What cities have shrunk most from the peak?

[Docere]

College graduates

Pittsburgh 37.2%
Cleveland 15.2%

Poverty rate

Cleveland 35.9%
Pittsburgh 22.8%

[pdxtex]

im speaking only of its infrastructure and housing stock. nothing of demographics.

[PoshSteve]

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are very similar with decline from the loss of steel and other manufacturing jobs. The difference in the statistics mostly stem from the municipal boundaries. Cleveland's heavy industry was all within the city limits, while Pittsburgh had alot in the river valleys outside the city limits. Thus, Cleveland's decay and abandonment, and now concentrated poverty, occurred within the city limits (add in the city of East Cleveland too, which really should have been a city neighborhood long ago). Cleveland's suburbs though range from decent shape to incredibly wealthy. Look at Pittsburgh and its the other way. Huge concentrations of poverty, decay and abandonment in the suburbs that were built around steel mills - something that doesn't exist in metro Cleveland because the mills were in the city.

Regarding the shrinking metro numbers, Cleveland is better reflected by including Akron, like Yuri pointed out. A huge chunk of Cleveland's sprawl is the northern third of Summit County, Akron's home county, and the NW quarter of Portage County, the only other county in metro Akron. Those areas have minimal physical and cultural connection to Akron, but are still counted as being Akron.

[ChiSoxRox]

Which is where the CSA table came in.

City, Peak, 2016, Drop

Pittsburgh..............3,125,025.........2,635,228........15.7%
Buffalo...................1,430,877.........1,210,481........15.4%
Cleveland................3,695,009.........3,483,311........5.7%
Detroit....................5,456,428.........5,318,653........2.5%

Cleveland and Detroit have healthy suburban rings, while Buffalo and Pittsburgh tend to have more industrial surroundings shrinking with the main city.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by balletomane

Does anyone else find it somewhat interesting that of the 18 urban municipalities that have lost 50% or more of their population, half have majority white populations?

Not really. The white cities with population loss are mostly smaller Appalachian mining-oriented towns that started declining 100 years ago, long before suburbanization/white flight.

Places like Scranton never had black people, ever, really, and the causes and timing of population decline are very different than with a Detroit.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

im speaking only of its infrastructure and housing stock. nothing of demographics.

Have you explored the East Side of Cleveland? It's as bombed-out as Detroit. Most of the East Side is urban prairie at this point.

And the West Side, while not bombed out, is clearly depressed, with significant abandonment in parts.

[pdxtex]

i mentioned east cleveland and some of the neighbors east of downtown/west of the hospital. but overall, id say cleveland proper is in pretty good shape. at least the parts ive driven around. i have been there in about 6 years so maybe its gotten worse?? the part of east cleveland right past the underpass is kind of fcked up though.

[balletomane]

Interesting article about Japan's aging and shrinking population. It discusses the depopulation of Tokyo's suburbs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/japan-housing-aging-population-1.4099687

It should be interesting to watch how some countries cope with a naturally declining population in the coming decades and what effects it has on urban areas. Population decline across multiple countries is a relatively new phenomenon (the first ones started in about 1990), and since the process is slow, they haven't been widely popularized like shrinking cities.

[PoshSteve]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Have you explored the East Side of Cleveland? It's as bombed-out as Detroit. Most of the East Side is urban prairie at this point.

And the West Side, while not bombed out, is clearly depressed, with significant abandonment in parts.

Yes, the east side has alot of abandonment and empty lots, even empty blocks - but it is far from most of the east side. Kinsman is the worst of it, followed by Fairfax, Woodhill. A few years ago Hough (of the infamous riots) and Central were in the same boat, but both have seen alot of investment on both the large and small scales. Central has been growing in population, and Hough probably will too with the new apartments and townhouses that are currently being built. Large parts of the rest of the east side could still slip downhill though, especially Glenville (FB shooting) if the violence doesn't get under control.

The west side is all pretty much stable or growing at this point in time. Stockyards and Cudell are still in decline I'd say, but neither are or have been hemorrhaging people like parts of the east side.

[balletomane]

In relation to the above article I posted about Japan's declining population and Tokyo's shrinking suburbs, I figured I'd see what countries have shrunk the most, so here they are:

Country....peak population (year)...population 2016...% decline
Georgia........5,466,610 (1989)........3,979,781.........-27.2%
Latvia..........2,665,710 (1989)........1,955,742.........-26.6%
Lithuania......3,699,352 (1991)........2,850,029.........-23.0%
Bulgaria.......8,960,387 (1985)........7,097,796.........-20.8%
Romania.......23,489,360 (1990)......19,372,733........-17.5%
Estonia.........1,570,050 (1989)........1,309,104.........-16.6%
Bosnia..........4,559,256 (1989)........3,802,134.........-16.6%
Armenia.......3,544,694 (1990)........3,026,047.........-14.6%
Ukraine........51,370,009 (1990).......44,624,372.......-13.1%
Croatia.........4,780,626 (1989)........4,225,001.........-11.6%
Albania.........3,281,453 (1990)........2,903,700.........-11.5%
Serbia..........9,884,146 (1995).........8,812,705........-10.8%
Hungary........10,759,021 (1980).......9,821,318........-8.7%
Belarus.........10,241,136 (1991).......9,481,521........-7.4%
Moldova........4,375,312 (1992).........4,062,861........-7.1%
Russia..........148,435,811 (1993)......143,439,832.....-3.4%
Portugal........10,590,259 (2009).......10,304,434.......-2.7%
Greece..........11,179,425 (2009)......10,919,458........-2.3%
Germany.......82,010,184 (1998).......80,682,351.......-1.6%
Spain............46,708,365 (2011).......46,064,604.......-1.4%
Japan...........127,340,884 (2009)......126,323,715......-0.8%
Poland..........38,619,973 (2014)........38,593,160.......-0.1%
Cuba............11,392,888 (2016)........11,392,888.......0.0%
Italy.............59,801,003 (2016)........59,801,003.......0.0%

Those countries that have currently declined by over 10% could be half their peak population by 2100, while the other countries on this list could lose up to a quarter or a third of their population by 2100.
There are many other countries projected to shrink over the course of the next few decades, but because that is purely speculation they are not included. Also, only sovereign states are included, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Martinique have also shrunk.

[ThePhun1]

Georgia is not a country.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are very similar with decline from the loss of steel and other manufacturing jobs. The difference in the statistics mostly stem from the municipal boundaries. Cleveland's heavy industry was all within the city limits, while Pittsburgh had alot in the river valleys outside the city limits. Thus, Cleveland's decay and abandonment, and now concentrated poverty, occurred within the city limits (add in the city of East Cleveland too, which really should have been a city neighborhood long ago). Cleveland's suburbs though range from decent shape to incredibly wealthy. Look at Pittsburgh and its the other way. Huge concentrations of poverty, decay and abandonment in the suburbs that were built around steel mills - something that doesn't exist in metro Cleveland because the mills were in the city.

This is a fair assessment. I do think Cleveland tends to have better first ring suburbs than Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh literally only has three upper-middle class walkable suburbs (Mt. Lebanon, Sewickley, and Aspinwall). Part of it is that Squirrel Hill within the city basically served the same function I think, but even if you count that, there's just a lot less in Pittsburgh than in Cleveland.

At the same time, there isn't tons of poverty/decay/abandonment in the suburbs. Virtually all of the old outlying mill towns are in steep decline, but except for a few which also suffered from white flight (Braddock, McKeesport, Clairton, Aliquippa, etc) the boroughs themselves are pretty intact physically. Much of the decline, like in Pittsburgh proper, was due to falling household size, and is happening slowly. The only two "classically suburban" areas showing signs of decay are Penn Hills and West Mifflin, and again white flight is playing a bigger role than anything else.

I have long maintained that Pittsburgh's CSA - and even MSA - are artificially inflated, which these days makes the decline look worse than it is. Except for a small sliver of Butler, Washington, and Westmoreland counties, there are not any exurbs in the outlying counties. They really had their own local economies, which (like most small town/rural areas) have been devastated over the last 30-40 years. They just happen to be relatively close to Pittsburgh.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

This is a fair assessment. I do think Cleveland tends to have better first ring suburbs than Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh literally only has three upper-middle class walkable suburbs (Mt. Lebanon, Sewickley, and Aspinwall). Part of it is that Squirrel Hill within the city basically served the same function I think, but even if you count that, there's just a lot less in Pittsburgh than in Cleveland.

And Detroit is pretty much the opposite arrangement, with no sizable concentrations of inner-city wealth or upper-class walkability, but a ton of suburbs with such characteristics.

Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Franklin, Berkley, Huntington Woods, Rochester, Northville, Plymouth, The Grosse Pointes (multiple downtowns) are among the most prominent walkable, professional-oriented suburbs.

Detroit is odd in that the gayborhood, the artsy hood and the fancy mega-million urban condo enclaves are all suburbs. The traditional nightlife center, until recently, was in a suburb. Even the best urban hotel is in a suburb.

This is, in part, why Metro Detroit has such a rough reputation, even though the region is (at least arguably) among the healthier rust belt metros, with population growth, considerable wealth, far more housing construction and very low unemployment.

[balletomane]

Does anyone know if there are cities outside of the United States that have lost a significant portion of their population from de-industrialization?
I know Manchester and Liverpool have lost a fair bit of their population, but they have rebounded a bit in the last decade. I think Leipzig and Halle in Germany, and Ivanovo in Russia have shrunk quite a bit, but not as much as those UK cities.

[ThePhun1]

There's no shortage of ghost towns in the US that died when their industry, usually mining of some kind, dried up if that's what you mean. And beyond that, there are no shortage of places, especially in the Rust Belt, that are as good as dead thanks to their non-existent industry, especially in Michigan and Ohio.

[Citylover94]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Georgia is not a country.

There is a country called Georgia located south of Russia next to the Black Sea.

[Commentariat]

Originally Posted by balletomane

Does anyone know if there are cities outside of the United States that have lost a significant portion of their population from de-industrialization?
I know Manchester and Liverpool have lost a fair bit of their population, but they have rebounded a bit in the last decade. I think Leipzig and Halle in Germany, and Ivanovo in Russia have shrunk quite a bit, but not as much as those UK cities.

According to Wikipedia, Greater Manchester had 2.71 million people in 1931 but then fell to 2.48 million in 2001. It has since rebounded and is now about 2.75 million.

The City of Liverpool peaked at 846k in 1931 and bottomed out at 439k in 2001. Not sure about the metro area.

The population of what is now the Republic of Ireland was 6.53 million in 1841, and it fell to 2.82 million in 1961 (although the cause was not de-industrialisation). It is 4.76 million now, still less than ¾ of what it was 175 years ago.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And Detroit is pretty much the opposite arrangement, with no sizable concentrations of inner-city wealth or upper-class walkability, but a ton of suburbs with such characteristics.

Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Franklin, Berkley, Huntington Woods, Rochester, Northville, Plymouth, The Grosse Pointes (multiple downtowns) are among the most prominent walkable, professional-oriented suburbs.

Detroit is odd in that the gayborhood, the artsy hood and the fancy mega-million urban condo enclaves are all suburbs. The traditional nightlife center, until recently, was in a suburb. Even the best urban hotel is in a suburb.

This is, in part, why Metro Detroit has such a rough reputation, even though the region is (at least arguably) among the healthier rust belt metros, with population growth, considerable wealth, far more housing construction and very low unemployment.

Yeah, in a lot of ways, Pittsburgh and Detroit are the two opposite extremes of the Rust Belt. Pittsburgh had, by far, the weakest white flight out of any major rust belt city in the country (IIRC, besides Portland, it's now the whitest major city in the country period). In contrast, Detroit was white flight taken to its logical, and absurd, conclusion. Cities like Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Buffalo, and Milwaukee are roughly halfway between the two extremes.

[skyfan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And Detroit is pretty much the opposite arrangement, with no sizable concentrations of inner-city wealth or upper-class walkability, but a ton of suburbs with such characteristics.
.

That isn't even remotely true today. The greater downtown neighborhoods absolutely meet that criteria. Those neighborhoods are now among the most desirable in the region. Hell, downtown Detroit itself came in as the 16th wealthiest zip code in the state last year something that certainly wasn't true a decade ago

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by skyfan

That isn't even remotely true today. The greater downtown neighborhoods absolutely meet that criteria.

We're talking neighborhoods, not downtown. Every big city downtown is at least passably desirable these days.

And there are only something like 5,000 people living downtown, in a region of over 5 million. It's essentially irrelevant, in terms of how people live.

Originally Posted by skyfan

Hell, downtown Detroit itself came in as the 16th wealthiest zip code in the state last year something that certainly wasn't true a decade ago

There is no zip code that is directly coterminous with downtown Detroit, and the Census doesn't even collect wealth data by zip code. So this probably isn't true.