New Geography

Blog

  • Property

  • A Requiem for “High-Speed Rail”

    In the interest of maintaining some balance and perspective on what the Administration proudly calls "President Obama’s bold vision for a national high-speed rail network," at InnovationBriefs we have tried to offer our readers a range of different points of view. It is in this spirit that we present below two commentaries. The first contribution is by Matt Dellinger, author of the highly praised book, "Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway" and a frequent contributor on transportation topics to the progressive website, Transportation Nation. The second contribution is by Ron Utt, Senior Research Fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, whose analyses of transportation policy have been a longstanding feature of that Foundation’s work.

    Along with our two commentators, we do not question the merits of intercity rail transportation— an integral and essential part of this nation’s economy, culture and history over the past century and a half. Readers of Steven Ambrose’s history of the transcontinental railroad, Nothing Like It In the World, can only marvel at the indomitable spirit and entrepreneurial energy that drove the creation of the continental rail network. Rail transportation has been intimately woven into the social and economic fabric of this nation ever since. Nor do we forget the huge contribution that private railroad companies have made, and continue to make, to maintaining and growing the nation’s rail network. By investing billions of private dollars, they have made the US freight rail system the envy of the world. Lastly, we believe that intercity passenger rail servic is essential in densely populated heavily traveled corridors, in particular the Northeast Corridor, where road and air traffic congestion will soon be reaching levels that will threaten its continued growth and productivity. In sum, we are not mindless opponents of rail transportation.

    Rather, along with Messrs. Dellinger and Utt, and many other responsible observers inside and outside the railroad community (including notably, Michael Ward, Chief Executive Officer of CSX, the nation’s third largest freight railroad), we take issue with the Obama Administration’s lofty but misleading rhetoric of "high-speed rail." Instead of representing its initiative for what it really is: a program of incremental improvements to the existing rail infrastructure, the Administration has tried to create the impression that it has embarked on a bold and revolutionary program of building a continent-wide high-speed rail network, a legacy reminiscent of President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Program.

    As Dellinger and Utt point out, the recently announced spate of awards funded out of the $2.4 billion rejected by Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott will hardly lead to bullet trains speeding from coast-to-coast at 250 mph. These grants, along with most of the earlier awards, will support engineering and planning studies, incremental upgrades in the facilities of freight railroads and modest improvements in existing passenger rail service. For example, the latest list includes a study to replace Amtrak’s Baltimore Tunnel; development of Missouri’s and West Virginia’s state rail plans; final design of the New Jersey Portal Bridge; and modest corridor improvements in Amtrak service in Connecticut, New York and Washington State.

    The above-mentioned $300 million worth of awards was announced on April 8, just a few hours before agreement was reached on a short-term continuing resolution that would cut $1.5 billion in unobligated HSR money. It also preceded by three days the release of a GAO report criticizing the lack of transparency in the Administration’s HSR grant selection process (GAO-11-283). Citing the GAO findings, Rep. John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee blasted the Administration in a strongly worded press release. "In the name of high-speed rail, the Administration has squandered limited resources on dozens of slow-speed rail projects across the country," Mica said. "I cannot imagine a worse beginning to a U.S. high-speed rail effort. …It is critical that there be transparency for why these projects were selected in the first place and why any future projects will be selected."

    Had the objective and the selection criteria of the $10 billion program been stated candidly from the outset as an effort to modestly upgrade existing intercity passenger rail services, the White House would have spared itself this criticism and the attendant ridicule of "ObamaRail" and "the Railroad to Nowhere." As it is, the Administration dug itself into an even deeper hole with a quixotic and hardly credible pledge of "making high-speed rail accessible to 80 percent of Americans in 25 years." A promise that was made without any hint as to how this ambitious plan would be paid for and against a background of the House Republicans’ announced intention to totally eliminate federal support for high-speed rail beginning next year. Without further congressional appropriations, the President’s dogged pursuit of the $53 billion high-speed rail initiative will simply collapse.

    As Matt Dellinger pointedly concluded, "If High-Speed Rail ever happens, future Americans might not remember the President who circulated the maps and funded the studies. They’ll remember the President who figured out how to pay for it all."

    Matt Dellinger: "How Much High Speed Rail will $2.4 Billion Buy?" Transportation Nation

    Ronald Utt: "The Death of a High Speed Rail Program," National Review Online

    Ken Orski has worked professionally in the field of transportation for over 30 years.

    Photo by narent23

  • The Evolving Urban Form: Dallas-Fort Worth

    The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area (Note 1), which corresponds to the Dallas-Fort Worth urban area, provides a casebook example of expanding urbanization. Dallas-Fort Worth has been one of the fastest growing major metropolitan areas in the nation for decades. Dallas-Fort Worth was among only three US metropolitan areas adding more than 1,000,000 residents between 2000 and 2010. Only Houston’s addition of 1,230,000 exceeded that of Dallas-Fort Worth, which grew by 1,210,000, a 23.4 percent growth rate. Atlanta was the third metropolitan area to add more than one million residents, at 1,021,000. During the 2000s, Dallas-Fort Worth passed Philadelphia to become the nation’s fourth largest urban area, with a population of 6,372,000. Only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are larger.

    On an international scale, the United Nations estimates indicate that only Singapore, Houston and Atlanta had greater percentage growth between 2000 and 2010 among high-income world urban areas that exceed 4,000,000 in population.

    The Core: The core of the metropolitan area experienced the earliest growth and has since seen its share of growth and its growth rate decline significantly. Dallas County, which includes the historical core municipality of Dallas (Note 2), had a growth rate of 6.7 percent between 2000 and 2010, approximately one third less than the national growth rate of 9.7 percent. Nearly all of the growth in Dallas County was outside the city of Dallas, which added only 0.8 percent to its population, less than one-tenth of the national rate. The city of Dallas added 9,000 residents, while the suburbs within Dallas County added 140,000 residents.

    Overall, Dallas County accounted for 12 percent of the metropolitan area’s growth between 2000 and 2010. This is down from 41 percent between 1950 and 2000. Between 1900 and 1950, Dallas County accounted for an even larger share (66 percent) of growth (Figure 1). Dallas County’s annual growth rate fell from 4.1 percent between 1900 and 1950 to 2.6 percent between 1950 and 2000 to 0.7 percent in the last decade (Figure 2).


    Inner Suburban Counties: During the 2000s, the greatest growth was experienced in the inner suburban counties (those abutting the core county, Dallas). These six counties (Collin, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman, Rockwall and Tarrant, where Fort Worth is located) experienced a population gain of 38.9 percent. Inner suburban counties now contain 56 percent of the metropolitan area population. Between 2000 and 2010, the inner suburban counties captured 82 percent of the metropolitan area, up from 53 percent between 1950 and 2000 and 38 percent between 1900 and 1950. The inner suburban counties grew 1.7 percent annually from 1900 to 1950, increasing to 3.2 percent between 1950 and 2000 and 3.3 percent in the 2000s.

    Outer Suburban Counties: The outer suburban counties represent a comparatively small portion of the metropolitan area’s population. These five counties (Delta, Hunt, Jasper, Parker and Wise) accounted for only 7 percent of the metropolitan area population. The 2000 to 2010 growth rate was 20.9 percent, somewhat below the metropolitan area rate of 23.4 percent, and more than double the national population growth rate of 9.7 percent national growth rate.

    Between 2000 and 2010, the outer suburban counties captured 6 percent of the metropolitan area growth, the same share as between 1950 and 2000. However, perhaps surprisingly, their combined 1950 population was 19 percent below that of 1900. This illustrates the declining fortunes in the early part of the 20th century of counties that were dominated by agriculture, as the farm population and population of many small farm dependent communities declined. Of course, the 1900 to 1950 losses have since been compensated many times over by the post 1950 suburbanization. Nonetheless, one outer suburban county, Delta is unique in continuing to lose population through the 2010 census. Delta County’s 2010 population of 5,200 is approximately one third of its 1900 population of 15,200.

    The outer suburban counties lost 0.4 percent of their population annually from 1900 to 1950, but turned around to gain 2.1 percent from 1950 to 2000. Between 2000 and 2010, the growth rate fell back to 1.9 percent.

    The City of Dallas: The historical core municipality of Dallas illustrates of the dynamics of aggressive annexation policies. In 1910, Dallas covered only 16 square miles (41 square kilometers) and had a population of 92,000. Even at this early date, the city of Dallas was not very dense, with 5,700 residents per square mile (2,200 per square kilometer). The city reached its peak density of 7,300 (2,800 per square kilometer) in 1940, after having expanded to 41 square miles (106 square kilometers) and a population of 295,000.. Even at this peak density, the city of Dallas remained well below the densities of other core cities, especially in the East and Midwest, most of which had densities exceeding 10,000 per square mile (3,900 per square kilometer).

    By 1950, the city had expanded to 112 square miles (289 square kilometers) and with a population of 334,000, the population density had fallen to 3,900 (1,500 per square kilometer). Larger annexations were to follow, with the city reaching 343 square miles (885 square kilometers) by 2010. With a population of 1,198,000, the population density was 3,500 per square mile (1,350 per square kilometer), less than one-half the 1940 peak. Virtually all new owned housing was built consistent with the post-World War II suburban form, as occurred in metropolitan areas around the nation. The city’s addition of 9,000 residents between 2000 and 2010 was far less than the 182,000 gain between 1990 and 2000. By 2000, there was little greenfield land left to develop in the city and the population could be peaking. Indeed, the population could decline in future censuses, as has happened in geographically constrained urban cores around the world. Any such decline could, however, be counteracted by immigration, as has occurred in some urban cores.

    Ethic Trends in the Metropolitan Area: As would be expected in a state bordering Mexico, the Latino population of Dallas-Fort Worth grew substantially between 2000 and 2010, at a 43 percent rate. Overall, Latinos accounted for 42 percent of the metropolitan area’s growth. The Latino population increase was nearly 520,000, more people than live in the core city of Atlanta.

    However, unlike a number of other metropolitan areas, there was strong growth in the African-American population, which added 33 percent to its count. African-Americans accounted for 19 percent of the metropolitan area’s growth.

    This growth was strongest in the core county of Dallas, where Latino and African-American growth made up for a decline in the rest of the population.  In the inner suburban counties, 53 percent of the growth was Latino or African-America, while the lowest share of Latino and African American growth was in the outer suburban counties, at 30 percent.

    Overall, 75 percent of Latino growth and 69 percent of African-American growth took place in the suburban counties, which is a substantial change from the past (Figure 3).

    The Urban Area: Urban area data has not been released from the 2010 census. However, it is clear that Dallas-Fort Worth has become less dense since 1950. Between 1950 and 2000, the population density of the urban area declined approximately 10 percent.   Even so, it is surprising to some that the Dallas-Fort Worth urban area, with its low-density reputation, was only 12 percent less dense that Portland urban area in 2000, despite the aggressive densification strategies employed by Portland.

    The Expanding Metropolitan Area: The story in Dallas-Fort Worth is little different (Table) from what has emerged in metropolitan areas around the world, in places like Seoul, Mexico City and Mumbai. Dallas-Fort Worth also illustrates a trend only now becoming more obvious, that middle-sized and smaller metropolitan areas are generally growing faster than the megacities within their own countries (see the report by the McKinsey Global Institute). The United States has two megacities, the New York metropolitan area, which grew 3.1 percent from 2000 to 2010 and Los Angeles, which grew 3.7 percent. Dallas-Fort Worth’s far higher growth rate of 23.4 percent translated into an actual population increase of 175,000 more than the combined increase of the two megacities, despite their having five times the population.

    Dallas-Fort Worth: Population Trend by Sector and County 
    1900-2010
    1900 1950 2000 2010
    CORE COUNTY
    Dallas County       82,756    614,799  2,218,899  2,368,139
    INNER SUBURBAN COUNTIES    222,747    527,281  2,596,623  3,585,286
    Collin County       50,087      41,692    491,675    782,341
    Denton County       28,318      41,365    432,976    662,614
    Ellis County       50,059      45,645    111,360    149,610
    Kaufman County       33,376      31,170      71,313    103,350
    Rockwall County         8,531        6,156      43,080      78,337
    Tarrant County       52,376    361,253  1,446,219  1,809,034
    OUTER SUBURBAN COUNTIES    149,302    120,754    346,022    418,348
    Delta County       15,249        8,964        5,327        5,231
    Hunt County       47,295      42,731      76,596      86,129
    Johnson County       33,819      31,390    126,811    150,934
    Parker County       25,823      21,528      88,495    116,927
    Wise County       27,116      16,141      48,793      59,127
    METROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA    454,805  1,262,834  5,161,544  6,371,773

    The Future? It is an open question whether the rapid growth of Dallas-Fort Worth will continue. As it continues to grow, the stagnation that now afflicts the nation’s two megacities and its near-megacity, Chicago could spread to Dallas-Fort Worth. On the other hand, Dallas-Fort Worth has advantages that could permit its growth to continue for multiple decades into the future. Texas has a favorable business climate, low taxes and less heavy handed regulation than New York, California and Illinois. Dallas-Fort Worth has plenty of developable land as well as a political culture not cowed by development. The economic advance of its growing population, particularly the burgeoning Latino population, depends upon public policies that favor housing affordability and urban expansion. If it continues on its current course, Dallas-Fort Worth could pass the Chicago metropolitan area in population by 2050 and could even challenge Los Angeles later in the century.

    —-

    Note 1: As currently defined by the Census Bureau. Officially titled the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area. Metropolitan areas are essentially labor markets and include a principal urban area and rural (non-urban) areas and may include smaller urban areas.

    Note 2: Fort Worth is not considered a historical core municipality, based upon the discussion in Perspectives on Urban Cores and Suburbs, though the Census Bureau considers Fort Worth and Arlington to be principal cities (which are a different thing). The "Dallas-Fort Worth" terminology is used because of its wide acceptance and to make the geographical expanse of the metropolitan area more clear.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

    Photo by Trey Ratcliff

  • China, Detroit, and Houston: How Ghost Properties Compare

    Learning about China’s property boom and its “ghost” cities has given me a whole new perspective on my four decades in the building, land development and consulting fields. During these periods our economy has had various ups and downs. In ‘up’ times, the rise in construction of new housing and growth in commercial developments has been quite obvious. What I have always had a problem understanding is why there seemed to be new housing projects and commercial projects that sprouted up during the bad times.

    Unlike this current recession — and I do believe that it is still current, despite the rhetoric that it’s over — past economic downturns were localized. As an example, I lived in Detroit in 1973 during the first gas crunch, when there were long lines to fill up. Unemployment in Detroit was a huge problem, and there was no work for a young ‘planner’ for new suburban developments, nor the prospect of anything turning around soon.

    I eventually decided to move to the south, where it was thought to be better. As I crossed into Texas, there weren’t any more gas lines. It seemed the entire State was booming. I drove through to Houston, picked up a phone book, and made a phone call to Paul Lederer Land Surveying and Engineering, which had a display ad that stuck out. Paul answered, and when I explained that I wanted to work as an apprentice to expand my knowledge into his field he hired me over the phone. I settled down, and after a year was ready to buy a home of my own.

    Detroit was still in economic hardship, with housing requiring a 20% down payment for a mortgage. At the same time, in Houston, homes were so much in demand that we had only minutes to make an offer once a home we wanted came on the market. Financing required only a 5% down payment.

    When a wealthy Detroit businessman heard that I could buy homes with only 5% down in a market that was escalating in sales and pricing I was offered a business proposition. I was asked to buy 50 homes at 5% down, and then resell them to a shell company for at least 10% more than our original purchase price. The homes would then be re-financed elsewhere with 5% down. The shell company would then default on the loans, and we would split the profits.

    In other words, if we paid an average of $30,000 each for 50 homes, we would have $1,500,000 in real estate, for which we had put $75,000 down. In theory, if I sold the homes to a shell company for $2,000,0000 with a $100,000 down payment, we would each walk away with $200,000 profit (roughly $790,000 in today’s dollars after inflation) if we defaulted on the loans. I was not interested in something that I considered fraud for a quick dollar, but it would not have been difficult to do this in real estate at that time.

    A few years later, Detroit was still in an economic downturn, and another person I knew was building large residential and commercial projects. These were new developments with hundreds of units and high-rise office towers.

    I mentioned to someone close to this developer that I was unimpressed with a venture to build at a time when there was not a market for either condominium buyers or office tenants, and curious as to why it was being pursued. A 20 story office tower would impress me if it were leased out; one sitting empty would not be so impressive.

    The answer was a lesson in economics. It was explained to me that the office tower was built for $10 million, but financed for $20 million, made possible by some inventive appraisals. Yet the bank needed only $1 million down. In other words, if the developments failed spectacularly there were still millions to be made, even if the properties went back to the banks. Ironically, Detroit in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s recovered somewhat, and the developments in question became financially viable and successful.

    I have no doubt that every industry, not just the development of land, has stories of financial shenanigans, but these are two examples of only a few that I have been exposed to during my 43 years in the development business.

    So today, whenever I see areas with aggressive construction that exceeds market potential, it makes me wonder…

    In light of this history, see what you think about development in China. Check out this 15 minute video from a major Australian broadcaster on China’s ghost cities.

    Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

    Photo: Expensive waterside apartments in Shekou Shenzhen by DC Master.

  • Local Stakeholders Debate Changes to San Francisco Neighborhood Demographics

    Despite one of the highest population densities in California and a prohibitive cost of living, San Francisco keeps packing them in. Figures released by the U.S. Census last month show that “the City” added 28,502 people during the last ten years, a modest population bump of 3.7 percent from 2000.

    The racial composition of the city changed significantly during the “naughts.” The 2010 Census numbers indicate that the city lost nearly a quarter of its black population with 14,000 fewer residents than in 2000. Although still the largest group as described by race, there were 48,000 fewer white residents than in 2000, a 14 percent decrease. Both the number of Asian and Hispanic residents increased by 11 percent, constituting 33 and 15 percent of the city’s population, respectively.

    Additionally, San Francisco saw its already small percentage of children sink further: there were 5,000 fewer residents under the age of 18 residing in the city than in 2000. Although the former head of the city’s Department Children, Youth and Their Families believes that this number is low due to the number of undocumented children, the findings confirm the anecdote familiar to all San Francisco residents that there very well may be more dogs than children.

    Although the Census has not yet released data more specific smaller geographic units to help decipher the precise demographic shifts, Castro neighborhood stakeholders believe the area has changed in the last ten years. Despite the findings of the Census, many neighborhood observers have seen an increase in the number of children in the area, anecdotally suggesting that the increase in youngsters was absorbed by decreases in other neighborhoods. Perhaps families who can afford to raise children in such an expensive city are choosing to do so among the plush hills and restored Victorians of the Castro and nearby areas – nearby Noe Valley has long derisively been called “Stroller Valley” by the city’s hipsters.

    “The Castro has always been diverse in a number of ways,” Supervisor Scott Wiener said. “I think the biggest demographic changes over the past decade have been an increase in the number of parents, gay and straight, with children, and fewer young people because of the cost of housing in the neighborhood.”

    The 2000 Census showed the 94114 zip code with markedly different demographics than the rest of the City. For instance, 83 percent of the population was white, compared to nearly 50 percent citywide in 2000, and nearly 60 percent of residents in the zip code were male.

    “I do think that the area has become more diverse,” Mark Dicko, a realtor based at Herth Real Estate on Castro Street, said, agreeing with Wiener.

    However, the realtor did not share the same opinion on the area becoming grayer. “I’ve seen quite a few younger people moving into the area, many of the Google, Facebook, Apple employees have been able to purchase homes and condos or just want to rent in the area to be in the city. I have seen all ethnicities and sexual orientations deciding that they want to live in this area which is just fantastic.”

    “Certainly up in Buena Vista Park in the last 10-15 years, many families who had been there for a long time have moved out,” Richard Magary, chair of the Buena Vista Neighborhood Association, said. “Lots of upper-middle class houses changed hands to families with kids. It’s nice to see the fresher and younger families coming in.”

    Overall, the state added almost 4.5 million new residents, an increase of 10 percent from 2000. Much of this growth occurred in the Inland Empire and other counties in the San Joaquin Valley.

    Nationwide, the population grew by 9.7 percent to nearly 309 million.

    A version of this article was originally published in the Castro Courier neighborhood newspaper in San Francisco. Andy Sywak is the former publisher of the Courier. He now lives in Sacramento.

    Photo by stephanie vacher

  • Penny stock

  • How to win your ex back

  • Cities and the Census: Cities Neither Booming Nor Withering

    For many mayors across the country, including New York City’s Michael Bloomberg, the recently announced results of the 2010 census were a downer. In a host of cities, the population turned out to be substantially lower than the U.S. Census Bureau had estimated for 2010—in New York’s case, by some 250,000 people. Bloomberg immediately called the decade’s meager 2.1 percent growth, less than one-quarter the national average, an “undercount.” Senator Charles Schumer blamed extraterrestrials, accusing the Census Bureau of “living on another planet.” The truth, though, is that the census is very much of this world. It just isn’t the world that mayors, the media, and most urban planners want to see.

    Start with the fact that America continues to suburbanize. The country’s metropolitan areas have two major components: core cities (New York City, for example) and suburbs (such as Westchester County, Long Island, northern New Jersey, and even Pike County in Pennsylvania). During the 2000s, the census shows, just 8.6 percent of the population growth in metropolitan areas with more than a million people took place in the core cities; the rest took place in the suburbs. That 8.6 percent represents a decline from the 1990s, when the figure was 15.4 percent. The New York metropolitan area was no outlier: though it did better than the national average, with 29 percent of its growth taking place within New York City, that’s still a lot lower than the 46 percent that the center region saw in the 1990s.

    This may be shocking to some. For years, academics, the media, and big-city developers have been suggesting that suburbs were dying and that people were flocking back to the cities that they had fled in the 1970s. The Obama administration has taken this as gospel. “We’ve reached the limits of suburban development,” Housing and Urban Development secretary Shaun Donovan opined in 2010. “People are beginning to vote with their feet and come back to the central cities.” Yet of the 51 metropolitan areas that have more than 1 million residents, only three—Boston, Providence, and Oklahoma City—saw their core cities grow faster than their suburbs. (And both Boston and Providence grew slowly; their suburbs just grew more slowly. Oklahoma City, meanwhile, built suburban-style residences on the plentiful undeveloped land within city limits.)

    All this suburbanization means that the best unit for comparison may not be the core city but the metropolitan area, and the census shows clearly which metropolitan areas are growing and which are not. The top ten population gainers—growing by 20 percent, twice the national average or more—are the metropolitan areas surrounding Las Vegas, Raleigh, Austin, Charlotte, Riverside–San Bernardino, Orlando, Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio, and Atlanta. These areas are largely suburban in form. None developed the large, dense core cities that dominated America before the post–World War II suburban boom began. By contrast, many of the metropolitan areas that grew at rates half the national average or less—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, New York—have core areas that are the old, dense variety. Planners and pundits may like density, but people, for the most part, continue to prefer more space.

    If you do look at cities themselves, rather than at larger metropolitan areas, you’ll see that the census reveals three different categories. The most robust cities, with population growth over 15 percent for the decade—Raleigh, Austin, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Jacksonville, and Orlando—were located within the kind of metropolitan area that urbanists tend to dislike: highly suburbanized, dominated by single-family homes, and with few people using public transit. That’s partly because these cities developed along largely suburban lines by annexing undeveloped land and low-density areas. This has been the case in virtually all the fastest-growing cities. Raleigh has expanded its boundaries to become 12 times larger than it was in 1950; Charlotte and Orlando are nine times larger, and Jacksonville an astounding 25 times larger.

    At the opposite end of the spectrum are core cities, mostly in the Midwest and Northeast and often land-constrained, that have continued to shrink. These include longtime disaster zones like Detroit and Cleveland as well as newer ones like Birmingham in the South. They include Pittsburgh, a city much praised for its livability but one that is aging rapidly and whose city government, based disproportionately on revenue from universities and nonprofits, is among the nation’s most fiscally strapped. They even include Chicago, which lost some 200,000 people during the 2000s, its population falling to the lowest level since the 1910 census. The reasons aren’t hard to identify: despite all the hype about Chicago’s recovery and the legacy of Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Windy City is among the most fiscally weak urban areas in the country, its schools are in terrible shape, and its economy is struggling.

    Finally, there are cities that have grown, but not quickly. New York City’s population, for example, inched to a record high in the 2000s, but that growth was less than the national average. The population of Los Angeles grew a mere 97,000—the smallest increase since the 1890s. Many of the slow-growing cities (New York, San Francisco, and Boston, for example) suffer from high housing costs, which inhibit population growth. But they also host high-end industries—finance, technology, and business services—and enough well-paid workers in these industries to afford pricey housing and sustain a small rate of growth. The cities also attract already wealthy people from elsewhere.

    The census provides information on a smaller level, too, telling us not just which cities have grown, but where the growth has taken place within cities. Often, it has been in and around the historic downtowns. This is a trend in many cities that otherwise differ starkly (New York, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles), and it reflects a subtle shift in the role of the downtown. Rather than reasserting themselves as dominant job centers, downtowns are becoming residential and cultural—a change that H. G. Wells predicted when he wrote that by 2000, the center of London would be “essentially a bazaar, a great gallery of shops and places of concourse and rendezvous.” What may have been an office, industrial, or retail zone morphs into a gentrified locale attractive to the migratory global rich, to affluent young people, and to childless households.

    This downtown recovery (which many cities subsidized heavily) was partly why so many urbanists and developers identified a broader back-to-the-city movement; but in reality, the phenomenon was usually limited to a relatively small population and a relatively small area. Since 1950, for example, St. Louis has lost a greater share of its population than any American city ever boasting 500,000 or more residents. The area from downtown to Central West End experienced strong growth during the 2000s, however, adding more people than Portland’s Pearl District, a favorite of urban planners. Yet this gain of 7,000 people was far from enough to offset the loss of 36,000 in the rest of St. Louis.

    It’s also worth noting that in economic terms, downtowns are losing their hold. For example, though the residential population of Chicago’s Loop tripled to 20,000 in the past decade, that famed business district lost almost 65,000 jobs; its share of the metropolitan area’s employment also fell. Los Angeles’s downtown, whose population has likewise grown, lost roughly 200,000 jobs from 1995 to 2005. Manhattan is losing employment share to the other four boroughs, as it has been for decades; but as a recent report from the Center for an Urban Future reveals, the process accelerated over the last ten years. From 2000 to 2009, Manhattan lost a net 41,833 jobs, while other boroughs saw net increases. This employment dispersion is even more evident in the suburbs. Of commuters who live in the inner-ring suburbs (such as Yonkers and East Orange), 60 percent work in their home counties and only 14 percent in Manhattan. Of commuters from such outer-ring suburbs as Haverstraw and Morristown, 73 percent work in their home counties and 6 percent in Manhattan.

    What, in the end, does the census tell us about America’s cities today? Certainly not that they’re dying, as they threatened to do in the 1950s, but equally certainly that they aren’t roaring back. Cities remain a successful niche product for a relatively small percentage of the population. Most people, though, even in the New York metropolitan area, continue to move toward the periphery rather than the core. That said, New York’s continuing growth over the past decade suggests that its recovery will likely prove durable. As for Senator Schumer’s “another planet” allegations, the census is simply confirming the fact that terrestrial Americans continue to disperse, both within and among metropolitan areas. So far, there’s little that planners, policy makers, and urban boosters can do about that.

    This piece originally appeared in City Journal.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

    Photo by caruba

  • The Evolving Urban Form: Mumbai

    The continuing dispersion of international metropolitan areas is illustrated by recently released 2011 Census of India preliminary data for the Mumbai "larger" metropolitan area. The historical core, the "island" district of Mumbai (Inner Mumbai) lost population between 2001 and 2011, while all growth was in suburban areas outside the historic core. Indeed, since 1981, Inner Mumbai lost 140,000 residents, while suburban areas gained 13.2 million.

    The larger metropolitan area is defined by district boundaries, the census division level below that of the state. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has a more "tight" definition, composed of smaller administrative units (municipalities), however that data is not yet available on the internet (Note). The larger metropolitan area includes four districts, two of which compose the city of Mumbai, Inner Mumbai (the historic core), and Outer Mumbai. The larger metropolitan area also includes the district of Thane, which is to the east and north of Mumbai and the district of Raigarh, which is to the south of Mumbai. The overwhelming majority of growth outside the city of Mumbai has been in Thane, which is accessible by land and bridge to Mumbai. Raigarh is less accessible from Mumbai and requires travel through Thane to reach.

    The historic population trends of these four districts are described below. The evolution of the Mumbai urban form is illustrated by the following:

    (1) The population growth rate peaked first in the core, Inner Mumbai, Outer Mumbai later and then fell substantially. Recent growth has been concentrated in the outlying districts of Thane and Raigarh. Figure 1 shows the population growth rate by district for each decade since the 1901 census.

    (2) Much of the population growth was in Inner Mumbai until 1961. From 1961 through 1981, the bulk of the population growth moved to Outer Mumbai. By the 1981 to 1991 period, Thane emerged to virtually equal Outer Mumbai in its share of growth and has been dominant since 1991. Figure 2 indicates the share of the larger metropolitan area growth by district since 1901.

    (3) The population of Inner Mumbai has risen comparatively little since 1961, with nearly all growth occurring first in Outer Mumbai and later in Thane. These two suburban areas now account for 90 percent of the larger metropolitan area population, double the 44 percent of 1961. Figure 3 illustrates the actual population, by district, of the larger metropolitan area from 1901 to 2011.

    Inner Mumbai: The historic core (Inner Mumbai) registered 3.146 million residents, down from 3.327 million in 2001. The historic core now contains only 12 percent of the larger metropolitan area population, down from 40 percent in 1961, adding approximately 375,000 residents during that forty year stretch. Overall, since 1960, the island district has captured only 2 percent of the larger metropolitan area growth. This contrast with the period before 1951; Inner Mumbai had captured approximately 60 percent of the larger metropolitan region population growth between 1931 and 1941, and 49 percent between 1941 and 1951. However, Inner Mumbai’s share dropped to a 26 percent share in 1951 to 1961 and an 11 percent share in 1961-1971. This is consistent with the overall trend in urban core population growth in metropolitan areas around the world, with population stalling or even declining once there is little greenfield land remaining for development. Inner Mumbai had lost population in the 1981-1991 census period, however recovered to reach its population peak in 2001. The 2011 population for Inner Mumbai was the lowest since the 1971 census. These population losses have occurred despite an unprecedented building boom of high-rise residential towers.

    Outer Mumbai: The Mumbai Suburban district (Outer Mumbai) became a part of the city of Mumbai through a 1950 consolidation. As Inner Mumbai became fully developed, population growth shifted sharply to Outer Mumbai. By 2011, Outer Mumbai grew to 9.33 million residents, an increase of 7.95 million from its 1961 total of 1.38 million. Outer Mumbai captured 41 percent of the larger metropolitan area growth from 1961 to 2011. However, as the supply of greenfield land has been reduced, Outer Mumbai’s growth has also slowed considerably. In each of the three decades from 1941 to 1971, Outer Mumbai grew by more than 100 percent. Outer Mumbai attracted only 19 percent of the larger metropolitan area growth, down from a 58 percent peak in the 1971-1981 period. The 2001-2011 increase of 744,000 (8.7 percent) was the lowest since the 1951-1961 census period, and was substantially below the 27.2 percent from rate from 1991 to 2001.

    Thane: During the last 10 years, Thane has become the largest district in the Mumbai larger metropolitan area, with a population of 11.1 million, passing Outer Mumbai. Thane is now the largest district in India. In 2001 Thane had 8.1 million residents in 2001 and grew 35 percent to 2011. This, however, is down from a 55 percent growth rate between 1991 and 2001, reflecting a decline in the overall growth rate of the larger metropolitan area (see below). Thane has steadily increased its share of growth in the larger metropolitan area, from 24 percent between 1961 and 1971 to 55 percent between 1991 and 2001. Thane reached a peak in the 2001-2011 census period, capturing 74 percent of the larger metropolitan area growth. Since 1961, Thane has captured 49 percent of the growth in the larger metropolitan area and added 9.4 million residents. In each of the last two census periods, Thane has added 2.9 million residents, equal nearly to the population of the urban core, Inner Mumbai.

    Raigarh: More remote from the core, Raigarh has experienced considerably slower growth than Thane, and until recently slower than Outer Mumbai. Raigarh grew 19 percent, from 2.21 million in 2001 to 2.64 million in 2011, an increase of 19 percent. This was the only census period since 1901 in which Raigarh grew more quickly than Outer Mumbai. Raigarh accounted for 11 percent of the larger metropolitan area growth between 2001 and 2011 and 8 percent since 1960. Raigarh added approximately 1.575 million residents from 1961 to 2001, more than four times that of larger Inner Mumbai (the urban core).

    Overall Population Growth: Consistent with the general population growth rate declines witnessed in less affluent nations, the Mumbai larger metropolitan area is growing less quickly than in previous decades. Between 2001 and 2011, the area grew 17.3 percent, which is down from 30.9 percent between 1991 and 2001.  The greatest growth had been between 1941 and 1951 (49 percent), with rates from 30 percent to 39 percent in each of the decades from 1951 to 1991 (Figure 4).

    Mumbai: Penultimate Density, Yet Representative: The core urban area (area of continuous urban development) of Mumbai represents approximately 80 percent of the larger metropolitan area population. Mumbai is the third most dense major urban area in the world at nearly 65,000 residents per square mile (25,000 per square kilometer), trailing Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Hong Kong. Yet even at this near penultimate density, Mumbai exhibits the general trends of dispersion and declining density that are occurring in urban areas around the world, from the most affluent to the least. In the two Mumbai city districts, as in other megacities, housing has become so expensive that population growth is being severely limited. Overall, the Mumbai larger metropolitan area may also be experiencing slower growth as smaller metropolitan areas outperform larger ones, a trend identified in a recent report by the McKinsey Global Institute. Finally, the over-crowded, slum conditions that prevail for more than one-half of the city’s residents could be instrumental in driving growth to more the distant suburbs of Thane and Raigarh.

    —-

    Note: This "larger metropolitan area" definition is consistent with the cruder US Bureau of the Census delineation for metropolitan areas, which is based upon counties (in 44 states), rather than tighter definitions, such as municipalities or census tracts.

    Photo: Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, Mumbai (by author)

    Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

  • The Problem With Megacities

    The triumphalism surrounding the slums and megacities frankly disturbs me. It is, of course, right to celebrate the amazing resilience of residents living in these cities’ massive slums. But many of the megacity boosters miss a more important point: that the proliferation of these sorts of communities may not be desirable or even necessary.

    Cities may be getting larger, particularly in the developing world, but that does not make them better. Megacities such Kolkata (in India), Mumbai, Manila, Sao Paolo, Lagos and Mexico City — all among the top 10 most populous cities in the world — present a great opportunity for large corporate development firms who pledge to fix their problems with ultra-expensive hardware. They also provide thrilling features for journalists and a rich trove for academic researchers.

    But essentially megacities in developing countries should be seen for what they are: a tragic replaying of the worst aspects of the mass urbanization that occurred previously in the West. They play to the nostalgic tendency among urbanists to look back with fondness on the crowded cities of early 20th Century North America and Europe. Urban boosters like the Philadelphia Inquirer’s John Timpane speak fondly about going back to the “the way we were” — when our parents or grandparents lived stacked in small apartments, rode the subway to work and maintained a relatively small carbon footprint.

    Unfortunately such places were often not so nice for the people who actually lived in them. After all, they have been moving from higher to lower density locations for over fifty years, a trend still noticeable in the new Census. As my mother, who grew up a slum-dweller, says of her old Brooklyn neighborhood: “Brownsville was a crappy neighborhood then, and it’s a crappy neighborhood now.”

    My mother considers herself a tried and true New Yorker, but she and my late father chose to raise their kids on Long Island. She now lives in an apartment in Rockville Centre, somewhat farther out on the Island. One could imagine many slum-dwellers in developing countries would also choose a less crowded environment for themselves and their children, if that option existed.

    Most slum-dwellers, at least from what I have seen in India, move to the megacity not for the bright lights, but to escape hopeless poverty in their village. Some argue that these migrants are better off than previous slum-dwellers since they ride motorcycles and have cell phones.

    But access to the wonders of transportation and “information technology” is unlikely to compensate for physical conditions that are demonstrably worse than those my mother endured.  At least Depression-era poor New Yorkers could drink water out of a tap and expect consistent electricity, something not taken for granted by their modern day counterparts in Mexico City, Manila or Mumbai.

    More serious still, the slum-dwellers face a host of health challenges that recall the degradations of Dickensian London. Residents of mega-cities face enormous risks from such socially caused maladies as AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, urban violence, unsafely built environments, and what has been described as  ”the neglected epidemic” of road-related injuries. According to researchers Tim and Alana Campbell, developing countries now account for 85% of the world’s traffic fatalities.

    One telling indication of the difficulties the newcomers face is the relatively low level of life expectancy in the city — roughly 57 years — which is nearly seven years below the national average.

    Even with solid economic growth, these megacities are not necessarily becoming better places to live. In 1971, slum dwellers accounted for one in six Mumbai-kers; now they constitute an absolute majority. Inflated real estate prices drive even fairly decently employed people into slums. A modest one-bedroom apartment in the Mumbai suburbs, notes R. N.  Sharma of the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences, averages around 10,000 rupees a month, double the average worker’s monthly income.

    Traffic congestion is also worsening. Nearly half of Mumbai commuters spend at least one or two hours to get to work, far more than workers in smaller rivals such as Chennai, or Hyderabad. Fifty percent of formal sector workers expressed the desire to move elsewhere, in part to escape brutal train or car commutes; only a third of workers in other cities expressed this sentiment.

    What does this say about the future for megacities?  When conditions become oppressive enough, people generally respond by finding a better place to live. Poor village dwellers in Bihar may not all stay in the countryside, but they — and many better-skilled immigrants — may find other, less intense urban options.

    Recent research suggests that these immigrants will increasingly move to the urban fringe or to smaller cities. A massive research effort published earlier this year for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy found that since 1990 “built-up area densities” have been dropping by roughly 2% a year, including in the developing world.

    An impressive new study by the McKinsey Global Institute, called “Mapping the Economic Power of Cities,” has found that “contrary to common perception, megacities have not been driving global growth for the past 15 years.” Many, the report concludes, have not grown faster than their host economies.

    McKinsey predicts these cities will underperform economically and demographically as growth shifts to   577 “fast growing middleweights,” many of them in China and India.  We can see this already in the shift of industrial growth to smaller cities in India. There may be an additional 25 million jobs added to the Indian auto industry by 2016, according to recent estimates, it appears most will go to other states, such as Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, enriching cities such as Chennai and Ahmedabad, nut not Mumbai.

    These realities lead some advocates in developing countries to question the logic of promoting megacities. Tata’s Sharma notes that as manufacturing and other industries move to smaller, more efficient cities, they remove many middle-income opportunities. Instead, the gap between the megacity’s rich and poor expands more rapidly.   “The boom that is happening is giving more to the wealthy.  This is the ’shining India’ people talk about,” Sharma says. “But the other part of it is very shocking, all the families where there is not even food security. We must ask: The ‘Shining India’ is for whom? “

    Ashok R. Datar, chairman of the Mumbai Environmental Social Network and a long-time advisor to the Ambani corporate group, suggests that Asian megacities should stop emulating the early 20th Century Western model of rapid, dense urbanization. “We are copying the Western experience in our own stupid and silly way,” Datar says. “The poor gain on the rich. For every tech geek, we have two to three servants.

    Datar suggest that developing countries need to better promote the growth of more manageable smaller cities and try bringing more economic opportunity to the villages.  One does not have to be a Ghandian idealist to suggest that Ebenezer Howard’s “garden city” concept — conceived as a response to miserable conditions in early 20th Century urban Britain — may be better guide to future urban growth.

    Rejecting gigantism for its own sake, “the garden city” promotes, where possible, suburban growth, particularly in land-rich countries. It also can provide a guide to more human-scale approach to  dense urban development. The “garden city” is already a major focus in Singapore, where I serve as a guest lecturer at the Civil Service College. Singaporean planners are embracing bold ideas for decentralizing work, reducing commutes and restoring nearby natural areas.

    These ideas may be most relevant to cities on the cusp of rapid growth, such as Hanoi. As we walk through the high-density slums on the other side of the dike that protects Hanoi from the Red River, Giang Dang, founder of the nonprofit Action for the City, tells me that rapid growth is already degrading the quality of Hanoi’s urban life, affecting everything from the food safety to water to traffic congestion. Houses that accommodated one family, she notes, now often have two of three.

    Expanding Hanoi’s current 6 million people — already at least twice its population in the 1980s — to megacity size — say between 10 million and 15 million — may thrill urban land speculators but may not prove  so good for city residents.  Like Datar, Dang favors expanding conditions both smaller cities, and the Vietnamese countryside.

    “The city is already becoming unlivable,” she  insists. “More people, more high-rises will not make it better. Maybe it’s time to give up the stupid dream of the megacity.”

    Such voices are rarely heard in the conversation about urban problems.  But the urban future requires radical  new thinking.  Rather than foster an urban form that demands heroic survival, perhaps we should focus on ways to create cities that offer a more a healthful and even pleasant life for their citizens.

    This piece originally appeared in Forbes.com

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

    Photo by Dey Alexander