The US Census Bureau thread

[subterranean]

Good to see Portland in the top 10 for change in weighted density. Hoping that trend continues.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by memph

A lot of dense areas lost population, including Boyle Heights & East LA, the Gateway Cities, central Santa Ana, Filipinotown, Hollywood, parts of Pico Union, Koreatown and Mid City, Lennox, Central Long Beach... I guess there was not enough new development to offset decreasing household sizes/gentrification.

Originally Posted by craigs

I suspect that the sharp decrease in international immigration, especially from Latin America, over the last decade is also a likely cause of lower populations in those areas--immigrants often move to a hub neighborhood in an international gateway like Los Angeles initially, but then move out to other neighborhoods, the suburbs, and even other parts of the state and country. So the outflow is happening as usual from a lot of the above-named districts, but the inflow just isn't there to replace the movers.

I saw this when expanding my Downtown thread.

I got carried away and kept adding other districts to my table (Westlake, Koreatown, Echo Park, East Hollywood, etc.). All of them already dense, but unlike Downtown, had their population either stable or slightly declining.

Slow population growth for Los Angeles plus already being relatively dense, certainly didn't help the area to increase its weight density.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by memph

Change from 2010

1. New York.... +2,536.1
2. Seattle....+1,424.7
3. San Francisco....+1,122.9
4. Miami....+1093.9
5. Honolulu....+1,033.7
6. Boston....+1007.8
   

It's pretty astounding that New York, which was already the most dense place in the country by quite a distance, increased that density substantially more than any other place.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by memph

Change from 2010

New York.... +2,536.1
Boston....+1007.8
Washington....+908.0
Philadelphia....+485.3
Baltimore....-291.0

I just got back to the states from a trip to Italy. Thanks for the work in crunching the decade change!

Looking ahead to 2030, can spill over from DC help Baltimore join the other NE nodes in growing again?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

Well Chicago lost about a million people, they're only about a few ten thousand off from that.

now that we have the official census 2020 results, we know that chicago's estimated ~20K loss last decade was wrong.

as of now, the closest chicago has gotten to officially losing 1M people was in 2010.

population high (1950): 3,620,962

population low (2010): 2,695,598

overall decrease 1950 - 2010: 925,364


of course, with the surprise gain of ~51K in the last decade, the city of chicago is currently down 874,574 people (-24.2%) from its 1950 population high, which, coincidentally, is almost exactly the same size as the city of charlotte in 2020 (874,579).

[aaronevill]

Of course, there is NOTHING like the poverty and abandonment similar to the South Side of Chicago anywhere in NYC. That doesn't exist as much on the East Coast. Maybe Baltimore? The Garfield neighborhood next to Hyde Park was pretty damn scary.

[The North One]

New York still has plenty of poverty, they have the poorest congressional district in the country. It's just not in focus as the perception of the city anymore.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by aaronevill

Of course, there is NOTHING like the poverty and abandonment similar to the South Side of Chicago anywhere in NYC. That doesn't exist as much on the East Coast. Maybe Baltimore?

baltimore, followed by philly, would be your best bets to finding rust-belt style urban decay/abandonment on the east coast.

however, even when neighborhoods in those cities went through their decay phase, because of their row-house typology, they still tend to feel tighter and more substantial when pockmarked with vacant lots, more so than the "urban prairie" style abandonment you see in areas of chicago, detroit, cleveland, etc.


englewood, chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7688...7i13312!8i6656

madison park, baltimore: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3051...7i16384!8i8192




however, this all beyond the point of this thread. probably <1% of all tourists to chicago spend any time in decayed neighborhoods like englewood. hell, probably around 3/4 of 'em never even leave the greater downtown area.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

baltimore, followed by philly, would be your best bets to finding rust-belt style urban decay/abandonment on the east coast.

however, even when neighborhoods in those cities went through their decay phase, because of their row-house typology, they still tend to feel tighter and more substantial when pockmarked with vacant lots, more so than the "urban prairie" style abandonment you see in areas of chicago, detroit, cleveland, etc.


englewood, chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7688...7i13312!8i6656

madison park, baltimore: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3051...7i16384!8i8192




however, this all beyond the point of this thread. probably <1% of all tourists to chicago spend any time in decayed neighborhoods like englewood. hell, probably around 3/4 of 'em never even leave the greater downtown area.

Earlier this week, I took the Acela to D.C. and back for a quick work trip, so the visual is fresh in my mind. I would argue that Baltimore, and to a lesser extent Philly, are still somewhat "Rust Belt", but Philly is very clearly in recovery mode.

There is a lot of industrial abandonment along the northeast corridor rail line concentrated around Philadelphia, particularly around North Philadelphia. It looks extremely similar to the early 20th century abandoned factories in Detroit, such as the Packard or Fisher Body plants. But Philadelphia also appears to be in quite a building boom. It had been a while since I've seen Center City up close (at least from the train window), but it's clear that Philadelphia is on a roll.

Chicago city seems very analogous to Philly. Like Philly, I don't think there is much in the way of complete abandonment in Chicago's borders. OTOH, there isn't really anything like a Gary, Indiana, in all of the northeast corridor. Camden is probably as bad as it gets, but I doubt there's anything in Camden like this.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Chicago city seems very analogous to Philly. Like Philly, I don't think there is much in the way of complete abandonment in Chicago's borders. OTOH, there isn't really anything like a Gary, Indiana, in all of the northeast corridor. Camden is probably as bad as it gets, but I doubt there's anything in Camden like this.

well yeah, places like gary take things to the next level. chicago certainly has more than its fair share of urban decay/abandoment, but it's not in that club of US cities that have lost more than 50% of their peak population.

Originally Posted by benp

gains in GREEN and cities with 2020 population losses in RED:


City................................Peak..........2020......Percentage Drop

Highland Park, MI.............52,959..........8,977.......-83.0%
East St. Louis, IL.............82,366...........18,469......-77.6%
Johnstown, PA................67, 327..........18,411......-72.7%
McKeesport, PA...............55,355...........17,727......-68.0%
Detroit, MI.....................1,849,568.......639,111.....-65.4%
St. Louis, MO..................856,796.........301,578.....-64.8%
Youngstown, OH..............170,002.........60,068.......-64.7%
Gary, IN.........................178,320.........69,093.......-61.3%
Cleveland, OH.................914,808.........372,624......-59.3%
Flint, MI.........................196,940.........81,252.......-58.7%
Wheeling, WV..................61,659...........27,052......-56.1%
Pittsburgh, PA.................676,806.........302,971.....-55.2%
Saginaw, MI....................98,265..........44,202.......-55.0%
East Chicago, IN..............57,669...........26,370......-54.3%
Niagara Falls, NY..............102,394.........48,671.......-52.5%
Buffalo, NY.....................580,132.........278,349......-52.0%
Chester, PA......................66,039..........32,605.......-50.6%

for comparison, chicago is down -24.2% from its 1950 peak, and philly is down -22.6% from its 1950 peak, so neither are close to bottom of the barrel on the abandonment front.

baltimore is more in between at -38.3% from its 1950 peak.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I doubt there's anything in Camden like this.

^ There is a certain charm to what you linked us to there. That area is positively spooky. Wholesale abandonment is kinda cool

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well yeah, places like gary take things to the next level. chicago certainly has more than its fair share of urban decay/abandoment, but it's not in that club of US cities that have lost more than 50% of their peak population.





for comparison, chicago is down -24.2% from its 1950 peak, and philly is down -22.6% from its 1950 peak, so neither are close to bottom of the barrel on the abandonment front.

baltimore is more in between at -38.3% from its 1950 peak.

Loss of Households from 1950 to 2020

Milwaukee: +28% — 183K to 235K
Philadelphia: +13% — 581K to 658K
Chicago: +6% — 1080K to 1142K
Baltimore: -5% — 265K to 261K
Cincinnati: -12% — 157K to 139K
Buffalo: -26% — 161K to 119K
Pittsburgh: -26% — 189K to 139K
Cleveland: -37% — 264K to 167K
St. Louis: -43% — 256K to 144K
Detroit: -50% — 507K to 254K

https://twitter.com/bread_fixer/stat...155552769?s=21

When you look at household numbers, the nature of decline is so very different between the East Coast and Midwest rust belt.

On the East Coast, the new neighbors are often poorer than the previous ones, and have fewer children in the city, but housingwise things are more or less the same.

In the Midwest, entire neighborhoods just collapsed with wide scale abandonment. So they’re in a constant state of reconstruction around the core, trying to outbuild the declining outer neighborhoods. (Milwaukee numbers are skewed by annexation)

[Steely Dan]

^ interesting data, thanks.

it still boggles my mind that chicago has more households today than it did in 1950, yet is still down roughly 875K in total population from the 1950 peak.



btw, that milwaukee figure is very misleading. milwaukee, unlike most of the other classic rust belt cities, very aggressively annexed suburban land in the post-war period, nearly doubling in size from 50 to 96 sq. miles.

so comparing any figures of the city proper today back to 1950 is very apples to oranges. the rest of those cities have remained consistent enough in land size to mostly be apples to apples.


EDIT: i just saw the parenthetical you added about the milwaukee figures.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ interesting data, thanks.

it still boggles my mind that chicago has more households today than it did in 1950, yet is still down roughly 875K in total population from the 1950 peak.

A constant refrain pre-1950s was about how desperately overcrowded Chicago was. The Depression and WWII halted new construction for a generation even while manufacturing jobs were exploding. Families were doubling up, children sharing beds, room and boarders crowding into bunks. All in buildings that hadn’t been renovated or even maintained in decades.

Modern Chicago doesn’t have abnormally small households compared to the rest of the U.S., so the housing situation in pre WWII America was very dire.

The suburban developments were the pin that popped the overinflated balloon.

Today, population flight might have been repeated because of WFH but there’s very little new construction capacity anywhere in the U.S. Many people rebounded right back into city rentals as roommates split up to try to find their own accommodations.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ interesting data, thanks.

it still boggles my mind that chicago has more households today than it did in 1950, yet is still down roughly 875K in total population from the 1950 peak.



btw, that milwaukee figure is very misleading. milwaukee, unlike most of the other classic rust belt cities, very aggressively annexed suburban land in the post-war period, nearly doubling in size from 50 to 96 sq. miles.

so comparing any figures of the city proper today back to 1950 is very apples to oranges. the rest of those cities have remained consistent enough in land size to mostly be apples to apples.


EDIT: i just saw the parenthetical you added about the milwaukee figures.

As Chicago became more a white collar professional city, any family-type household declines were replaced by singles and double income no children (or one/two children) professional households initially on the north side but now on the downtown and near west and near south sides. Seems like Philly had the same trend.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

https://twitter.com/bread_fixer/stat...155552769?s=21

I got this interesting table from that twitter link:



source: https://twitter.com/bread_fixer/stat...155552769?s=21




and because milwaukee annexed so much land in the 50s, here are the milwaukee figures calculated for 1960, when the city finally maxed out its land area and achieved its population peak. because it's moved forward a decade, it's not a straight apples to apples with the other cites, but it's still WAY better than using the 1950 data for the old city limits of milwaukee.

HH 1960: 230,987
HH 2020: 235,410
change: +1.9%


HH size 1960: 3.21
HH size 2020: 2.39
change: -25.5%


pop. 1960: 741,324
pop. 2020: 577,222
change: -22.1%


so when we calculate the population decline from the 1960 peak population, milwaukee settles in much more normally with philly (-22.6%) & chicago (-24.2%) .

[the urban politician]

^ This flies in the face of any narrative that Chicago has been "emptying out". Families crammed together into housing as compared to more singles and couples. More taxpayers too, as I would guess that the majority of population loss in Chicago has been in the form of non tax-paying children.

Chicago "outsourced' so much ot its child rearing and child educating to the suburbs

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, that's all part of it, but what's weird is that, as of census 2020, the city of chicago's % of children is not radically out of line with the national average:

chicago under 18's: 20.9%

US under 18's: 22.2%


maybe chicago's % of under 18's was considerably higher than the national average in the past?

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ yeah, that's all part of it, but what's weird is that, as of census 2020, chicago's % of children is not radically out of line with the national average:

chicago under 18: 20.9%

US under 18: 22.2%

There’s an old Life article from 1954 called “City at a Crossroads: Chicago Confronts Urban Blight”

It’s not online anymore but the pictures can still be Google searched under images and Pinterest. The photos gave a really good sense of the living conditions of parts of Chicago at the time.

In wide swathes of the city, it was normal for a mother and her five children to be living in a kitchenette with loose electrical wiring. With illegal subdivisions to fit a family per room. That’s how neighborhoods like Bronzeville went from 75K to 25K with the removal of the partitions.

Remember how Mr. Downtown argues that the near South side saw so much demolition and urban renewal because the housing was truly uninhabitable by the 1950s. Some of the photos from that article really did back up his argument. Cabrini-Greene and the other CHA units at their worst would have been paradise.

What’s the point of having a large population, if your citizens have to live in those conditions? It’s not worth it. On the other hand, it means that a return to peak population with nice housing would require the housing stock to increase by 40-50% from the 1950s.

[Steely Dan]

I moved all of the population decline discussion here to the CB thread, as it was taking the Conde Nast thread way off track.