state/provincial government forced a merger. In Manitoba, it was done by a progressive (NDP) government in order to more equally share urban and suburban resources, in Indiana it was done by Republicans for partisan considerations and to strengthen suburban voting influence on local policy.

[craigs]

Like so many US cities, in the age of mass "urban renewal" large swathes of residential Indy were bulldozed and converted to other uses--transportation, education, government, commercial, entertainment and tourism, etc.

Compare this 1955 aerial with a Google Maps aerial of the same areas today: https://www.google.com/maps/place/39...oASAFQAw%3D%3D


source

[Wigs]

Steely, I agree with your assessment that Uni Gov structure hid central/core city Indy's decline as opposed to Rust Belt.

However, downtown Indy overall is on the up and up. Article posted today:
- Almost 50% new residents since 2010
- $9.5B in the development pipeline


https://www.indystar.com/story/news/...SL5Gu-OW9dJ0lR

Many people don't know Indy's got a Canal Walk
• Video Link

[DCReid]

What's the point here? I am thinking about Columbus, OH and how even though the metro has grown and done well, there are still pockets of abandonment and urban decay caused by suburban and exurban flight and manufacturing decline. I was told that Delco once employed thousand in Columbus, and the area where the middle class that worked there is now run down. Columbus reminded me of a southern city, with a mostly stagnant downtown and some pockets of gentrification, but the real growth in the exurbs. I am not as familiar with Indy but I think downtown Indy was helped by attracting a lot of sports entertainment and it has helped its reputation.

[Docere]

How did "old Columbus" fare in terms of population?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by craigs

source

HOT DAMN!!


my God is our society fucking stupid.

Originally Posted by Docere

How did "old Columbus" fare in terms of population?

Great question.

We'd need a good map with the 1950 city limits of c-bua and someone one with the time/patience to add up a crap load of census tracts.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by DCReid

What's the point here? I am thinking about Columbus, OH and how even though the metro has grown and done well, there are still pockets of abandonment and urban decay caused by suburban and exurban flight and manufacturing decline. I was told that Delco once employed thousand in Columbus, and the area where the middle class that worked there is now run down. Columbus reminded me of a southern city, with a mostly stagnant downtown and some pockets of gentrification, but the real growth in the exurbs. I am not as familiar with Indy but I think downtown Indy was helped by attracting a lot of sports entertainment and it has helped its reputation.

Downtown Columbus currently has 40 projects u/c (I'm not saying it's a fully vibrant downtown but it certainly isn't stagnant) and whole swaths of the city have been gentrified. Previous Appalachian and black communities have seen full-on gentrification the last 15 years so much that suburban communities have now become "new homes" for affordable housing (Obetz, Minerva Park, Heath, Hebron, Whitehall, etc). Delco was HQ'd and had 11 factories in Dayton, not Columbus. Columbus was never a factory town, thus it never had the rustbelt repuation as the rest of the state. The only factory that I can think of was the old GM plant on the westside that is now a casino. Yes, exurban Columbus is growing but also the city of Columbus is growing (it grew by 100,000 the last Census without annexation or much empty land), and inner-ring suburbs are growing.

All of Columbus is growing.

As far as "southern city," I can't wrap my brain around that one. We have pockets of Appalachia on the south and westsides but they look like this:


https://images1.loopnet.com/i2/9do7L...to-1-Large.jpg

...which I don't typically view as "southern vernacular." And with all the Northeast US and Cleveland transplants living here, you certainly don't hear it.

Originally Posted by Docere

How did "old Columbus" fare in terms of population?

Here are the numbers for the old city limits (51 square miles) courtesy of https://allcolumbusdata.com/:

1950: 375,710
1960: 389,222 +13,512
1970: 348,808 -40,414
1980: 287,089 -61,719
1990: 268,265 -18,824
2000: 246,713 -21,552
2010: 234,582 -12,131
2020: 256,939 +22,357

That's a population density of 5,038 per square mile for the old city of Columbus in 2020.

[Marshal]

I can't speak to Indianapolis, but not all population changes reflect a city's economic or other performance indices. Montreal is a good example. While it did go through a period of decline (as Toronto ascended), the City of Montreal lost a not insignificant amount of population. That loss reflected much more than that decline, as the City of Montreal, the densest part of the region by far, depopulated mainly due to a shift in the nature of its residential building form. This was not a change in building stock, but rather was a change which saw dense building forms being renovated to house significantly less people. A dense building with 6 suites became one with three. Montrealers wanted more space and could afford to make it a reality. The City population dropped well below a million and has only recently recovered due to newer, higher density construction. At the time, the press took this as a sign of further decline, but that was a mistake. The metro population continued to grow (albeit slowly) throughout this period. Currently, both the City and the region are growing at a healthy rate. (If growth is a marker of health.)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Here are the numbers for the old city limits (51 square miles) courtesy of https://allcolumbusdata.com/:

1950: 375,710
1960: 389,222 +13,512
1970: 348,808 -40,414
1980: 287,089 -61,719
1990: 268,265 -18,824
2000: 246,713 -21,552
2010: 234,582 -12,131
2020: 256,939 +22,357

Oh, thanks for that!

Old city Columbus 1960 (peak): 389,222

Old city Columbus 2010 (nadir): 234,582

Change: -40%



At 51 sq. miles, that geography compares fairly decently with Indy's 42 square mile center township, which did this:

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Center township 1950 (peak): 337,211

Center township 2010 (nadir): 142,787

Change: -58%

In rough terms, those figures closely align with those of Cincy and Cleveland, respectively, from the chart in the first post.

In any event, it's awesome to see that both of the above urban core geographies saw solid growth last decade. That's definitely something to celebrate!

[Crawford]

I remember seeing an academic comparison of Cleveland and Nashville, using Nashville's old city boundaries. The urban population loss was essentially the same. Both lost something like 40% of their core 1950 populations. Of course Nashville is about as boomtown as it gets while Cleveland is about as Rust Belt as it gets, but the demographic patterns were almost identical.