Midwest by high density

[LMich]

Originally Posted by hudkina

What's interesting is that back in 2000 Northeast Detroit had nearly 100,000 people in a contiguous area where the density was over 10,000 ppsm. Today most of those tracts are below 10,000 ppsm. For example, there are 70 more Census Tracts in Wayne County with densities above 7,500 ppsm. The population of those Census Tracts is 231,888. Many of those tracts were above 10,000 ppsm back in 2000.

Speaking of this area, more generally, what was the overall population loss (raw and percentage) for the eastside (everything east of Woodward) over the previous decade? I'm guessing it was greater than the city as a whole. Really sad to hear about it, as the northeastern neighborhoods were the ones the city was really trying to concentrate on because of its density. It's also the largest contiguous area with the highest rates of homicides, I believe.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

I would consider this list not so much a measure of "urbanness" but a measure of how well a city has retained its density.

My personal guess for this list right after World War II would go Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, then Milwaukee.

that would probably be a good guess. detroit almost certainly had to be #2 with roughly 1.8 million people within its ~130 sq, miles. (average city-wide density of ~14,000 ppsm)

it's interesting that milwaukee was able to hold on to its moderate-high density areas better relative to its peer rust-belt cities. i wonder what the difference was? something in that lake michigan water?

[Avian001]

In 1950 Chicago had a density of about 16,000 ppsm. St. Louis was about 13,800 ppsm, Detroit about 13,300, Cleveland at 11,800 and Minneapolis at 9,500. If anyone can get more accurate numbers, please do.

Where Milwaukee stood in 1950 is unclear because I can't readily find the area of the city in 1950 vs. today. Milwaukee annexed suburbs during that post-war period, so if anyone can chime in with that data it would be helpful. I do know the population of Milwaukee in 1950 was 637,392 and was the nation's 13th-largest city. The population peaked in 1960, about 10 years after the others, and was the nation's 11th-largest.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Avian001

In 1950 Chicago had a density of about 16,000 ppsm. St. Louis was about 13,800 ppsm, Detroit about 13,300, Cleveland at 11,800 and Minneapolis at 9,500. If anyone can get more accurate numbers, please do.

Where Milwaukee stood in 1950 is unclear because I can't readily find the area of the city in 1950 vs. today. Milwaukee annexed suburbs during that post-war period, so if anyone can chime in with that data it would be helpful. I do know the population of Milwaukee in 1950 was 637,392 and was the nation's 13th-largest city. The population peaked in 1960, about 10 years after the others, and was the nation's 11th-largest.

The Census Bureau has a list of the top 100 cities in every Census up to 1990; the figures from 1910 on include area and density. Here's 1950.

Rank, City, then Population, Area (sq. miles), then density
13 Milwaukee city, WI....... 637,392 50.0 12,748

That peak being a decade later for Milwaukee is because the city went nuts with annexation.

Edit: Chicago was (slightly) denser than San Francisco back then!

[Avian001]

^ Thanks! I've never run across that particular set of data before. It's pretty interesting to see how Los Angeles grew so fast in the 20 years from 1910-1930.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

The Census Bureau has a list of the top 100 cities in every Census up to 1990; the figures from 1910 on include area and density. Here's 1950.

Weird. They have Detroit as being 139.6 square miles in 1950, when it's been 138.75 sq mi since 1926. I'd say it included water, but that wouldn't make sense, either.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that would probably be a good guess. detroit almost certainly had to be #2 with roughly 1.8 million people within its ~130 sq, miles. (average city-wide density of ~14,000 ppsm)

it's interesting that milwaukee was able to hold on to its moderate-high density areas better relative to its peer rust-belt cities. i wonder what the difference was? something in that lake michigan water?

For one, it seems like St. Louis (and Kansas City) were able to procure lots and lots of gov't money for urban redevelopment and expressway construction. The other cities that were able to do this probably did a lot of damage to themselves as well. Perhaps Milwaukee "tampered" with itself less and rode things out during the era of "big destruction." St. Louis was intense, on the other hand. Also the neighborhoods closest to downtown st. louis were seen as undesirable for 100 years due to pollution, and development moved at a fast clip away frm downtown to the higher ground west. Milwaukees wealth seemed to ease along the lake like Chicago.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

For one, it seems like St. Louis (and Kansas City) were able to procure lots and lots of gov't money for urban redevelopment and expressway construction. The other cities that were able to do this probably did a lot of damage to themselves as well. Perhaps Milwaukee "tampered" with itself less and rode things out during the era of "big destruction." St. Louis was intense, on the other hand.

i suppose it's possible that milwaukee tore itself up less than other midwest cities, but milaukee still had its fair share of urban expressway construction (and related destruction) and urban renewal as well. I-94 and I-43 tore right through and ripped apart urban neighborhoods in milwaukee just as the expressways did in other midwest cities.

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Also the neighborhoods closest to downtown st. louis were seen as undesirable for 100 years due to pollution, and development moved at a fast clip away frm downtown to the higher ground west. Milwaukees wealth seemed to ease along the lake like Chicago.

the desirability of milwaukee's eastside lakefront hoods, and the density that desirability brings, is definitely a big reason why milwaukee has so much more high density areas than its peers, but it's not the only reason. referencing the density map with the ethnic break down map, it seems that milwaukee also has more higher density hoods in it's black neighborhoods than other midwest cities. and milwaukee also has a large swath of higher density, predominantly latino neighborhoods south of the menomonee valley. in that regard, milwaukee mimics its larger brother chicago. a few other midwest cities have small pockets of higher density latino hoods, but miwlaukee is really the only one where you see the phenomenon on such a scale (outside of chicago of course).

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by LMich

Weird. They have Detroit as being 139.6 square miles in 1950, when it's been 138.75 sq mi since 1926. I'd say it included water, but that wouldn't make sense, either.

Zug Island is 0.93 square miles, so perhaps the 1950 Census accidentally took it out of River Rouge and put it in Detroit.

[Steely Dan]

from a thread in the city discussions thread, here are the weighted densities of the midwest's 10 largest MSAs:

1. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville: 9,461,105 - 8,613 ppsm
2. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis: 1,555,908 - 5,258 ppsm
3. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington: 3,279,833 - 3,838 ppsm
4. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor: 2,077,240 - 3,808 ppsm
5. Detroit-Warren-Livonia: 4,296,250 - 3,800 ppsm
6. Columbus: 1,836,536 - 3,186 ppsm
7. St. Louis: 2,812,896 - 2,743 ppsm
8. Cincinnati-Middletown: 2,130,151 - 2,564 ppsm
9. Kansas City: 2,035,334 - 2,326 ppsm
10. Indianapolis-Carmel: 1,756,241 - 2,286 ppsm


the only real surprise here is st. louis, i thought it wold have been closer to detroit/cleveland.

[hudkina]

There's a lot of land along the rivers in the St. Louis metro that is virtually empty. I wonder if that plays a role in the numbers.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by hudkina

There's a lot of land along the rivers in the St. Louis metro that is virtually empty. I wonder if that plays a role in the numbers.

but in a weighted density analysis, virtually empty areas shouldn't affect the results too much because the whole purpose of calculating a weighted density is to figure out the density of areas where most of the people actually live, not the uninhabited flood plains & industrial wastelands of our metro areas. areas that are virtually uninhabited will have virtually no weight in the calculations.

[pip]

^does weighted density use census tracts density for their stats?

[LMich]

How else would you measure it with Census data? Do you mean block, or block ground, maybe?

[JivecitySTL]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

from a thread in the city discussions thread, here are the weighted densities of the midwest's 10 largest MSAs:

1. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville: 9,461,105 - 8,613 ppsm
2. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis: 1,555,908 - 5,258 ppsm
3. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington: 3,279,833 - 3,838 ppsm
4. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor: 2,077,240 - 3,808 ppsm
5. Detroit-Warren-Livonia: 4,296,250 - 3,800 ppsm
6. Columbus: 1,836,536 - 3,186 ppsm
7. St. Louis: 2,812,896 - 2,743 ppsm
8. Cincinnati-Middletown: 2,130,151 - 2,564 ppsm
9. Kansas City: 2,035,334 - 2,326 ppsm
10. Indianapolis-Carmel: 1,756,241 - 2,286 ppsm


the only real surprise here is st. louis, i thought it wold have been closer to detroit/cleveland.

Not debating these figures, but I can tell you that St. Louis definitely does not feel like a low-density metro area at all. I guess I would attrubute the lower than expected numbers to the several largely rural counties that are technically considered part of the STL metro area. I wonder what the numbers would look like for urbanized area density.

[Centropolis]

st. louis has a pretty large rural hinterland that i'm sure skews metro density numbers way down. people commute from the friggin' ozarks up here because there are not many small cities down there, unlike the more populated areas of the midwest.


http://www.cdc.gov

look at KC and StL, they are massive compared to every other metro in the midwest.

[d'trolley]

Centropolis, what does that map you posted show? There aren't any words or titles or anything. Just the numbers and colors.

And Jive City, what do you expect out of those numbers? We're talking about metro density. Of course Chicago is in it's own world, and I guess Milwaukee is too. The rest of the Midwest metro areas are all pretty similar in density. This isn't surprising. Your Stl metro is right in the middle there, which also isn't surprising.

Again, what do you expect? I know you Stl folks like to talk up your density, which in terms of the city proper you should as it is pretty dense, but as for the metro area it isn't really that dense. It is pretty average. Parts of the county are reasonably dense for suburbs, but then that is offset by the further out parts of the county. Every city has these exurban areas included in their totals. I know it's annoying man, because you think about what your numbers would be like without those rural areas. You just gotta deal with it though. Be glad St. Louis doesn't have this problem in it's city proper like KC does. Let me tell you, that is annoying. Looking at our density numbers is pathetic, because half of the city is sparsely developed and not a part of the "city."

[hudkina]

Milwaukee gains from not having many rural counties in its metro area.

[LMich]

I'd suspect that's because it's the smallest metro area on that list, so you'd expect its employment reach to be a bit less strong than the others. Still, calculating metro densities seems to serve a very limited purpose given, again, that they are based on employment. You do population by built environment (urban area), and the ranking is notably different.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LMich

You do population by built environment (urban area), and the ranking is notably different.

well, here are urban area weighted density numbers (from cenusus 2000, the most recent i could find) for the midwest's largest cities. the ranking doesn't look that notably different to me, other than minneapolis falling a couple notches. and unfortunately, indy and columbus weren't included in the list i found, so i don't know where they would rank, though my best guess is that indy would be last again.

1. Chicago: 10,270 ppsm
2. Milwaukee: 5,830 ppsm
3. Cleveland: 5,033 ppsm
4. Detroit: 4,955 ppsm
5. Minneapolis-St Paul: 4,196 ppsm
6. St Louis: 3,566 ppsm
7. Cincinnati: 3,274 ppsm
8. Kansas City: 3,041 ppsm

source: http://austinzoning.typepad.com/aust...ed-densit.html