In order to address the fact that some metros are more urban than others, and that urbanity might not form a concentric area around downtown, I made another comparison, based on 1960 census tract densities.
http://swontariourbanist.blogspot.ca...h-2000_25.html
The top ten 1 million+ MSAs for total urban core growth:
1. New York
2. Los Angeles
3. Washington
4. Seattle
5. Boston
6. Miami
7. San Francisco
8. Portland
9. San Jose
10. San Diego
The bottom ten were
42. Indianapolis
43. Baltimore
44. St Louis
45. Cincinnati
46. Buffalo
47. Pittsburgh
48. Cleveland
49. New Orleans
50. Chicago
51. Detroit
Of course, New York and Chicago are much bigger than Portland and Buffalo, so it's not surprising that the changes there are amplified by their greater size and it might also make sense to look at urban core growth relative to the size of the MSA. In that case, the rankings would be
Top 10
1. Seattle
2. Washington
3. Portland
4. New York
5. Boston
6. San Francisco
7. Miami
8. San Jose
9. Austin and Los Angeles (tie)
and the bottom 10
42. Indianapolis
43. Memphis
44. Cincinnati
45. Pittsburgh
46. Birmingham
47. Chicago
48. Buffalo
49. Cleveland
50. Detroit
51. New Orleans
Of course Katrina was a big factor with New Orleans. While it did experience population loss prior to Katrina, it seems to have be less. From 1990 to 2000 it was definitely much less, from 2000 to the 2004 estimate it seems to have picked up, but then again, those are just estimates.