Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is a common misconception about how cities work I've found. A population decline somewhere does not automatically mean
(a) Everywhere in a city in declining
(b) A lot of new construction cannot exist.
Chicago is a great example of this. There's a fair amount of construction in its downtown and surrounding neighborhoods for the last 5+ years especially. People will just say "how is this? Its population isn't increasing." Well, the downtown population has increased 30% between 2010 and 2018 so obviously there's demand right there. People fail to to actually look into what's going on after that initial question and completely miss the important parts. Furthermore, you have people making much more money who demand better housing - they want to better their living situation with nicer places, so there's demand from that too.
NYC is no different from this. You have numerous areas that are growing as well as numerous areas that might be gentrifying and thus a demand for more new construction housing.
The change in population anywhere should never be the stopping point for this type of thing. It should only be a starting point into looking into what's actually going on somewhere at a deeper level.
I think that, by itself, gentrification leads to reduced population density, as people with means tend to live in less crowded environments than lower income people do. So with a lot of gentrification an area will need to construct a substantial amount of housing (new bedrooms, effectively) just to stay flat in population. Chicago--which is seeing massive GDP growth despite declining population--is definitely an example of this.
Population decline has nothing to do with anything. You could have a booming population with no new construction, or a declining population with tons of construction. Not sure why people think they're highly correlated.
Think about it - new construction is serving a demand. That demand doesn't have to come from new folks, it can come from folks already living there. So a city could lose half its population, but if the remaining folks want apartments and the city currently only has single family homes, you are likely to see an apartment boom. Or a city could double in population, but maybe there's no new housing demand, because it's just people having bigger families and/or doubling up in existing housing.
I think that, by itself, gentrification leads to reduced population density, as people with means tend to live in less crowded environments than lower income people do. So with a lot of gentrification an area will need to construct a substantial amount of housing (new bedrooms, effectively) just to stay flat in population. Chicago--which is seeing massive GDP growth despite declining population--is definitely an example of this.
Sure, sometimes.
But there's an opposite dynamic: people with money also want to live in the middle of the action. That's especially common among people with money in their 20s.
I think that, by itself, gentrification leads to reduced population density, as people with means tend to live in less crowded environments than lower income people do. So with a lot of gentrification an area will need to construct a substantial amount of housing (new bedrooms, effectively) just to stay flat in population. Chicago--which is seeing massive GDP growth despite declining population--is definitely an example of this.
There's definitely numerous examples where gentrification has led to population decline and there's also numerous examples where it's led to population increase right away. There's a lot of factors involved so you can't just put a blanket statement on that. Sometimes it can lead to short term population loss and sometimes it can lead to short term population gain.
But there's an opposite dynamic: people with money also want to live in the middle of the action. That's especially common among people with money in their 20s.
I understand that, but I'm talking about without additional construction. A 3 bedroom 1 bathroom house that previously held a family of 6 will now hold one DINK couple that wants to live in the middle of the action. In cities that are growing this is coupled with rapid construction of apartments, garage units, etc that balance out this effect. But I believe the the ratio of persons/bedrooms goes down and that without significant construction you would see population decline.
I understand that, but I'm talking about without additional construction. A 3 bedroom 1 bathroom house that previously held a family of 6 will now hold one DINK couple that wants to live in the middle of the action. In cities that are growing this is coupled with rapid construction of apartments, garage units, etc that balance out this effect. But I believe the the ratio of persons/bedrooms goes down and that without significant construction you would see population decline.
That depends on the city and area though. This type of thing you describe is rampant in some areas of Chicago for example. There's been a ton of teardowns in a handful of neighborhoods like Lakeview, Wicker Park, Ukranian Village, Logan Square, etc where a 3 unit building gets torn down and a new, $1M+ SFH is built over it - or a 3 or 4 unit building renovated to be a SFH. A lot of examples in these areas with actual added density too, but a lot of reduced density. However, areas like Lakeview have increasing population with this going on - but Logan Square has decreasing population.
However, in places like NYC in Brooklyn especially, prices are too high for this. A lot of stuff that's torn down just gets more multi unit over it and often times just as dense or even denser than before.
That depends on the city and area though. This type of thing you describe is rampant in some areas of Chicago for example. There's been a ton of teardowns in a handful of neighborhoods like Lakeview, Wicker Park, Ukranian Village, Logan Square, etc where a 3 unit building gets torn down and a new, $1M+ SFH is built over it - or a 3 or 4 unit building renovated to be a SFH. A lot of examples in these areas with actual added density too, but a lot of reduced density. However, areas like Lakeview have increasing population with this going on - but Logan Square has decreasing population.
However, in places like NYC in Brooklyn especially, prices are too high for this. A lot of stuff that's torn down just gets more multi unit over it and often times just as dense or even denser than before.
Right.. but the NYC example you give requires construction. My point is that gentrification without new construction, leads to population decline. An exception to that would be if the area being gentrified was outright abandoned beforehand, which may be the case in some cities.
I'm in Austin and the gentrification here involves massive amounts of densification from a building standpoint. Small 3/1 houses are generally replaced with 5-6 bedroom duplexes. What I'm suggesting is that the number of residents per bedroom is substantially reduced as families with children are replaced by DINKs and singles. For population gain to happen there is a lot of construction of new bedrooms.
Right.. but the NYC example you give requires construction. My point is that gentrification without new construction, leads to population decline. An exception to that would be if the area being gentrified was outright abandoned beforehand, which may be the case in some cities.
Nah I don't think it's that automatic. Gentrification can mean a lot of things. It doesn't have to mean that people with a bunch of money come in. It can just simply be a shift in demographics and the new people make a little more than the previous - maybe they have some disposable income but not tons. You'll find this in tons of cities especially those areas close to other newly gentrified areas. The people that come in new are different demographically and they have some disposable income - enough to support some new coffee shops and bars but not enough to support tons of 4 unit buildings being down converted to 2 unit (example). From living in both NYC and Chicago lately, there's a bunch of areas like that in both ..especially in NYC.
Hell, actually even some areas of NYC have increased in density without any new construction. Some areas like East Village and Lower East Side in Manhattan for example have so much demand but are so expensive that some 1 bedroom places easily get converted into 2 bedroom places. I know a few young people from my workplace that live in situations like this - they can barely even fit anything other than a bed in their bedroom - 1 bedroom being converted into 2 bedrooms with a divider and only a twin sized bed can fit in it.
Columbus's 57% increase seems really good for Ohio and the Midwest. I know Cbus is booming for the area but I was surprised to see it on the list.
And Louisville too....red hot multifamily with literally thousands of units on the drawing board as we speak including around a half dozen highrises. Certainly punching above its weight as far as MSA size. What's more surprising about this in Louisville (and also Cincinnati and Columbus) is that all three were top 15 cities in the late 19th century. Unlike the sunbelt which has to build all new housing, much of the construction in these older cities is in duplex and single family renovations that will not show up on these lists. I have been harping on this for 5 years but finally the data is showing it.
I suspect Louisville would be in the top 25 easily if there wasn't so much money tied up into historic rehabs especially single family. I drive streets and call them "dumpster counts"...literally whole blocks with dumpsters in front signifying historic renovations. Other medium large overperformers ranked higher are Richmond, Jax, and SLC. I'm especially interested in getting back to Richmond...its been a couple years and those numbers are impressive considering it, too, has tons of historic renovations that will not show up here.
These medium large cities with large universities are universally outperforming peer cities in multifamily....READ millenials.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
