Declining Metro Areas
Here we discuss a lot urban decline, after all, it's an US-centric forum and we have plenty of examples of urban population drops, with dramatic plunges like Detroit or St. Louis city proper.
However, when it comes to metropolitan areas, declines are either rare or very smooth or it happened at some point and the region recovery afterwards (e.g. New York, London). So I open the thread to bring those examples and for discussing future declines or recovery. Let's start with: Detroit https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e74f2b19_c.jpg Area: 10,081 km² Population 1910: - 709,883 1920: 1,407,111 --- 98.2% 1930: 2,292,528 --- 62.9% 1940: 2,506,530 ---- 9.3% 1950: 3,170,315 --- 26.5% 1960: 3,949,720 --- 24.6% 1970: 4,431,390 --- 12.2% 1980: 4,353,365 --- -1.8% 1990: 4,248,699 --- -2.4% 2000: 4,452,557 ---- 4.8% 2010: 4,296,250 --- -3.5% 2020: 4,392,041 ---- 2.2% Population peak: 2000 Decline from the peak: -1.4% Biggest decline: -4.1% (1970-1990) Detroit, world's most well known example of urban decay, losing 2/3 of its city proper population, it's barely below its peak when we look to its metro area. And if things keep going well (and the US decides to resume immigration), they might even surpass it. Note how fast Detroit was growing before decline, dropping from a double-digit rate to negative within one decade. Boom and bust. Although it looks a bit odd, that's not a rare phenomenon. We see it rather often. I'll post more later and it won't be an only US list. |
Detroit continued to grow fairly significantly until 1970. Buffalo is basically the same in population as in 1950, and dropped by 8% in the 1970s. Between 1970 and 2010, the population declined in every decade.
Buffalo-Niagara Falls 1940 959,487 1950 1,089,230 +13.5% 1960 1,306,957 +20% 1970 1,349,211 +3.2% 1980 1,242,826 -7.9% 1990 1,189,430 -4.3% 2000 1,170,116 -1.6% 2010 1,135,509 -3% 2020 1,166,902 +2.8% |
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And if we look to smaller metro areas, like Scranton-Wilkes Barre, then the decline started even before, in the 1930's. |
Pittsburgh
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d83fcf8a_z.jpg Area: 9,944 km² Population 1890: - 841,349 1900: 1,140,808 --- 35.6% 1910: 1,544,490 --- 35.4% 1920: 1,837,259 --- 19.0% 1930: 2,103,749 --- 14.5% 1940: 2,170,146 ---- 3.2% 1950: 2,310,556 ---- 6.5% 1960: 2,520,074 ---- 9.1% 1970: 2,529,186 ---- 0.4% 1980: 2,411,806 --- -4.6% 1990: 2,249,460 --- -6.7% 2000: 2,210,051 --- -1.8% 2010: 2,150,738 --- -2.7% 2020: 2,176,568 ---- 1.2% Population peak: 1970 * Decline from the peak: -13.6% Largest decline: -14.7% (1970-2010) * I use to say Pittsburgh start to decline in the 1960's. That's because the back then metro area definition didn't include Butler County. By the four-county definition, Pittsburgh peaked in 1960 with 2,405,435 falling to 2,401,245 in 1970. Pittsburgh is the most emblematic case of a major metro area in the US. Absolute decline kicked very early and they lost population every single census, only recovering now in 2020. Note that relative decline started in the beginning of the 20th century, with its growth rates slowing down in 1930's and not rebounding on the 1940's- 1960's as happened everywhere in the US. Unlike Detroit posted above, Pittsburgh rises way earlier (it was the US 5th largest metro area by the turn of the 20th century). In 1910, it had twice the size of Detroit. Pittsburgh was not a case of boom and bust either: their slowdown was a smooth process that happened over several decades. On the other hand, they experienced very big declines over two decades (1970's and 1980's). And in a time the US reaches their smallest population growth ever (2010-2020), Pittsburgh, even with a very aged population (lots of deaths), resumes its growth. |
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Multiple cities are challenging the census data, including my own: https://www.boston.com/news/politics...ing-the-tally/ |
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In Buffalo, the inner city and inner suburb decline has pretty much already stopped. Here's all of the inner ring suburbs: ° Tonawanda, pop. 72.6k (-931) 3rd largest suburb ° West Seneca, pop. 45.5k (+789) ° Cheektowaga, 89.8k (+1,651) 2nd largest suburb (Buffalo-Niagara airport, Walden Galleria-largest mall) ° Lackawanna, pop. ~20k (+1,808) ° Amherst, pop. 129.6k (+7,229) the largest suburb (UB North campus) with largest concentration of wealth is both inner and secondary ring ° City of Buffalo, pop. 278.3k (+17,039) ° Erie county is 954,236 (+35,196) Erie County Map https://i.ibb.co/cbQndCn/Erie-County-Town-Map.png highly recommend people check out the google streetview Before/After comparisons benp did on SSC--post #1860 onward https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threa...733630/page-93 Quote:
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1990 20,041 10.4% 2000 26,123 30.3% 2010 30,673 17.4% 2020 32,950 7.4% Still growing, wealthier than ever! Still one of the best school districts too. There was just an article in Buffalo Business First that 11 homes have sold in Clarence for over $1M this year. I remember when the entirety of Western NY didn't even have 5 million dollar home transactions. Quote:
Whenever I see your username I'm like "is this Ken Klippenstein from twitter?" :D |
Torino
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6c045810_c.jpg Area: 885 km² Population 1951: - 913,742 1961: 1,292,826 --- 41.5% 1971: 1,678,022 --- 29.8% 1981: 1,706,523 ---- 1.7% 1991: 1,591,337 --- -6.7% 2001: 1,507,896 --- -5.2% 2011: 1,548,945 ---- 2.7% 2021: 1,527,041 --- -1.4% Population peak: 1981 Decline from the peak: -10.5% Biggest decline: -11.6% (1981-2001) As we hardly ever leave the US, here one coming from Europe, the beautiful Turin, Italy's Detroit, Italian unification capital. Aside being the seat of Italian auto industry, Turin shares another similarity with Detroit, which is the insane growth rate followed by stagnation/decline. The boom and bust. Decline took longer to reach Turin: it was in the 1980's as opposed to the 1970's that were tragic for the entire US North. Turin saw a small recovery on the 2000's due mass immigration to Italy, but as Italian demographics deteriorated a lot in the recent years, Turin is back to negative. |
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About Detroit, the thing is the city decline was so intense and dramatic, that changes our perceptions about the big picture. Detroit metro area economy faced those Rust Belt issues, but it was not a special case. For one thing, its industrial base was more "modern" (cars) whereas Pittsburgh was "older" (steel, coal). |
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Buffalo and Pittsburgh are more traditional Eastern cities, and there's very little sprawl of recent vintage. Both cities have stronger city propers, with not much going on in suburbia, relatively speaking. A lot of Detroit looks like Dallas, not just in built form, but demographics. Endless McMansions with tons of South Asians and Arabs, giant freeway-like surface arterials, megachurches, drive-thru everything, bleak, relatively treeless townships relentlessly consuming farmland. Places like Canton Township, Novi, Lyon Township, Commerce Township, Rochester Hills, etc. Kinda a Dallas-Toronto sprawl mashup, minus the Dallas Mexicans and the Toronto apartment blocks. Pittsburgh just looks like the biggest city in Appalachia, Buffalo is basically just another Upstate city and both kinda feel frozen in place outside the healthier cores. This is a good thing, BTW. Nice to not have 100 Sams Clubs and endless McCrapBoxes. |
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Chicago indeed never experienced a decline and today it's the city/metro area we discussed more today when it comes to stagnant/decline population. Same for Rochester, located far away from everything on NY upstate and they managed to avoid decline for all over those decades. Interestingly, both Chicago and Rochester was projected to lose population in the 2010's for the first time, but 2020 Census showed they didn't. Quote:
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Novi resembles Toronto's 905 suburbs a bit. Nothing like that in Buffalo.
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