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any older American cities with set boundaries reached their maximum population in the period from the 1930s-1950s due to a variety of factors.
Families were larger and typically lived in smaller spaces.
More families lived in cities before car centric suburbia took hold.
Economic hardship brought on by the depression meant more multi-generational households. WWII sacrifices delayed post depression era development.
Eisenhour's Interstate highway system didn't yet come into effect.
In the subsequent decades following WWII, cities were abandoned by those who could. Those who couldn't (the poor) stayed behind and continued to live in crowded housing in the cities but with more abandoned neighboring buildings.
Gentrification has been led by well-off professionals who are restoring communities but occupying them with less people that have more money. 1 or 2 people are typically living in 1100 SF instead of a family of 5. this dynamic is restoring and strengthening the financial vitality of the cities but isn't necessarily increasing their populations. It's adding tax dollars to cities without demanding as many schools for kids. It's infusing more money into the community, causing rents to go up as more poor and working class get pushed out. The well heeled in this country have gotten very used to the size and space of the burbs and that dynamic will continue to reduce densities of gentrifying urban cores where they are replacing the poor/working class, even as they bring economic vitality to an area.
If an urban core is filled with abandoned structures, like wide swaths of some cities, gentrification will actually increase population. In the end, it all depends on the local dynamic of each city and how the specifics of gentrification are unfolding.
Out of all those metro areas, Philadelphia is the only one that never went through a population decline. It has grown as you said slow but steady in recent years, but it has always been among the top metros competing with Boston, San Francisco, Chicago as far as economic power and influence goes. The other cities and their respective areas are much smaller. I am not trying to downplay them, but Philadelphia and especially the area as a whole are not overly comparable to any of those.
Cinncinatti and Detroit's metros have had continuous growth and Detroit's only had a decline post-recession. You are right in that Philly isn't really comparable to the others but you are downplaying their growth by saying Philly is the only metro in this list not to have a population decline which isn't entirely true.
Note to moderators, the screenshot is my own. Put emphasis on looking at 2012 and 2013 and see the general trend of stabilization and reversal of population decline. It starts at metropolitan level first before it trickles to the actual city.
First set of numbers will be total increase/decrease. Next to it will be natural increase (births), then next to it to the right will be natural decrease (deaths), to it's right will be immigration, and finally the last number to it's right will be net migration.
D.C.'s decline was mainly because of the Martin Luther King riots IMO. The city was a waste land for 50 years. I remember when I went away to school, people would say that all they knew about D.C. was that the only nice part is on the National Mall. The rest of the entire city was a ghetto wasteland full of crime and there was no reason to leave the National Mall. We are still struggling to break that mindset.
steady no in total but sort of but two factors; HH size and some flight and abandonment of neighborhoods led to the declines and some areas of Philly are pretty decimated today
Here is a blog from a poster on the site with some info
Although as the blog showed, a lot of cities experienced losses similar to those Philadelphia experienced in core neighbourhoods. Aside from the usual rust belt cities, Baltimore, Chicago and New Orleans were similar. Part of NYC (especially South Bronx) were probably worse, and I haven't done D.C. but it probably experienced relatively significant losses in some areas. Among major cities in the United States (major in 1950), I think only San Francisco, Los Angeles, and maybe Boston and D.C. completely avoided experiencing losses similar to North Philly.
I think even Houston, Dallas and Atlanta experienced significant population losses in some neighbourhoods.
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St. Louis is one city that left an indelible impression on me of how grand and prosperous the good old days were. A century ago it was one of the most premier cities in the US. It's an architectural and historic treasure trove and I would to see it return to the glorious city that it once was.
St. Louis is one city that left an indelible impression on me of how grand and prosperous the good old days were. A century ago it was one of the most premier cities in the US. It's an architectural and historic treasure trove and I would to see it return to the glorious city that it once was.
When I first visited St. Louis 5 years ago when looking at schools, this was what shocked me the most. Here was a city that had the beauty and amenities of the victorian era... stuff that we can't reproduce anymore even if we wanted to. And this type of urban living was available at a bargain that I couldn't dream of being from the east coast. Fast forward 5 years and I own a beautiful renovated old home thats walking distance to work and life is good.
St. Louis is the type of city that doesn't immediately impress but definitely grows on you after a while. I feel like St. Louis has finally bottomed out in terms of population loss and is roaring back. It will take another 5-10 years to know for sure but its definitely an exciting time to be living in the city.
I feel like Pittsburgh has also finally turned the corner. Baltimore may have bottomed out like STL. Detroit, however, still has a ways to go.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by caphillsea77
St. Louis is one city that left an indelible impression on me of how grand and prosperous the good old days were. A century ago it was one of the most premier cities in the US. It's an architectural and historic treasure trove and I would to see it return to the glorious city that it once was.
Baltimore is actually an interesting case study. The city probably peaked at about 960,000. If it would have hit the elusive 1 million mark, it would have been the only city under 85 sq. miles to ever reach that distinction. The only other municipality to exceed that plateau would have been Manhattan. Anyway, I would love to see all the cities stabilize and grow once again, but my heart really goes out to some of the smaller, medium sized towns that never really had a chance. (ie. the Scranton's/Wilkes-Barres's/Altoona's/and Binghampton's of the world).
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