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So many major US cities in the Northeast and Mid-West reached peak population in 1950 or 1960 and have since declined. Some have since reversed the trend and are on the way back up. Which city is most likely to capture its former glory?
St. Louis: 315,685/856,796 - 37% of peak and shrinking marginally.
Chicago: 2,720,546/3,620,962 - 75% of peak and growing marginally.
Philly: 1,567,442/2,071,605 - 76% of peak and growing moderately.
Cleveland: 388,072/914,808 - 42% of peak and shrinking moderately.
Detroit: 677,116/1,849,568 - 37% of peak and shrinking moderately.
Pittsburgh: 304,391/676,806 - 45% of peak and shrinking marginally.
Baltimore: 621,849/949,708 - 65% of peak and growing marginally.
Going by this (census stats from wikipedia, just assuming they are pretty accurate) I'd say, in terms of population rebound, Philadelphia stands pretty high above the rest. The worst off still looks to be Detroit. St. Louis and Cleveland aren't looking so good either. Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Chicago look to be turning a corner. St. Louis, Cleveland, and Detroit will likely continue to lose population for another decade, save for some dramatic shifts. But the good news for them is that they are now losing population at the slowest rate in half a century, so that is a good thing (though it still sounds kinda bad).
Now I suppose some of this could be misleading. I am not sure how many of these cities annexed more towns to gain population in the interim since their peaks (1950). This could certainly skew things a bit and make it not exactly apples to apples. It also ignores (or could ignore) who the people are who come and go. For example, gaining in population isn't necessarily always "good" if you are just bringing a whole bunch of people in on welfare or expensive government jobs or things like that. You might have fewer people moving to say Pittsburgh, but they might be highly skilled and very productive. Hard to say. So population is a good indicator of relative city health but not always the end all be all.
Regardless though, to answer the immediate question, it seems Philadelphia is definitely the most likely candidate.
All of these cities would have to build a lot of new housing. With smaller households, the population will never be close to the peak, wheb households were much larger. More housing units have to be built.
If Philadelphia continues to get its act together like it has been, I could see the city approach the 2M mark over the next few decades. Breaking 1.6M, which may happen soon, would be a big achievement.
Coz neither are typically considered post-industrial or Rust Belt. The omission was purposeful.
DC was never industrial, but Boston is a post-industrial city - mostly light industrial related to textile and shoe manufacturing. The transition away from manufacturing happened relatively early, with the garment industry moving to the U.S. south to avoid labor unions beginning in the 1950s.
Anyway, barring Philadelphia, none of these cities will reach their peak population again. Keep in mind that in all cases the majority of the population decline was due to falling household size. I have looked at the numbers for Pittsburgh, for example, and if we gained back 110,000 people (unlikely, but not impossible if we became the next Portland or Minneapolis over the next 30 years) we'd have an equal number of households to our 1950 peak. This means higher growth than that would require not only filling in blighted areas and parking lots, but turning large swathes of the city now dominated by rowhouses or detached single-family homes into apartment districts. It would also require big new investments in our local road network and transit system. All of which is feasible of course, but the point stands that given there are so many less kids now than in 1950 Pittsburgh would be a much "bigger" and more urban city with 676,000 people within city limits today.
The greater Chicago area posted a loss of about 15k I believe. The City of Chicago is estimated to have grown, even if marginally.
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