Promising Census Analysis for the City of Pittsburgh (Levittown, Indiana: apartments, to rent)

[SteelCityRising]

PART ONE: POPULATION

While my background may be in accounting I do have quite a love of statistics as well, and with that affinity for number-crunching comes an inalienable need to conduct short-term and long-term trend analysis in regards to my beloved new hometown of Pittsburgh, PA!

Well, what I can say is that while the city continues to face challenges there are some reasons to feel encouraged. Bear in mind that these are purely estimates conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau through their Annual Community Survey, but we should know Pittsburgh's official 2010 population before long.

POPULATION:
July 1, 2000: 333,703
July 1, 2001: 330,439 (-3,264, -0.98%)
July 1, 2002: 327,429 (-3,010, -0.91%)
July 1, 2003: 325,091 (-2,338, -0.71%)
July 1, 2004: 320,394 (-4,697, -1.44%)
July 1, 2005: 316,206 (-4,188, -1.30%)
July 1, 2006: 313,306 (-2,900, -0.92%)
July 1, 2007: 312,322 (-984, -0.31%)
July 1, 2008: 312,119 (-203, -0.06%)
July 1, 2009: 311,647 (-472, -0.15%)

Change from 07/01/2000 to 07/01/2009: -22,056, -6.6%

1940: 671,659
1950: 676,806 (+5,147, +0.77%)
1960: 604,332 (-72,474, -10.7%)
1970: 520,117 (-84,215, -13.9%)
1980: 423,938 (-96,179, -18.5%)
1990: 369,879 (-54,059, -12.8%)
2000: 334,563 (-35,316, -9.5%)
*2010: 311,000 (-23,563, -7.0%)

*I'm projecting a population of about 311,000 for 2010, based upon the annual losses for the prior several years.

What do these numbers above tell us? Well, roughly as many people moved out of the city limits from 1980-1990 alone as 1990-2000 and 2000-2010 combined. Between 2010 and 2020 Pittsburgh could either see it's population dip below the 300,000 milestone, or the trend since 2007 of losing under 1,000 people per year could continue, causing a much smaller population decline by 2020. I project population growth in the city to begin between 2020 and 2030 and perhaps a few years sooner if unforeseen circumstances occur (for example, I've already met several other Polish Hill neighbors who moved here in recent years after tiring of NoVA/DC, and I have more friends in the BosWash Corridor looking to move to Pittsburgh after also burning out).

It's also interesting to note that the city started its population nosedive between 1950 and 1960, which also coincides with the advent of suburbia destroying the urban fabric of American culture (i.e. "Levittown"). Throw in a little bit of white flight and the collapse of Pittsburgh's primary blue-collar industry from 1950 through 1980, and you can see why well over a quarter-million people fled the city during the course of just one generation. Seeing what suburbanization has done to once-proud cities like Pittsburgh is exactly why I detest most generic American suburbs such as Cranberry Twp., Robinson Twp., Ross Twp., and others that do nothing but serve to leech taxpayers from their host city like parasites while contributing very little, if anything, in return.

Pittsburgh needs repopulated (there, I dropped the "to be!") I intend for this thread to be very thought-provoking (and eye-opening) as I add more parts of analysis to it. In the interim, though, please feel free to discuss what can be done to stem sprawl (Allegheny County has grown the past year, according to estimates, while the city has continued to decline) and to help entice more people to move into the city.

[SteelCityRising]

I think one way to look at things is how many people occupy each structure in the city today vs. when the city was in its heyday. I currently live in a three-story dwelling right in the heart of Polish Hill. My landlady, who grew up in this home, occupies the first two floors, and I'm on the third, which she just renovated to rent out to me (presumably for additional income because she didn't really need the entire place to herself). I spoke to a woman today at the Polish Hill Civic Association, and she said that a home like mine would house a separate housing unit on each floor. The home today that now houses just me (single 24-year-old gay male) and my landlady (single 53-year-old straight female) may have at one time housed many more people. Will it ever house that many again? No. It's possible if my landlady lays claim to someone she'll move her better half into her unit. I have a female friend at law school in New Hampshire who may be interested in moving to Pittsburgh to intern, and she could live with me. Given current lifestyles that's a maximum of four people who'd be living in this home---a home that probably housed twice as many at its peak.

We'll never see that level of density again in Pittsburgh, which means we must instead focus on refurbishing vacant homes and finding new places to house more housing units, not only through brownfield redevelopment but also through renovating upper-stories of multi-story commercial buildings into apartments, condos, and lofts and potentially subdividing more larger single family homes into duplexes or triplexes. With higher density, though, comes more congestion. Currently 1/3 of people in Polish Hill don't own a vehicle. I do, but I've driven it very sparingly since moving here (it's been refreshing, actually, to live in a walkable and sustainable neighborhood to reduce my carbon footprint). With more people would come tighter parking, which would be a turn-off to many.

How do we strike that delicate balance between repopulating Pittsburgh to the point where there is enough of a tax base to sustain an adequate level of services while also not crowding it to the point where it no longer will be "America's Most Livable City?"

[soniqV]

A lot can happen in 10-20 years. I find it hard to speculate that far into the future, as who knows what other factors will be introduced between now and then. And that's just to get to the bottom of the curve, positive yardage notwithstanding. The young/old ratio is still pretty titled toward the silver side. But if you're right and historical trends are any indication, the growth will be slow and steady giving people plenty of time to adapt.

To answer your final question though, I think we could start by more responsibly allocating our current tax base, and overhauling PAT. That would have to be done through the voting booth though, and good luck trying to defeat that PR machine...

[Craziaskowboi]

Where did you get this information? Can you please provide a link? And can you chart the Allegheny County population by year?

[PeterRabbit]

City services like snow removal aren't as good as in the suburbs. A lot of housing doesn't have garages. Parking lots/garages are expensive. Driving around is tedious and troubling for even those who know the city well. Personal income tax is 3%. No Republican mayor in over 70 years/city is 80% Democrats. Business taxes and utilities are high. When you call your government office in the suburbs a human answers the phone in a timely manner. It appears that the city doesn't try to compete.

I believe all rustbelt city's populations reached a peak in 1950. When I looked into the population loss/gains, Columbus, Ohio, has done the best from Chicago to Buffalo to DC, etc. What does that city do that the others don't? We need attractive jobs to keep our young people here.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by PeterRabbit

Columbus, Ohio, has done the best from Chicago to Buffalo to DC, etc. What does that city do that the others don't?

Columbus, OH has four built-in advantages:

1. It's a state capital.
2. It's a college town.
3. It was never a center of heavy industry.
4. It's "new."

The higher education and state government sectors have given it a stable economy, and it's never had to deal with "reinventing" its economy either. The same holds true for Indianapolis, except its college presence isn't nearly as large.

As for "keeping young people here," if they want to leave, let 'em leave. Just find somebody from somewhere else to take over.

[BrianTH]

I think there is a decent chance the City population already bottomed, sometime circa 2003. I've made that case here before in detail, but the two basic points are that the American Community Survey, also conducted by the Census, indicates such a bottoming, and the "official" Census estimates for subcounty places contain a methodological flaw (explicitly acknowledged by the Census Bureau) which could easily cause such a discrepancy.

I also agree people often overlook the implications of declining persons per household. In a nutshell, in percentage terms the City is down far fewer occupied housing units than it is down population, and conversely a small recovery in population will translate into a relatively large recovery in housing units. But that may happen at a lag, because first what might happen is that persons per household will creep up a bit as younger households with kids replace some older households with only 1 or 2 people. In fact, in a nutshell that is why the Census estimates could be off--if the demographics of the City are changing from older/smaller households to younger/larger households, its method for estimating the population of subcounty places could be thrown off.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by PeterRabbit

It appears that the city doesn't try to compete.

Central cities basically can't compete with suburbs on the same terms. But conversely, central cities can often offer things many suburbs cannot, like short public-transit, biking, or walking commutes to the largest employment districts in the region, a dense collection of walkable amenities in most residential areas, and so on. My point isn't that central cities are inherently superior to suburbs, but rather that they each have different advantages and disadvantages. So looking only at how a central city is failing to compete with its suburbs in areas where suburbs have natural advantages is going to be missing the full picture--the question is how good is the city doing at being a city, not at competing with suburbs.

We need attractive jobs to keep our young people here.

Just an aside, but I think there is a good case that trying to keep our young people here is the wrong way to think about the problem. In a mobile society, it is worth being an attractive place for highly-skilled, highly-educated, highly-creative, and/or entrepreneurial young people, but that concept isn't, and can't productively, be limited to local young people. In fact, rather than seeing it as a problem, one can see it as an asset when young people from the region travel to other places. Some of those young people may come back, with new ideas, new education, new capital, and so on. Other may not come back personally, but may still invest in their former home region, or promote it to others, and so on.

In other words, limiting the mobility of local young people may be a counterproductive goal. Rather, the ideal may be to have a healthy two-way relationship with the rest of the world, including some individuals who travel both ways at different times.