Declining Metro Areas

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

from the context of the thread, it was pretty clear to me that Wigs was talking about major metro areas when he said "cities".

so using a cut-off of 1M+ MSAs, the first major US metro areas that experienced population decline were detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh, and buffalo, all whom experienced their first decade of metro area loss in the '70s.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

That’s a very modern definition of major, no?

Why would we not also consider and include cities that had the same growth trajectories as those that would become larger than 1 million, and were considered major cities by the definition of that time period, yet never reached that milestone because of their decline?

When I decided to start this thread, the intention was to discuss only with metro areas that reached 1 million inh. Genoa, that touched that milestone in the 1970's, will be the smallest area I intended to bring.

Of course the discussion in this thread will exhaust eventually, then I can bring Youngstown, Scranton-Wilkes, Flint, Wheeling-Steubenville or British coal cities that had more people in the late 19th century than today.

And as I hinted, I intend to bring figures from metro area that shrinked at some point (London, New York, Philadelphia, Boston). Even though they quickly recovery and it's hard to imagine they declined at some point, people on the ground back then didn't know whether they would comeback or not. Or as a bonus, the Japanese massive metro areas that started to decline in the late 2010's.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Philadelphia and New York also declined that decade. Boston came very close to declining in the 1970s, but squeaked out a slight growth.

And depending on how you define Boston, they also declined. On the five-county definition, for instance, they did. Still in the "North", St. Louis also declined in the 1970's. Out the major metro areas in the region, only Chicago, Baltimore and Cincinnati were spared.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Philadelphia and New York also declined that decade.

I always forget that those two actually briefly declined back in the 70s, probably because they rebounded so quickly and because I was just a toddler back in the late 70s.

Also, metro milwaukee is another one that saw a slight drop in the 70s before going back upwards.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think Detroit, even in 1930, was anywhere close to Philly, Boston or SF in terms of downtown vibrancy. Once there were cars, it was always a polycentric, auto-oriented model. There were very strong secondary districts, like Grand River-Joy and Grand River-Greenfield, not that different from LA.

Detroit probably had the third best collection of prewar highrises on earth, but the downtown was always pretty compact. There were never more than three department stores (albeit one was one of the world's largest), and the commercial core was only a few blocks. There were only two department stores by the late 1950's. There was never much of a prewar highrise residential lifestyle, outside of a few buildings along/near Woodward. The 1920's-era theaters and office buildings were incredibly grand, basically unmatched outside of NY and Chicago, but there wasn't much else. There were two streets worth a stroll - Woodward and Washington Blvd. Granted, Woodward was a pedestrian crush until the late 1960's.

This whole analysis is bullshit. The existence of commercial corridors outside of downtown (which every urban city has/had) is not evidence of Detroit being particularly "polycentrict" or "auto-oriented", its pretty typical of a traditionally build US city. That's like saying Wicker Park is evidence Chicago is built like LA, utter stupidity. Acting like Grand River Greenfield was somehow a downtown rival is an absolute joke. It had a Montgomery Ward, lol. Meanwhile Hudsons was the third largest department store in the united states. Downtown was one of the biggest powerhouses of retail in the US let alone the damn city.

Two seconds of googling shows plenty of pre-war high-rise residential nowhere near Woodward corridor. Also Woodward is huge, like all the avenues. It's length in the city is 8 miles. So saying "only Woodward" doesn't mean insignificant.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3387...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3520...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3556...7i16384!8i8192

Also since when the hell was the greatness of a downtown judged by the residential high-rises?? Boston had basically non of that. All of the city's downtown residential was in colonial row houses and midrises. Most of central Detroit's was typically apartment buildings and duplexes with some rowhomes mixed between.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

In its heyday, downtown Detroit was way ahead of Dallas or Phoenix. In 1950s America, there wouldn't have been maybe 2 or 3 downtowns in America that were stronger than Detroit: NYC, Chicago, and arguably Philadelphia. That this is not apparent today says more about the scale of the loss of urbanity in Detroit than anything else.

Downtown vibrancy in Dallas and especially Phoenix cannot touch downtown Detroit today, it remains way ahead. Even bigger metro areas likes Houston and Atlanta don't have as good of a downtown. So I'm not sure what it says other than that the city has built back it's strong downtown after a bad period in the late 90's/2000's. And it's seriously starting to build on it now.

Detroit is easily the 2nd best downtown in the Midwest and probably on the back end of top 10 in the US.

[Yuri]

Liverpool


Expedia

Area: 1,252 km²

Population
1861: - 787,130
1881: 1,126,141
1891: 1,266,031 --- 12.4%
1911: 1,596,675
1921: 1,726,441 ---- 8.1%
1931: 1,827,894 ---- 5.9%
1951: 1,949,220
1961: 2,012,044 ---- 3.2%
1971: 2,012,476 ---- 0.0%
1981: 1,881,219 --- -6.5%
1991: 1,818,776 --- -3.3%
2001: 1,779,692 --- -2.1%
2011: 1,819,848 ---- 2.3%
2021: 1,880,166 ---- 3.3%

Population peak: 1971

Decline from the peak: -6.6%

Biggest decline: -11.6% (1971-2001)

Another British city, a busy port and industrial centre. Liverpool had already slowed down in the 1880's, even earlier than Glasgow or Manchester.

And as the other metro areas in the British Rust Belt, it's been growing for the past 10 years fueled by good economic performance and immigration.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland.

Pittsburgh metro area was defined by the US Census Bureau as the 4 counties (minus Butler) till 1983. Then Fayette was included.

That's how the 4-county Pittsburgh grew (2020-1950):
+0,81% -3,39% -2,93% -7,35% -5,72% -0,17% +8,68%

And that's Butler County:
+5,39% +5,62% +14,52% +2,77% +15,61% +11,60% +17,80%

Since the 1950's at least, Butler was clearly a booming suburb of Pittsburgh, hence I included it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's how 5-county Pittsburgh performed (2020-2000):
+1,20% -2,68%

And the two counties of the MSA I decided to drop here:

Armstrong: -4,91% -4,77%
Fayette: -5,71% -8,10%

Pittsburgh forumers always say that all counties minus Allegheny are actually a collection of small coal towns and not Pittsburgh suburbs per se. I don't know about that, but clearly they have a case for Armstrong and Fayette. They don't behave like suburbs, but like collapsing coal counties.

That's why I decided to use the 5 counties to define "Pittsburgh metro area" here.

Gotcha. It seems like it would be easier to use the US census MSA numbers for these comparisons but this is your rodeo.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Gotcha. It seems like it would be easier to use the US census MSA numbers for these comparisons but this is your rodeo.

As I'm doing an international list, where any other country featured has any metropolitan area definition whatsoever, I guess I can take some liberties. And even in the US, as we're discussing historical events, we could might select past definitions and not only today's.

In any case, I brought the total areas on the top of every list for people to make sense of the definition I'm using it and how they compare with other metro areas.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I always forget that those two actually briefly declined back in the 70s, probably because they rebounded so quickly and because I was just a toddler back in the late 70s.

Also, metro milwaukee is another one that saw a slight drop in the 70s before going back upwards.

New York metro didn't fully recover its 1970s population drop until the 2000 census. This was also the case for metro Detroit, but Detroit declined a second time after the 2000 census.

[Steely Dan]

^ what I meant by "rebounded so quickly" was that the population growth for new York's MSA was positive in the 80s after falling a good deal in the 70s, whereas the Detroit metro did a double dip in back to back decades of the 70s/80s.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Out the major metro areas in the region, only Chicago, Baltimore and Cincinnati were spared.

i don't think columbus, indy, the twin cities, or KC had metro wide popualtion dips either, unless you're using different definitions that i don't know about.

Originally Posted by The North One

Detroit is easily the 2nd best downtown in the Midwest.

downtown detroit would be in the conversation about the 2nd best downtown in the midwest after chicago, but i don't think there's anything "easy" about it.

minneapolis and cincy would be very solid contenders for that title as well, based on my first hand experiences.

pittsburgh would absolutely be there as well if expanding it out to a midwest/rustbelt thing, as we often do.

one of the biggest strikes against downtown detroit would be the persistent abundance of emtpy lots and parking lots.

[ChiSoxRox]

To put the primary source numbers on the 1970s shrinking metro discussion:

The SCSA and stand-alone SMSAs over 1 million that declined in the 1980 Census by 1980 definitions, starts on page 182 of this large PDF

Buffalo: 1,242,826 (-7.9%)
Pittsburgh: 2,263,894 (-5.7%)
Cleveland: 2,834,062 (-5.5%)
New York: 16,121,297 (-5.4%) (Close to a 1M numerical drop!)
Dayton*: 1,013,955 (-2.5%)
St. Louis: 2,356,460 (-2.3%)
Boston: 3,448,122 (-2.2%)
Philadelphia: 5,547,902 (-1.4%)
Detroit: 4,618,161 (-1.1%)
Milwaukee: 1,570,725 (-0.3%)

The Chicago SCSA posted 1.9% growth. With Metro LA posting 15.2%, New York losing its top spot must have felt inevitable in 1980.

*Back then, Dayton SCSA included Springfield to nudge past 1 M. Cincinnati SCSA was +2.9%.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i don't think columbus, indy, the twin cities, or KC had metro wide popualtion dips either, unless you're using different definitions that i don't know about.

No, they don’t but I ignored them as no one would ever assume they would have shrunk. The other three are on the Rust Belt borderlands and people would expect to have declined at some point.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Yuri

No, they don’t but I ignored them as no one would ever assume they would have shrunk. The other three are on the Rust Belt borderlands and people would expect to have declined at some point.

gotcha.

when you said "in the region" i thought you were talking about the entire "north" (northeast + midwest).

but yeah, chicago, baltimore, and cincy bucking the '70s rustbelt metro area decline trend is interesting.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

downtown detroit would be in the conversation about the 2nd best downtown in the midwest after chicago, but i don't think there's anything "easy" about it.

minneapolis and cincy would be very solid contenders for that title as well, based on my first hand experiences.

pittsburgh would absolutely be there as well if expanding it out to a midwest/rustbelt thing, as we often do.

I don't feel like Minneapolis is much of a contender mostly because of it's skyway system that kills the street level. And their downtown is very much dominated by boxy corporate 80's early 90's towers that were built with no consideration of the street level, there is so much dead space and blank walls with no retail.

Agreed that Cincy and Pittsburgh are good downtowns. I'd say Pittsburgh comes the closest. But I don't feel like Cincy is much competition, especially after Macy's has closed down and now their Saks is closing at the end of this year. They're both just too small. And both have hard barriers on nearly all sides so they can't really get any better.

one of the biggest strikes against downtown detroit would be the persistent abundance of emtpy lots and parking lots.

That's true. But thankfully the biggest parking lot downtown is about to be filled by UofM's research campus, construction starting next year. So the lots are becoming less of a problem.

[pip]

I would argue Milwaukee is a top contender for a downtown in the Midwest. It is surrounded by the Third Ward area, the East Side neighborhood, the lakefront, and is overall a pleasant downtown.

[Yuri]

From the Downtown thread:

---------------------------------------------- 2020 ---------- 2010 ---------- 2000 ---------- 1990 -------- Growth --------- Area --------- Density

Chicago ----------- 225,293 -- 167,946 -- 120,397 --- 99,602 ---- 34.1% ---- 39.5% --- 20.9% -- 22.8 km²
Minneapolis -------- 41,093 --- 29,725 --- 24,149 --- 21,157 ---- 38.2% ---- 23.1% --- 14.1% --- 7.5 km² -- 5,471.0 inh./km²
Detroit Midtown ---- 16,921 --- 14,550 --- 16,877 --- 16,692 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.8% ---- 1.1% --- 5.4 km² -- 3,141.7 inh./km²
Pittsburgh --------- 15,497 --- 13,101 --- 12,195 ---- 9,739 ---- 18.3% ----- 7.4% --- 25.2% --- 4.8 km² -- 3,225.2 inh./km²
Milwaukee ---------- 13,556 --- 10,518 ---- 7,557 ---- 5,736 ---- 28.9% ---- 39.2% --- 31.7% --- 3.6 km² -- 3,784.5 inh./km²
Cleveland ---------- 13,338 ---- 9,471 ---- 6,312 ---- 4,561 ---- 40.8% ---- 50.0% --- 38.4% --- 7.8 km² -- 1,705.6 inh./km²
St. Paul ----------- 11,808 ---- 9,050 ---- 7,999 ---- 6,711 ---- 30.5% ---- 13.1% --- 19.2% --- 3.2 km² -- 3,663.7 inh./km²
Indianapolis ------- 10,469 ---- 6,478 ---- 3,742 ---- 3,387 ---- 61.6% ---- 73.1% --- 10.5% --- 2.9 km² -- 3,628.8 inh./km²
Kansas City --------- 9,743 ---- 5,089 ---- 3,755 ---- 3,856 ---- 91.5% ---- 35.5% --- -2.6% --- 2.3 km² -- 4,275.1 inh./km²
St. Louis ----------- 9,642 ---- 6,998 ---- 3,385 ---- 3,250 ---- 37.8% --- 106.7% ---- 4.2% --- 3.2 km² -- 3,034.0 inh./km²
Cincinnati Downtown - 6,629 ---- 5,657 ---- 4,303 ---- 4,649 ---- 17.2% ---- 31.5% --- -7.4% --- 2.7 km² -- 2,486.5 inh./km²
Detroit New Center -- 6,484 ---- 5,675 ---- 7,843 ---- 8,146 ---- 14.3% --- -27.6% --- -3.7% --- 3.1 km² -- 2,123.8 inh./km²
Detroit Downtown ---- 6,151 ---- 5,287 ---- 6,141 ---- 5,970 ---- 16.3% ---- 13.9% ---- 2.9% --- 3.7 km² -- 1,668.3 inh./km²
Rochester ----------- 5,638 ---- 4,430 ---- 3,974 ---- 3,776 ---- 27.3% ---- 11.5% ---- 5.2% --- 1.8 km² -- 3,207.1 inh./km²
Cincinnati O-t-R ---- 5,622 ---- 6,064 ---- 6,439 ---- 8,353 ---- -7.3% ---- -5.8% -- -22.9% --- 1.1 km² -- 5,019.6 inh./km²
Buffalo ------------- 2,354 ---- 1,798 ---- 1,943 ---- 1,518 ---- 30.9% ---- -7.5% --- 28.0% --- 1.9 km² -- 1,235.7 inh./km²

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Pittsburgh forumers always say that all counties minus Allegheny are actually a collection of small coal towns and not Pittsburgh suburbs per se. I don't know about that, but clearly they have a case for Armstrong and Fayette. They don't behave like suburbs, but like collapsing coal counties.

I actually looked up the reason for Armstrong County being included in the Pittsburgh MSA awhile ago because I was so curious. There's really nothing even vaguely associated with the Pittsburgh metro other than the borough of Freeport, which has less than 2,000 people. It turns out that it was due to local political lobbying. Around the 1990 census the local hospitals wanted the county included in the Pittsburgh MSA because it would change the Medicare reimbursement rate from the non-metro rate level to the higher Pittsburgh-area rate. And they won.

I've never been able to determine the reasons for Fayette County being included. The other counties (Beaver, Butler, Westmoreland, and Washington) do all have a small slice of Pittsburgh exurbia (like a handful of townships) though in all cases the majority of the geographic area/population is outside of areas which could be reasonably thought of as suburbs of Pittsburgh.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I actually looked up the reason for Armstrong County being included in the Pittsburgh MSA awhile ago because I was so curious. There's really nothing even vaguely associated with the Pittsburgh metro other than the borough of Freeport, which has less than 2,000 people. It turns out that it was due to local political lobbying. Around the 1990 census the local hospitals wanted the county included in the Pittsburgh MSA because it would change the Medicare reimbursement rate from the non-metro rate level to the higher Pittsburgh-area rate. And they won.

I've never been able to determine the reasons for Fayette County being included. The other counties (Beaver, Butler, Westmoreland, and Washington) do all have a small slice of Pittsburgh exurbia (like a handful of townships) though in all cases the majority of the geographic area/population is outside of areas which could be reasonably thought of as suburbs of Pittsburgh.

For my surprise, Fayette was the 5th county included, before Butler, in 1983. Which is very weird as it would be perfectly natural for Butler to be included even in 1950, as the growth curve suggests.

And the inclusion of Butler would have delayed Pittsburgh peak to 1970 (like Buffalo), instead of 1960, by using definitions from that time.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

downtown detroit would be in the conversation about the 2nd best downtown in the midwest after chicago, but i don't think there's anything "easy" about it.

minneapolis and cincy would be very solid contenders for that title as well, based on my first hand experiences.

pittsburgh would absolutely be there as well if expanding it out to a midwest/rustbelt thing, as we often do.

one of the biggest strikes against downtown detroit would be the persistent abundance of emtpy lots and parking lots.

I don't know Cincy like that, but, as of today's date, my gut tells me that this is between Detroit and Minneapolis, to which I would give the edge to Minneapolis. If it weren't for those skywalks, Minny would be the clear winner. But Detroit would still be within striking distance even if Minny's pedestrian activity moved to the street level instead of the skyway. If Detroit were to suddenly have a development boom it would run away with it.

[Steely Dan]

^ the reason I mentioned Cincy is the same reason I mentioned Pittsburgh. It feels tighter and more "complete" than downtown Detroit, which is still pockmarked with way too many parking lots.

And the way that downtown Cincy more naturally and organically flows into the adjacent OTR area is one of the very best downtown-to-neighborhood transitions in the midwest.

None of that is to say that Cincy is the clear #2 or anything, I was just pushing back against TNO's assertion that downtown Detroit is "easily" the second best downtown in the Midwest.

To me, that question is a million miles away from being "easily" answered, as there are a handful of Midwest big city downtowns, all with their various pros and cons, that could, IMO, slot into #2 depending on how one chooses to weigh the different variables and considerations at play.