Indianapolis: over 50 years of urban "cheating"?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by plinko

So, I think you might find this sort of core population reduction in many places you might not suspect.

In 1950, Phoenix was 17.1 Sq.Mi. and had a population of 106,000.

That same area in 2020? About 55,000 (accordingly to ChatGPT using a density estimate).

I would love to see the exact numbers, but that doesn't sound unreasonable. This was right before the annexation spree that took the city to 187 Sq.Mi. and 439,000 people by 1960.

During that same time (1950-2020), the metro area has grown from 400,000 to 4,500,000.

Yeah, you can do it in just about any city. Manhattan's population in the 1980s was down 40% from its peak in the 1910s, but it has recovered some to only be down only about 30% today. Part of the drop was smaller households, obviously, but there was also suburbanization, housing loss from urban renewal, lack of immigration, etc.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by plinko

So, I think you might find this sort of core population reduction in many places you might not suspect.

The surprise isn't that oh so many US urban cores everywhere lost population in the post-war era.

The surprise is crusty, stagnant, rustbelt Milwaukee hanging onto a greater share of its core population during the urban dark ages than dynamic, fast-growing, "new midwest" cities like KC, Indy, and Columbus.

That's really unexpected given the narratives about these cities; narratives that have been shaped in part by massive amounts of land annexation completely masking heavy central core population decline.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, if you asked most US urbanists which of the 4 major midwest post-war land annexers (Columbus, Indy, KC, and Milwaukee) has fared the best in terms of city-core population retention over the past 70 years, my guess is that no one would say Milwaukee. In fact, most would likely place Milwaukee last out of the four on that score.

Hell, I probably would've put Milwaukee in last place too before seeing this data.

Very, VERY counter-narrative.

Milwaukee has the largest Latino community by far, which I'm sure kept population densities pretty high in the southern half of the city.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Milwaukee has the largest Latino community by far, which I'm sure kept population densities pretty high in the southern half of the city.

That fact certainly hasn't hurt Milwaukee, but KC isn't very far behind %-wise.

And every major midwest MSA, other than chicago, is pretty far behind the national average of 18%.

There's gotta be a lot more to the story.


Midwest/Rustbelt 1M+ MSAs by latino share (2020):

chicago: 2,239,376 (23.3%)
milwaukee: 182,777 (11.6%)
kansas city: 229,233 (10.5%)
grand rapids: 110,671 (10.2%)
indianapolis: 177,787 (8.4%)
rochetser: 88,854 (8.1%)
minneapolis: 242,621 (6.8%)
cleveland: 133,862 (6.4%)
buffalo: 67,476 (5.8%)
columbus: 110,967 (5.2%)
detroit: 219,953 (5.0%)
cincinnati: 95,073 (4.2%)
st. louis: 106,269 (3.8%)
pittsburgh: 52,920 (2.2%)

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by plinko

So, I think you might find this sort of core population reduction in many places you might not suspect.

In 1950, Phoenix was 17.1 Sq.Mi. and had a population of 106,000.

That same area in 2020? About 55,000 (accordingly to ChatGPT using a density estimate).

I would love to see the exact numbers, but that doesn't sound unreasonable. This was right before the annexation spree that took the city to 187 Sq.Mi. and 439,000 people by 1960.

During that same time (1950-2020), the metro area has grown from 400,000 to 4,500,000.

Salt Lake City has largely kept its same borders and rarely annexed large areas of the surrounding communities and in 1960, saw its peak (at the time) population of 189,454. By 1990, the city's population had dropped to 159,936, which was the lowest since the mid-1940s. In that span, Salt Lake basically lost like 15% of its total population.

It wasn't until the last 10 or so years that Salt Lake finally reached its 1960 population total (and finally exceeded it).

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

That fact certainly hasn't hurt Milwaukee, but KC isn't very far behind %-wise.

And every major midwest MSA, other than chicago, is pretty far behind the national average of 18%.

There's gotta be a lot more to the story.

Yeah. I've not spent time in Milwaukee, but I have noticed doing google street view/satellite excursions that there's shockingly little blight in the city. North Division seems to be the worst blighted area, and even here, like over half the homes are still standing.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

That fact certainly hasn't hurt Milwaukee, but KC isn't very far behind %-wise.

And every major midwest MSA, other than chicago, is pretty far behind the national average of 18%.

There's gotta be a lot more to the story.


Midwest/Rustbelt 1M+ MSAs by latino share (2020):

chicago: 2,239,376 (23.3%)
milwaukee: 182,777 (11.6%)
kansas city: 229,233 (10.5%)
grand rapids: 110,671 (10.2%)
indianapolis: 177,787 (8.4%)
rochester: 88,854 (8.1%)
minneapolis: 242,621 (6.8%)
cleveland: 133,862 (6.4%)
buffalo: 67,476 (5.8%)
columbus: 110,967 (5.2%)
detroit: 219,953 (5.0%)
cincinnati: 95,073 (4.2%)
st. louis: 106,269 (3.8%)
pittsburgh: 52,920 (2.2%)

It's always so odd to see Pittsburgh with a Metro of almost 2.5 million has such a low percentage of Hispanic/Latino population, and Rochester, NY that's a slightly smaller Metro than Buffalo around 1.1 million have way more per capita (almost 4x) than Pittsburgh.

I love Pittsburgh and have no idea why it's not resurging. Having 250,000+ Latinos would definitely help.

[iheartthed]

^The Latino share gap between St. Louis and Kansas City is pretty wild considering they're similarly sized cities located in the same state.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

^The Latino share gap between St. Louis and Kansas City is pretty wild considering they're similarly sized cities located in the same state.

Wow that is wild, over double the population in KC Metro

[BigDipper 80]

St. Louis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh have always been incredibly white (well, white and black) places, and Appalachian/river cities tend to not diversify as much for whatever reason.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by BigDipper 80

St. Louis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh have always been incredibly white (well, white and black) places, and Appalachian/river cities tend to not diversify as much for whatever reason.

I've always heard for Pittsburgh it was in part because it was a very stagnant place economically for the period in the 1980s where most metros got their "seed population" of migrants from Mexico. As a result, migrants just made other choices.

When I first moved to Pittsburgh 20 years ago, the Latino community was so small that the largest single concentration of Latinos was in the university areas of Oakland (as in, they were students from elsewhere coming here just to learn). That's changed a little bit in recent years, as there's a neighborhood in the Southern part of the city that's maybe 10% Mexican.

OTOH, Asian migration into the area is pretty robust, from Chinese students who come here for school, to Indians in the suburbs, to a pretty large Bhutanese refugee population.

[Crawford]

I'm pretty sure KC and Chicago were historical outliers, receiving Mexicans via rail long before modern-day migration. Maybe stockyards, logistics and the like?

Also a lot of migration doesn't have much logic beyond some dudes initially finding success and then attracting more from their region. I know Chicago Mexicans tend to hail from Guanajuato state.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm pretty sure KC and Chicago were historical outliers, receiving Mexicans via rail long before modern-day migration. Maybe stockyards, logistics and the like?

Yes, Chicago's first large wave of Mexican immigrants came to the city in the 1910's, primarily as railroad workers at first, followed by others looking for work in chicago's numerous industries that required lots of low and no skill labor, with the community growing to about 20,000 just prior to the great depression (which caused a significant % to repatriate back to Mexico). After the war, things kicked off again in a big way, fundamentally changing the demographic character of chicagoland forever over the next 7 decades, with some 1.7M people of mexican ancestry now living in the MSA.

I have no idea why Mexicans were so slow, relatively speaking, to spread out to most other midwest cities, though Milwaukee being #2 in the region likely has a lot to do with its very close proximity to chicago.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Also a lot of migration doesn't have much logic beyond some dudes initially finding success and then attracting more from their region. I know Chicago Mexicans tend to hail from Guanajuato state.

Yes, that early wave of mexican immigration to chicago primarily came from Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacan. And today, the lion's share of Mexicans in Chicago can trace their lineage back to one or more of those three states in west central Mexico. They are "the big 3" of mexican immigration to Chicago.

[Wigs]

Kansas City streetcar's short 3/4 mile riverfront extension opened the other day, May 18th. Connecting the city between UMKC, Country Club Plaza, Crossroads District/ Art museums/Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Crown Center (Hallmark HQ where the Kansas City Royals new stadium will go), Downtown to the riverfront where a new neighborhood is rising and nearby the KC Current women's soccer team stadium.

KC streetcar promo <1min
• Video Link

KC ABC affiliate coverage <2 minutes
• Video Link

About 5,000 residents will eventually call the riverfront neighborhood home. The expanded line is now approximately 6.5 miles and free to ride for everyone. Just hop on and hop off at will

[meh]

^ why are you posting this here?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by meh

^ why are you posting this here?

because Kansas City was part of the discussion and the city is on the rise. Is this not city discussions?

I've been on this forum for 20 years longer than you.

I can post whatever the hell I want, hall monitor

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Wigs

It's always so odd to see Pittsburgh with a Metro of almost 2.5 million has such a low percentage of Hispanic/Latino population, and Rochester, NY that's a slightly smaller Metro than Buffalo around 1.1 million have way more per capita (almost 4x) than Pittsburgh.

I love Pittsburgh and have no idea why it's not resurging. Having 250,000+ Latinos would definitely help.

I missed this comment before, but Rochester's Latino community is mostly Puerto Rican. Indeed, I believe it is proportionately one of the most Puerto Rican mid/large sized cities in the U.S. Regardless, it's NYC spillover - something you also see throughout parts of Upstate NY, and even extending as far west as Cleveland, Ohio. Erie got a little bit from this as well, but the migration never made it to Pittsburgh. Though to be fair, west of Cleveland, Puerto Ricans didn't move anywhere except a few parts of Chicago.

Around half of Pittsburgh is doing quite well now, but there's a tranche of neighborhoods that really need a new immigrant community bad. They're the historically working-class white parts of the city where there's nary of whiff of gentrification. They are getting more diverse, but because Pittsburgh is also a pretty white metro (and much of the black population is moving to the suburbs) they aren't really transitioning into black neighborhoods, just emptying.

[Docere]

It would be interesting to see what "old" Indianapolis and "old" Columbus look like in terms of present day demographics (ethnic, education, socioeconomic etc.)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Though to be fair, west of Cleveland, Puerto Ricans didn't move anywhere except a few parts of Chicago.

While it's true that PR #'s are usually dwarfed by Mexicans once you get west of Cleveland in the region, it's not exactly true that Chicago was the only place they settled. Milwaukee and Detroit have decently-sized PR communties as well.


Midwest/Rustbelt MSAs with at least 10,000 Puerto Ricans (2020):

Chicago: 207,526 (2.2%)
Cleveland: 71,778 (3.5%)
Rochester: 53,294 (5.0%)
Milwaukee: 39,279 (2.5%)
Buffalo: 37,934 (3.4%)
Detroit: 24,153 (0.6%)
Columbus: 15,099 (0.7%)
Youngstown: 12,045 (2.2%)
Minneapolis: 11,981 (0.3%)
Pittsburgh: 10,663 (0.5%)

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stateside_Puerto_Rican_communities


The common denominator of the top 6 above (numerically) is that they're all great lakes cities.

Generally speaking, it was the river cities and "new midwest" cities that were mostly left outta the PR migration equation.

[iheartthed]

There were more Puerto Ricans in mid-20th century Detroit than there are today. The same is probably true for Cleveland too. It's hard to say how many there were because the census bureau did not track Puerto Rican or Hispanic as an ethnicity until 1970. Before then Hispanics most likely self-described as white.