2,360,867 (Pittsburgh, Lebanon, Monongahela: apartment, appliances, houses)

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

So let's just abandon towns in one half of the county, letting them decay, while plowing over farmland and woodlands in the other half of the county to start over?

Yeah, that seems to be the choice a lot of people are making. I'm not sure what you could do to stop it other than tax penalties/incentives and heavy use of zoning.

[escilade18]

Population itself doesn't matter so much as number of households does. A family of seven living in a house pays as much in taxes as a single person living in the same house. Once all the neighborhoods all start to resemble Larimer, then there is a problem. I agree with Zman on the numbers that should be added, but don't see the city declaring bankruptcy anytime soon. Also, the people moving in will eventually have kids if they stay as well, only time will tell if the amount of 34-45 year olds will increase by 2020

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I actually wonder if the population loss in Fayette and Armstrong might be enough to take them out of the MSA again? Presumably there's a point where population loss drowns out commute integration.

That said, I dunno if there's any precedent for a county being taken out of a MSA.

It's not population gain or loss that gets a county in or out of an MSA. It's commuting patterns.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

Even if we could get to an equal amount of births and deaths, we probably would have an extra 12,000 people here over the last 4 years.

If, if, if. You have to deal with reality.

[speagles84]

Originally Posted by Katiana

If, if, if. You have to deal with reality.

Its heading that way now. Just haven't reached there yet. The entire US is going the other way: older median age

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Katiana

It's not population gain or loss that gets a county in or out of an MSA. It's commuting patterns.

If the number of workers keeps decreasing, then it could cancel out the effect of commuting patterns eventually.

[Craziaskowboi]

One subtle but not insignificant change compared to last decade is that all seven counties in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area now have natural population decreases. It used to be that Butler County was the last bastion of natural increase, but even it now has more deaths than births. As the disproportionately large elderly population in the region dies off, it's going to be a tremendous drag on population growth, even if net migration remains positive. More than likely, natural population trends won't normalize until after 2020, especially since they weren't abnormal until after 2000.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by JoeP

That's not true. While it is true that the city had about 700,000 about 70 years ago, most families were larger and the city was a crowded mess. People think of density in only good terms. The city is turning around and yes it can hold a lot more people, but most cities can't live like they did 70 years ago.

Yup. 70 years ago the population was much higher because it was made up of lots of families with 8-10 kids. There was still only one tax payer in that family, though. So you can't argue that more residents = more taxpayers. In an era when large families were common, more residents = more kids needing schools.

More important, the poster who thinks the infrastructure was designed for 700,000 doesn't realize it was also designed for an era when it wasn't all that common to own a car, and if you did have a car it was one vehicle per 10 people (since most of the population were the children of large families). Imagine what it would be like with today's demographics--more young single adults, each one driving a car, needing a parking space, etc.

[Blackbeauty212]

Its my theory that the outer counties will not begin to significantly grow until Allegheny county is damn near tapped out forcing people to consider the outer counties, and there plenty of room for growth still left in both the city and county....and also public transit needs to become a singular regional network (SWPTA) offering somewhat reasonable commute times to the City....

Its a simple growth from the inside outward...where other established metros already well defined growth outward patterns...The Burgh has in a sense needed to take this class over again...

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Yup. 70 years ago the population was much higher because it was made up of lots of families with 8-10 kids. There was still only one tax payer in that family, though. So you can't argue that more residents = more taxpayers. In an era when large families were common, more residents = more kids needing schools.

More important, the poster who thinks the infrastructure was designed for 700,000 doesn't realize it was also designed for an era when it wasn't all that common to own a car, and if you did have a car it was one vehicle per 10 people (since most of the population were the children of large families). Imagine what it would be like with today's demographics--more young single adults, each one driving a car, needing a parking space, etc.

Without a significant amount of new mid and high rise apartments, there's no way we will ever hit our old population high 650,000 and I'm fine with that. Considering how people live today I don't think the city could handle that population size.