Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 4

[(Eco)nomy_404]

I think Utah_Dave was just talking about SLC proper (maybe he meant "sorrounding neighborhoods" rather than "cities"). The stats I posted are of the city of Salt Lake itself and the Wasatch Front (CSA). I did not post the metro stats (Salt Lake Valley).

The fact that the CSA is growing at triple the rate of SLC, sorrounding cities are booming, all while SLC sputters with anemic growth (0.55% last year, 0.15% the year before) is troubling. Then, it's also interesting how down town is booming at least on par with the rest of the CSA, but the rest of the city is not. It's puzzling that down town gained about 20k in resident population from 2000 to 2010 while the overall city only gained 5k. That would indicate that some neighborhoods in SLC are in decline and are being offset by down town (and probably Sugarhouse, which seems to be growing well).

[airhero]

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

I think Utah_Dave was just talking about SLC proper? (maybe he meant "sorrounding neighborhoods" rather than "cities"). The stats I posted are of the city of Salt Lake itself and the Wasatch Front (CSA). I did not post the metro stats (Salt Lake Valley).

The fact that the CSA is growing at triple the rate of SLC, sorrounding cities are booming, all while SLC sputters with anemic growth (0.55% last year, 0.15% the year before) is troubling. Then, it's also interesting how down town is booming at least on par with the rest of the CSA, but the rest of the city is not. It's puzzling that down town gained about 20k in resident population from 2000 to 2010 while the overall city only gained 5k. That would indicate that some neighborhoods in SLC are in decline and are being offset by down town (and probably Sugarhouse, which seems to be growing well).

Salt Lake downtown did not grow by 20k between 2000 and 2010. That would be impossible since the population of downtown was only 5k in 2010. The Tribune article you cited contains false information. It also said there are 355,000 people living in downtown Salt Lake which is way off since there are about half that many residents in the entire city. That article was posted a while ago and I think it was based on a study that contained some pretty significant typos.

[delts145]

I know that Salt Lake's population swells to over 355,000 during the day. I wonder if that's what they meant? If certain neighborhoods are losing population, that can be a bit of a misnomer. Meaning, it's not like say St. Louis, Detroit or so many Midwestern cities that were gutted over the past century. Many of Salt Lake's neighborhoods have taken on a different demographic of smaller families. Salt Lakers are no longer having four-plus kids per household. Families are much smaller. There are also a lot more single adults or couples with no children buying homes in the attractive more established older neighborhoods of Salt Lake.

My Cousin lives in the well established neighborhood of Highland Park, where she also grew up. It has changed dramatically as far as numbers of children over the past couple of decades. It isn't that the neighborhood has declined in any way. In fact, many homes of that post war 40's/50's period have been rehabbed very attractively. Again, the newer family units are smaller than what she remembers growing up with, including her own.

[airhero]

Found the census data this was based off of:

http://www.census.gov/population/metro/data/c2010sr-01patterns.html

If you look at the footnote, it says Table 3.7 contained an error that was later fixed. The problem was they accidentally put Salt Lake City in for San Francisco.

[airhero]

Here's the Table from the corrected document. As you see, all the statistics being cited are for San Francisco, not Salt Lake.

[(Eco)nomy_404]

Originally Posted by airhero

Here's the Table from the corrected document. As you see, all the statistics being cited are for San Francisco, not Salt Lake.

Wow what is going on over at the Trib! If you need good census stats, I guess it's best to get them yourself:

I think it's fair to say "down town" encompasses zip codes 84101 and 84111. This is the area from the freeway to 500 E and from 1300 S to North Temple. Unfortunately, other areas I might consider down town are in zip codes that encompass much more than just those areas (such as Marmalade, Aves, area around West High. Anyway, just looking at these two zips, this is what I got:

CBD: 16,011 (2010); 13,929 (2000) +14.95%

So, downtown grew about 15% from 2000 to 2010 while the city grew only 2.6%. The CBD is clearly growing much more than the rest of town.

[airhero]

Also in case anyone is interested in the actual statistics for Salt Lake City they are as follows:

Population within 2 miles of city hall, 2000: 66,367
Population within 2 miles of city hall, 2010: 68,079
Change from 2000 to 2010: +1,712

The 68k number above is greater than the 5k usually cited for downtown because it encompasses a much larger area, including a large part of the Avenues, Central City, Liberty Wells, and the Gateway area. I believe downtown officially is described as extending south from South Temple to 700 South, and west from State Street to 300 West.

Moving on:

Total population, 2000: 181,743
Total population, 2010: 186,440
Population change: +4,697

So 36% of the total growth in Salt Lake was within 2 miles of city hall.

Now citing the statistics posted earlier by (Eco):

Total population, 2010: 186,564 (I don't know why this is different from the number above)
Total population, 2015: 192,672
Population change: +6,108

So, the concern some people have is that Salt Lake City growth is lackluster, and it is--compared to other cities. But, compared to Salt Lake City growth last decade, we're seeing much greater growth, a significantly higher increase over the last five years than in the entire previous decade. Also, I'm sure a lot of the extra growth is people moving into these new residences being built. That would mean a much higher percentage of the growth is within 2 miles of city hall than it was 2000-2010, since a large number of the new residences are being built in or close to the downtown area.

I don't think I made any questionable assumptions, so I'll conclude that Salt Lake is definitely not over-saturated with new apartments. Why is Cowboy Partners pumping out as many apartment projects as they can handle? Because the apartments they've built are filling up and they see that demand still isn't being met. So in my opinion, the market isn't over-saturated. Supply is lagging.

[airhero]

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

Wow what is going on over at the Trib! If you need good census stats, I guess it's best to get them yourself:

I think it's fair to say "down town" encompasses zip codes 84101 and 84111. This is the area from the freeway to 500 E and from 1300 S to North Temple. Unfortunately, other areas I might consider down town are in zip codes that encompass much more than just those areas (such as Marmalade, Aves, area around West High. Anyway, just looking at these two zips, this is what I got:

CBD: 16,011 (2010); 13,929 (2000) +14.95%

So, downtown grew about 15% from 2000 to 2010 while the city grew only 2.6%. The CBD is clearly growing much more than the rest of town.

Well, the Census Bureau originally was the source of the fault, but they corrected it later. So all the blame can't be placed on the Trib, although if I were a Trib journalist writing about this, I'd probably have been highly suspect of those numbers.

I never thought to look at growth by zip code. That could provide some telling info.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

I think Utah_Dave was just talking about SLC proper? (maybe he meant "sorrounding neighborhoods" rather than "cities"). The stats I posted are of the city of Salt Lake itself and the Wasatch Front (CSA). I did not post the metro stats (Salt Lake Valley).

The fact that the CSA is growing at triple the rate of SLC, sorrounding cities are booming, all while SLC sputters with anemic growth (0.55% last year, 0.15% the year before) is troubling. Then, it's also interesting how down town is booming at least on par with the rest of the CSA, but the rest of the city is not. It's puzzling that down town gained about 20k in resident population from 2000 to 2010 while the overall city only gained 5k. That would indicate that some neighborhoods in SLC are in decline and are being offset by down town (and probably Sugarhouse, which seems to be growing well).

They're not in decline they are gentrifying. Here in liberty wells much of the homes could not be built as they are under the 1997 zoning ordinance. They don't have the setbacks that would be required. Many of the lots, if not most, aren't wide enough. The neighborhood is already more dense(in terms of housing units) than the zoning allows. As someone has already mentioned there does seem to be a lack of children. There are only 2 homes on my block with children, 3 if you count the grandmother across the street that watches her grandchildren during the day.

[(Eco)nomy_404]

Pardon my loose use of the word "decline". I now realize that sounded completely different than what I was trying to say. I was only talking about population decline. I should have said "are experiencing population stagnation" or "have declining populations". I didn't mean that the overall economic vitality or vibrancy of the sorrounding neighborhoods were in decline. The way I said it brings Detroit or other rust-belt cities to mind, which is not at all what I meant. Sorry about that!

My main point was that there must be areas of the city that are creating some drag on the population growth. That does help to put things into perspective, as airhero pointed out) by comparing this past half-decade to all of last decade, which we have already exceeded in less than half the time. If you look at the stats, we actually added the same number of residents from 2010 to 2013 as we did all of last decade (2000 to 2010). So while city-wide population growth is rather tepid, it is at least accelerating. I'm optimistic that the rising tide downtown can lift all ships.

If you just enter a zip code on the Census' Fact Finder, it will give you stats for said zip code. Definitely useful in pinpointing more specific areas. Though, they can still be bulky and awkward. Sugarhouse, for example is split into multiple zips, so it makes it hard if you want data for that neighborhood, for example. Also, beware that zip code boundaries can often change through splits, mergers, or can be closed entirely while new ones can be created. You'll still want to do some research going that route (especially if it seems off).

I guess mistakes happen, whether at the Census or the Trib. I should have read the article more closely. Great catch on that!

[Utah_Dave]

Excellent work as usually fellas. I may post more questions that are unrelated just because I have a nice little resource here... For free too! It makes a little more sense. I guess I was assuming the population was growing fast but was not accounting for a smaller family size. Which makes sense going back to the Utah culture we discussed a month or so ago.

Nice work

[Comrade]

Construction growth is not necessarily a good tell on whether a city is growing at a large pace or not. I mentioned this about a year ago in a post. According to Census data, between 1970 and 1980, Salt Lake City added 7,167 housing units. That's actually more units than the city saw built between 2000 and 2010 - though, I'll concede many of those units were most likely suburban housing built on the city's west side as opposed to downtown condos/apartments.

Still, Salt Lake expanded its units in a decade where the population went from 175,885 in 1970 to 163,034 in 1980 - which was the overall largest percentage population decrease the city has ever experienced.

So, despite the city building new units, its population actually contracted significantly. Much of this construction was due to population not necessarily moving into the city - but just relocating to other areas of the city.

In the 1970s and 80s, Salt Lake saw its population shift away from the older, more established eastern neighborhoods to the far-flung suburban neighborhoods of western Salt Lake City (Rose Park, around Redwood Road). Also, as we've already established in this thread multiple times, Utah's growth isn't really coming from outside people moving into the state - it's coming from internal factors. It's entirely possible we're seeing another similar shift the city experienced in the latter part of the 20th Century - people already in the city relocating to other areas in the city.

Salt Lakers could be moving from, say, Central City to downtown or from Liberty Wells to Sugar House or Rose Park to Marmalade.

This goes back to the point I've made a dozen times on this forum - Utah's growth patterns hamper Salt Lake City overall. The dynamics of this state's population, which include young, growing families, don't favor Salt Lake City. Since there is such a push to start a family at a young age with the LDS faith, it's economically impractical to buy a small condo in downtown Salt Lake City. What happens is that many of these individuals either graduate, or return from their mission, marry, start their family and go where the affordable houses are - namely out in the suburbs, especially the far suburbs toward the south-end of the valley.

Salt Lake can't compete with that because it grew up in an era where houses were much smaller, and the houses that are big enough for a family are just too expensive for a young, growing family. The current development is also not favorable to families.

So, while Utah is a young state, its young is much different than the young of, say, Colorado. That's the rub. Salt Lake only appeals to a small group in the Utah demographic pool - either the elderly looking to retire to a condo downtown, non-Mormons or immigrants, who probably can't afford to live downtown. But LDS families? They exist in Salt Lake, but as the stats prove, they're an increasingly smaller number as those families relocate to other communities.

[(Eco)nomy_404]

To Comrade's point, I think it's good for us to always remember that in this area of study (and anything else scientific), to always take into account multiple data points before extrapolating a conclusive interpretation. You would probably want to look at population changes on multiple levels (by city and zip) as well as number of units, occupancy rates, family size, etc.

Good work guys! Great points, data, fact-checking, and overall discussion!

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Utah_Dave

Someone recently posted the growth of salt lakes population for the last several years and the average growth rate was close to 1,500 people a year. That being said, is anyone concerned that the apartments and condos being built down town could result in a glut or being overbuilt? Is the downtown population growing well but we are losing some population in the surrounding cities?

Does anyone have any figures on this?

Developers heavily overbuilt in the '80s and it depressed rents in Salt Lake County for well over a decade. Personally, I hope they overdevelop because rents are becoming ridiculous. I doubt it will happen, though. Development loans are more strict than they were in the '80s.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Comrade

...

This goes back to the point I've made a dozen times on this forum - Utah's growth patterns hamper Salt Lake City overall. The dynamics of this state's population, which include young, growing families, don't favor Salt Lake City. Since there is such a push to start a family at a young age with the LDS faith, it's economically impractical to buy a small condo in downtown Salt Lake City. What happens is that many of these individuals either graduate, or return from their mission, marry, start their family and go where the affordable houses are - namely out in the suburbs, especially the far suburbs toward the south-end of the valley.

Salt Lake can't compete with that because it grew up in an era where houses were much smaller, and the houses that are big enough for a family are just too expensive for a young, growing family. The current development is also not favorable to families.

So, while Utah is a young state, its young is much different than the young of, say, Colorado. That's the rub. Salt Lake only appeals to a small group in the Utah demographic pool - either the elderly looking to retire to a condo downtown, non-Mormons or immigrants, who probably can't afford to live downtown. But LDS families? They exist in Salt Lake, but as the stats prove, they're an increasingly smaller number as those families relocate to other communities.

All of the new housing units being built out in the suburbs now are very small townhouses. Two of my nephews live in townhouses (in Riverton and Herriman) that are as small or smaller than the average unit near downtown. Neither have yards, etc. One of them already has two children in their small townhouse. The other isn't planning to have children for a while.

We're moving into an era again when most houses will be smaller.

[airhero]

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

To Comrade's point, I think it's good for us to always remember that in this area of study (and anything else scientific), to always take into account multiple data points before extrapolating a conclusive interpretation. You would probably want to look at population changes on multiple levels (by city and zip) as well as number of units, occupancy rates, family size, etc.

Good work guys! Great points, data, fact-checking, and overall discussion!

Unfortunately we have limited population data for 2015. My conclusions are speculative at best. Probably better to call it a possible reality than a conclusion.

[Boiseguy]

The only thing I would say that's happening in Salt Lake City proper, over the past few decades, is the flight of families with 2-4 kids to the suburbs, which are being replaced by DINK's (double income no kids).. this would explain why overall population seems "stagnant" yet construction has boomed. It takes 3 units of couples just to replace 1 family of 6 that has moved to herriman... doesn't mean the neighborhood is gutted.. it just means it's changed.. I think it's right to say.. Salt Lake City is it's own sort of beast when it comes to demographics, we don't really see the normal growth patterns you would see anywhere else, due to the urban/suburban shift and the large family culture.

I just hope West valley or West Jordan doesn't grow larger in population than Salt Lake City.. that would be ridiculous

[bflatflat9]

Originally Posted by Boiseguy

The only thing I would say that's happening in Salt Lake City proper, over the past few decades, is the flight of families with 2-4 kids to the suburbs, which are being replaced by DINK's (double income no kids).. this would explain why overall population seems "stagnant" yet construction has boomed. It takes 3 units of couples just to replace 1 family of 6 that has moved to herriman... doesn't mean the neighborhood is gutted.. it just means it's changed.. I think it's right to say.. Salt Lake City is it's own sort of beast when it comes to demographics, we don't really see the normal growth patterns you would see anywhere else, due to the urban/suburban shift and the large family culture.

I just hope West valley or West Jordan doesn't grow larger in population than Salt Lake City.. that would be ridiculous

At one time that would have bothered me too, but now I don't much care.
San Jose has a couple hundred thousand more residents than San Fran, but anywhere in the bay area, if you say "The City", people know you're talking about San Fran. Same would be for here.

[Comrade]

WVC is on pace to add 13,456 new residents before the decade is over - which would put their population at 142,936 - still well below SLC's potential 2020 population. Moreover, the growth has slowed a bit since the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2010, WVC added 21,000 people - well above what their numbers suggest for 2010-2020. WVC's growth peaked in the 90s, when it added 22,000 people. Since, it's been a gradual decline in overall population added and it's a trend I don't necessarily see changing, especially since the area they have left to develop, between 4100 South and 6200 South, is currently industrial-dominated. That can always change, of course, but not anytime soon.

So, let's be optimistic with WVC and say the next decade is as successful as this decade and they kick the trend of their growth slowing - in 2030, if they add the same amount of people they're estimated to add by 2020, they'd still only have 156,392. Salt Lake's population is currently at 192,672 (estimate). If WVC adds the same number of people it has since 2010, it wouldn't be until 2060 before WVC reached Salt Lake's current population.

Obviously trends change and maybe the big one hits and we all die and the valley is uninhabitable by 2060. Regardless, it's hard to see WVC passing Salt Lake anytime soon.

West Jordan is a bit different. Their population has exploded from nothing to something the last 30 or so years. Between 2000 and 2010, WJ added 35,376 people. That's a big amount of people and, at that rate, would easily pass Salt Lake City in the next couple decades. But as I mentioned earlier, trends change. While WJ saw expansive growth the last decade, this decade they're on pace to add 'only' 16,468 people based on 2015 estimates (between 2010 and 2015, the city added 8,234, so, double that). That's still a nice clip, but significantly less than the city added in the 00s.

West Jordan has room to grow but I question whether enough to top Salt Lake, and their slowed growth in the 10s might be because of the fact they developed most their land in the 90s and 00s.

At its current estimates, 16,468 per decade, which obviously is going to change (increase/decrease), WJ wouldn't be equal to Salt Lake's population until 2070ish.

So, we've got a while.

[Future Mayor]

I think the best information to come out of this discussion is that Salt Lake City is continuing to grow, and yes there are a lot of people moving from one neighborhood to another, but overall the population is increasing. Combining that growth with the change in demographics that has been pointed out, fewer 3+ children families in the city, and more singles, DINKS and 1-2 child families actually shows that the numbers moving into the city are actually greater than it would seem.

It has been pointed out many times that the overall population growth in Utah is mostly internal, and that in-migration is a very small percentage of our overall growth. There is no scientific data behind the following numbers just my observation. I play in an adult rec league and it is filled with mostly 20-30 somethings and I would estimate that 60-70% of them are from out of state, for example we have 15 people on our kickball team and only 4 of those are native Utahns, maybe 2 other but I'm not 100% sure, and most other teams are along those same line, give or take a few. Of that 60-70% from out of state I would estimate that 80% of them live within Salt Lake City proper, mostly because that is where they feel comfortable and match the demographic. So while the state isn't getting a lot of in-migration, the amount that we are getting is heavily concentrating in Salt Lake City.