Cities that belong in other states

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ that's all interesting data, but what I was looking for was your opinion on the policy differences between Michigan/metro Detroit and Illinois/Chicagoland when it comes to sprawl and the different outcomes of city propers of Detroit and Chicago.

As far as I can tell, there are no major policy differences on the issue between the two, therefore it stands to reason that the cause(s) for the different outcomes of the two central cities is more complex than just "sprawl".

I don't claim to know much about Illinois administrative districts, but I'm almost certain that your state doesn't have the equivalent of charter townships. I think that is a level of administration unique to Michigan that gives city-like powers to incorporated townships but with weaker governing powers and looser requirements for incorporation. For instance, cities in Michigan have a minimum density requirement of 500 people per square mile for incorporation, but charter townships are only required to have 150 ppsm. Cities in Michigan are required to form a mayor-council government but charter townships are governed by just a council. OTOH charter townships are allowed to issue bonds to cover infrastructure expansions (road widening, sewers, etc), the same as cities. Charter townships are also protected against annexation the same way cities and villages in Michigan are protected.

I think about 40% (maybe more) of Metro Detroit now lives in a charter township. In 1950 almost no one lived in one because that administrative type was created in 1947.

[Wigs]

benp, Yuri mentioned about parts East of downtown Buffalo looking bad/urban prairie.

Can you tell him about the positive developments and (small) waves of new people that have been moving in like you mentioned on SSC?

[JManc]

We've concluded that Buffalo (and Rochester) belong in Ohio for the sin of saying "pop" instead of "soda". The Bills will move to Syracuse effective immediately. You guys can keep the Sabres.

[Wigs]

Buffalo is only 65:35 pop: soda
Clearly, Canadians have failed at indoctrination
Rochester is more like 20:80

Windsor has Soda Pop Bros. Should they be shot to the moon?
https://www.sodapopbros.com/products...pop-bros-brand

P.s. Toronto and the 8 million plus Canucks in GTHNA (Greater Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara area) says "hands off OUR NFL team"

[benp]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Buffalo is only 65:35 pop: soda
Clearly, Canadians have failed at indoctrination
Rochester is more like 20:80

Windsor has Soda Pop Bros. Should they be shot to the moon?
https://www.sodapopbros.com/products...pop-bros-brand

P.s. Toronto and the 8 million plus Canucks in GTHNA (Greater Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara area) says "hands off OUR NFL team"

Too many arriving downstaters and people from other states are poisoning the traditional Buffalo gene pool of "pop" pronouncers. I proudly cling to my heritage.

Back in the day, "soda" was our shortcut name for ice cream soda, while "pop" was the name for the carbonated beverage alone. Nowadays ice cream sodas aren't really as popular or as readily available, so that differentiation has been lost for the last couple of generations, and the words pop and soda have become interchangeable to most people today.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't claim to know much about Illinois administrative districts, but I'm almost certain that your state doesn't have the equivalent of charter townships. I think that is a level of administration unique to Michigan that gives city-like powers to incorporated townships but with weaker governing powers and looser requirements for incorporation. For instance, cities in Michigan have a minimum density requirement of 500 people per square mile for incorporation, but charter townships are only required to have 150 ppsm. Cities in Michigan are required to form a mayor-council government but charter townships are governed by just a council. OTOH charter townships are allowed to issue bonds to cover infrastructure expansions (road widening, sewers, etc), the same as cities. Charter townships are also protected against annexation the same way cities and villages in Michigan are protected.

I think about 40% (maybe more) of Metro Detroit now lives in a charter township. In 1950 almost no one lived in one because that administrative type was created in 1947.

That's interesting, and yeah, I don't think IL has anythink like "charter townships", but sprawl here in Chicagoland is still utterly ridiculous, and yet Chicago isn't nearly as hollowed out as Detroit. I simply have to believe there are other forces beyond just land use policy that are at work here.

[benp]

Originally Posted by Wigs

benp, Yuri mentioned about parts East of downtown Buffalo looking bad/urban prairie.

Can you tell him about the positive developments and (small) waves of new people that have been moving in like you mentioned on SSC?

To keep on the original topic, maybe compare the growing South Asian communities of Buffalo with Detroit? Is Buffalo's East Side becoming more like Hamtramck?

Despite having lost a large percentage of homes, most of the neighborhoods northeast of downtown Buffalo have been increasing in population since 2010, with a couple of Census Tracts near the Broadway Market increasing by over 50% and now seeing population densities over 10k. Hamtramck saw a similar, but greater, population surge between 2010 and 2020.

In Buffalo, the massive teardowns of previous decades basically stopped over 10 years ago, and existing homes have been, or are in the process of being, upgraded and occupied by the current wave of new arrivals, mainly first and second generation immigrants relocating from Queens and the Bronx. Hardly a day goes by without an announcement of some new business serving the community opening up, most refilling spaces vacated years or decades earlier. The Census 2022 ACS estimates showed nearly 10,000 foreign born South Central Asians in Buffalo, thousands more just outside city limits, and was 60% higher than estimated just 3 years earlier. Counting their children and other native-born relatives should likely double the total population of new arrivals. For at least the last 5 years, greater than 1 out of every 5 homes sold in Buffalo was purchased by someone with a South Asian surname, and the trend continues.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by JManc

We've concluded that Buffalo (and Rochester) belong in Ohio for the sin of saying "pop" instead of "soda". The Bills will move to Syracuse effective immediately. You guys can keep the Sabres.

We will gladly welcome those two wonderful cities. New York can keep Utica though.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Buffalo is only 65:35 pop: soda
Clearly, Canadians have failed at indoctrination
Rochester is more like 20:80

Windsor has Soda Pop Bros. Should they be shot to the moon?
https://www.sodapopbros.com/products...pop-bros-brand

P.s. Toronto and the 8 million plus Canucks in GTHNA (Greater Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara area) says "hands off OUR NFL team"

You guys are fine with the Argonauts.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

We will gladly welcome those two wonderful cities. New York can keep Utica though.

You're just gonna throw Utica Club beer and chicken riggies under the bus like that, huh

You best be eating those greens to stay healthy
• Video Link

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

That's interesting, and yeah, I don't think IL has anythink like "charter townships", but sprawl here in Chicagoland is still utterly ridiculous, and yet Chicago isn't nearly as hollowed out as Detroit. I simply have to believe there are other forces beyond just land use policy that are at work here.

What do you think it is?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

What do you think it is?

I don't honestly know.

All I do know is that both Chicagoland and Metro Detroit have absolutely monstrous amounts of suburban sprawl, but the city propers are quite different now 7 decades later.

Chicagoland somehow managed to keep a fair percentage of its wealth within the city proper (with zero sprawl controls in place), while in Detroit, wealth flight to the burbs was almost total.

Similar sprawl policies; different central city outcomes.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I don't honestly know.

All I do know is that both Chicagoland and Metro Detroit have absolutely monstrous amounts of suburban sprawl, but the city propers are quite different now 7 decades later.

Chicagoland somehow managed to keep a fair percentage of its wealth within the city proper (with zero sprawl controls in place), while in Detroit, wealth flight to the burbs was almost total.

Similar sprawl policies; different outcomes.

I don't really think that Chicago and Detroit have the same issues with sprawl. Chicago has a very good rapid transit system and a pretty good suburban commuter system, all centered on the city of Chicago. Metro Detroit doesn't even have a unified bus system. I also suspect that Chicago isn't still expanding freeways, while Michigan is still pouring billions of dollars into projects to widen roads for a population that's smaller than it was 55 years ago.

[MolsonExport]

It is mind blowing just how many freeways there are in Detroit, compared to say, Toronto.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

It is mind blowing just how many freeways there are in Detroit, compared to say, Toronto.

Yeah, Detroit (city and metro) had a horrendous traffic problem in the 1960s and 1970s that ended up getting solved by greatly expanding the road system and spreading out the population. That was also helped by the population having suddenly stopped growing in the 1960s.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't really think that Chicago and Detroit have the same issues with sprawl. Chicago has a very good rapid transit system and a pretty good suburban commuter system, all centered on the city of Chicago. Metro Detroit doesn't even have a unified bus system. I also suspect that Chicago isn't still expanding freeways, while Michigan is still pouring billions of dollars into projects to widen roads for a population that's smaller than it was 55 years ago.

I'd say the best ways to tell how "bad" the sprawl is would be to look at the UA average density, UA weighted density, and transit mode share. If you just looked at the UA average density you could tell the sprawl must be bad in some places if the density is low enough but you wouldn't know what percentage of people were living in sprawl the way UA weighted density would show. It could be a lot of people living in dense sprawl or relatively few people living in very low density sprawl surrounding a large, dense core.

But there would also be places where a lot of the UA has similar medium density figures that could either be denser than average sprawl (single use zoning, car-orientation, with small lot sizes and some multi-unit) or lower density urban format like streetcar suburbs which aren't actually suburban in today's context. In some cases you could tell with just one of the stats, but using the three metrics together would be a sort of triangulation to give a complete picture.

In the case of Detroit vs Chicago looking just at UA average density, Chicago has over 25% greater urban area density. Since we already know it has a much larger and denser central city, the overall density of the larger denser core areas must more than offset the low density sprawl areas. So that does suggest Detroit has worse sprawl.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Growing up in and around townships in Suburban Cincinnati and having now worked in municipal (county) government in Arizona for almost 14 years, I am so glad we don't have to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare of townships out here. Then again, we have "villages" and "towns" which are somewhat similar.

[EastSideHBG]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Growing up in and around townships in Suburban Cincinnati and having now worked in municipal (county) government in Arizona for almost 14 years, I am so glad we don't have to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare of townships out here. Then again, we have "villages" and "towns" which are somewhat similar.

It's an outdated, antiquated system. Here in PA so much could be solved if we went to a county system. Because some townships are larger and wealthy they can offer much better services and cheaper taxes than for people living right across the street. Every other day now there is another story of some smaller municipality talking about having to cut back or abolish its police/ambulance/fire services because they can no longer afford it. But the big issue is that so many of these municipalities do not want to give up their little kingdoms even though they are rapidly dying.

There are 67 counites and 2,560 municipalities in PA.

[JManc]

In Texas, you're either incorporated or not. In NYS, we had towns, villages and hamlets. In addition to cities. If you weren't in a city, the town was the local government and if you were in a village, both the village and the town were the local governments with split services and bureaucracies.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

In the case of Detroit vs Chicago looking just at UA average density, Chicago has over 25% greater urban area density. Since we already know it has a much larger and denser central city, the overall density of the larger denser core areas must more than offset the low density sprawl areas. So that does suggest Detroit has worse sprawl.

Chicagoland being more densely populated than metro Detroit isn't up for debate here. That's a straightforward fact.

The issue is WHY did Chicago hang on to more of its core density than Detroit, given that neither metro has ever placed much, if any, controls on sprawl?

IhearttheD touched on Chicago's expansive rail system, and that might be one of the factors at play.

I think another big difference was Chicago racially segregating itself along intra-city lines (side vs. side) as opposed to detroit's "city vs. suburbs" segregation model.



This whole tangent started because ihearttheD expressed his opinion that Detroit's population implosion over the past 7 decades is solely due to sprawl/land use policy, whereas I think the example of Chicagoland shows that the issue is a bit more complex than that.

Land use policy is a HUGE part of it, of course, but both of these metro areas never met a sprawlburban cul de sac subdivision that they didn't fall head over heels backwards for. So why did one of these cities empty out far more severely than the other?