Which city is becoming less relevant as its population increases? (expensive, living)
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I remember this thread When it first came out. Back then my vote was for Phoenix, But now I'm second guessing.
Phoenix is Raising its National Profile, It's Hosted Superbowls, Challenged and defeated Philadelphia in National Rankings, Growing Economy, Benefiting from California Exodus. I No Longer think Phoenix is the correct answer for this thread as it's slightly becoming more relevant and gaining more influence
The OP mentioned cities that annex to inflate growth numbers and lack of light rail would make them less “relevant”. Based on those two criteria alone not one city listed would qualify as “relevant” as only three of the cities listed currently have light rail and all of the cities have used annexation and or consolidation at one point in their history to boost population growth. Based on the OP’s own definitions no city on the poll would qualify.
They specifically chose to single out Nashville and Columbus using vague criteria in order to air out their rhetoric.
I decided to go back to the OP.
I think you're misreading it.
Here's what it said:
Quote:
We've all seen the promoted blogs and articles about those "up and coming" cities that are so amazingly great that "everyone is moving to." The only problem is that sometimes it seems that the only evidence being offered up for this supposed greatness are population surges coupled with some vague economic forecasts.
At the same time we see cities that are supposedly on the decline building streetcars, high rises, and continuing to add big time amenities.
What is population increase really an indicator of? Do some cities just continue to add population without increasing their actual stature or influence?
Discuss.
It says nothing about annexing land, only that the criteria for these cities being "up and coming" (or "on the rise", or "gaining in influence" to use the terminology of the OP) are "population surges coupled with vague economic forecasts."
This passage is agnostic about how the city gains population — though if the city is located in the Sunbelt, it's probably a safe bet that it isn't gaining population by growing denser (though California cities and metros are actually more densely populated than their Northeast counterparts because their suburbs are actually built to uniform densities higher than those for most affluent East Coast suburbs).
Meanwhile, the presence of light rail is not used as a proxy for relevance. Rather, the OP is commenting archly that it's the supposedly declining cities that are building rail transit, denser buildings and more big-city-style amenities.
Maybe the topic sentence is miscast, but I think that I dinged Losfrisco wrongly for their pointing out urban form, for the comparison here hinges heavily on that very thing: Is the city increasing in population, but doing so by simply spreading out further? Or is its population perhaps stable, or not growing as fast, yet its urban infrastructure is growing faster?
Yes, every large city in this country has grown at least in part by annexing territory, although those east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River by and large are constrained from doing so further unless they can merge with the county they're in (Philadelphia was the first to do that, by the way — in 1854). So we can really ignore annexation as a reason to criticize cities for their population gains. (Not to mention that most states that had very liberal annexation laws have tightened them, often by requiring that voters in the territory to be annexed approve the annexation as well.).
As I think you yourself said, to gauge the size and spread of the "city," we really need to look at the entire urbanized metropolis. And since urbanized metropolises continue to add territory, even in the Northeast, one question we could ask is "Is it only spreading out, or is it both spreading out and rising higher?" Houston, I'd like to suggest, is an example of the latter — and nobody would have included Houston in this poll, for it's only gaining in stature.
It says nothing about annexing land, only that the criteria for these cities being "up and coming" (or "on the rise", or "gaining
This passage is agnostic about how the city gains population — though if the city is located in the Sunbelt, it's probably a safe bet that it isn't gaining population by growing denser (though California cities and metros are actually more densely populated than their Northeast counterparts because their suburbs are actually built to uniform densities higher than those for most affluent East Coast suburbs).
Meanwhile, the presence of light rail is not used as a proxy for relevance. Rather, the OP is commenting archly that it's the supposedly declining cities that are building rail transit, denser buildings and more big-city-style amenities.
Maybe the topic sentence is miscast, but I think that I dinged Losfrisco wrongly for their pointing out urban form, for the comparison here hinges heavily on that very thing: Is the city increasing in population, but doing so by simply spreading out further? Or is its population perhaps stable, or not growing as fast, yet its urban infrastructure is growing faster?
Yes, every large city in this country has grown at least in part by annexing territory, although those east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River by and large are constrained from doing so further unless they can merge with the county they're in (Philadelphia was the first to do that, by the way — in 1854). So we can really ignore annexation as a reason to criticize cities for their population gains. (Not to mention that most states that had very liberal annexation laws have tightened them, often by requiring that voters in the territory to be annexed approve the annexation as well.).
As I think you yourself said, to gauge the size and spread of the "city," we really need to look at the entire urbanized metropolis. And since urbanized metropolises continue to add territory, even in the Northeast, one question we could ask is "Is it only spreading out, or is it both spreading out and rising higher?" Houston, I'd like to suggest, is an example of the latter — and nobody would have included Houston in this poll, for it's only gaining in stature.
From the OP:
"A city has a dense, compact footprint.
The city increases that footprint 15X through annexation so a few hundred thousand can be added to the population.
The original city limits, where civic showpieces and amenities are overwhelmingly concentrated, loses over half its original population.
This massive annexation has increased the population of the city while creating new cityscapes such as this:
I think this shows a city increasing its population while decreasing its character (which relevance is often tied to).
Do we have any evidence that Nashville has recovered its core city population? I believe that would have been close to 180,000 in 34 square miles.
San Jose has 42 miles of light rail”
Also from the OP:
"I'm just not seeing an argument for either Columbus or Nashville being more relevant than they were 70 years ago, other than, as described in the OP, population growth (in both cases forced by massive annexation).
Nashville's pre-1960 city limits were under 34 square miles, and from what I understand the population of that area was basically cut in half in the decades following their annexation of everything in sight.
Similar situation for Columbus-busting, dense pre-annexation core that hollowed out to accommodate the new megaburbia plan.
I think they are two prime examples of adding population but not relevance, and the artificial manner in which it was done makes it worse."
“Its upped its population through massive annexation and likely has yet to recover population losses from the core city. That probably applies to Nashville as well (hard to get this kind of data).
Of course plenty of others lost population in the core city, but they aren't telling people how big they're growing.
This is a great example of how MSA's are sometimes overemphasized to provide a smokescreen for mediocre cities.
"Age of suburbia" doesn't apply to the country, plenty of cities are going in the opposite direction. Nashville and Columbus made conscious choices to not build mass transit while hyping their growth, which is one reason they make great poll options.
We've got one city bloating its limits from 34 square miles to 500, and another from 40 to 220. Seems like the perfect formula to increase population but not relevance.“
Looks to me the OP is clearly trying to use city limits and light rail to determine relevancy.
Not quite sure how Florida got so large but not as competitive in medicine and education in general.
On the latter score: I'd guess that, unlike the Houstonians who founded Rice University or the robber barons who located Vanderbilt in Nashville or the tobacco money that established Duke in Durham, few of the people who were settling Florida in the first explosive period of its growth had higher education in mind as an asset the cities they were building needed.
Yes, Miami has a university, and there are also universities in the Tampa Bay and Jacksonville areas (though I can't name them), but Miami — which is probably Florida's top private university — isn't in quite the same league academically as the Ivies, Chicago, Stanford or the three schools I just mentioned.
Florida developed around tourism, which usually isn't a foundation upon which one builds a higher-education and research environment.
Hmmm...since I mentioned Duke, I should also note that North Carolina has both the best higher-education system and the biggest medical research center in the South. However, none of these things are in Charlotte.
I think this shows a city increasing its population while decreasing its character (which relevance is often tied to).
Do we have any evidence that Nashville has recovered its core city population? I believe that would have been close to 180,000 in 34 square miles.
San Jose has 42 miles of light rail”
Also from the OP:
“Its upped its population through massive annexation and likely has yet to recover population losses from the core city. That probably applies to Nashville as well (hard to get this kind of data).
Of course plenty of others lost population in the core city, but they aren't telling people how big they're growing.
This is a great example of how MSA's are sometimes overemphasized to provide a smokescreen for mediocre cities.
"Age of suburbia" doesn't apply to the country, plenty of cities are going in the opposite direction. Nashville and Columbus made conscious choices to not build mass transit while hyping their growth, which is one reason they make great poll options.
We've got one city bloating its limits from 34 square miles to 500, and another from 40 to 220. Seems like the perfect formula to increase population but not relevance.“
Looks to me the OP is clearly trying to use city limits and light rail to determine relevancy.
In which case, let's look at the part I bolded, because that passage pretty much describes Kansas City after World War II.
The city's land area grew fivefold from 1946 to the early 1980s while its population grew by only 51,000 or so during that period of annexation and had actually begun to fall in the 1970s as the original 61-square-mile city of 1945, where all the civic assets people identify with the city were located*, began emptying out.
The city has since regained its population loss and now has more residents than it had in 1970, and some of the emptied-out parts of the old core city have been redeveloped — but many have not. And in terms of its place in the big-city hierarchy, it's been lapped by every one of those Sunbelt metros save the legacy city of New Orleans. It was the 25th biggest MSA in the country when I was growing up there; it's 33d now.
But it does have a modern streetcar line that's being extended southward to link the downtown with the tony Country Club Plaza shopping district and the university campus. So is this making it more relevant, or are the Chiefs?
*though in the 1970s, the football and baseball stadia (which were one) moved from the old city core to the annexed territory, as did its airport, which remains surrounded by farmland even though it lies within the city limits.
P.S. If you haven't read it, you might want to read Strong Towns' dissection of KC as an example of everything that's wrong with the American postwar urban growth model:
To your point: Not so much city limits per se but rather how cities added territory. I'd still maintain (perhaps contrary to Losfrisco?) that when assessing a city's relevance, we do need to take in the entire urbanized metropolis — which I think is what you are also saying. Edited to add: To sort of back up your argument: The presence of the state line that just about divides Greater Kansas City neatly in two yet is very permeable means that much of its economic growth took place in other cities in the state next door. One of them is Overland Park, a suburb that has grown into an edge city and Kansas' second-largest by population (its population density is higher than KCMo's thanks to all the farmland in the latter). Neither Nashville nor Columbus have edge cities with the employment numbers OP has.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 02-19-2024 at 09:52 AM..
As I think you yourself said, to gauge the size and spread of the "city," we really need to look at the entire urbanized metropolis. And since urbanized metropolises continue to add territory, even in the Northeast, one question we could ask is "Is it only spreading out, or is it both spreading out and rising higher?" Houston, I'd like to suggest, is an example of the latter — and nobody would have included Houston in this poll, for it's only gaining in stature.
All annexation is not equal though.
Houston keeps getting brought up but although the city limits have increased in the last 30 years Houston hasn't annexed neighborhoods with people in the last 30 years.
Houston likes having it's airports, water supply and areas for highway expansion in its limits. If you look at Houston limits it skips the body of the city and jumps to encapsulate the airport. 3 of em. So there is unincorporated area between the airports and the rest of the city. Houston has annexed narrow strips of land all along the ports' ship channel. It's annexed strips along highways to make future expansion less complicated.
So yeah, Houston's growth last 30 years hasn't been through annexing neighborhoods. Houston is no OKC, Jacksonville or those other cities that are like top 15 for city limits population but only top 65 for metro area population.
Houston is #4 for city, #5 for both metro and UA population.
Another thing the OP mentions is losing population in the core so cities annex to get bigger. That's not the case with Houston.
Houston's inner loop is just as populated as it was when the city was just within the loop. And the density in that ore is increasing a lot. Detached housing with yards are quickly being converted to higher density.
Houston is by no means one of those cities where the city limits has all the population and the rest of the metro barely has people, so I not sure why it keeps being brought up in comparison to OKC and Jacksonville. As you mentioned western cities are more uniformly built than eastern ones, and Houston is built like that. It's UA is very uniform to where the UA density is higher than Boston and Philly's.
UA ranking and densities of cities in poll:
11. Phoenix - 3,580.7 ppsm - 5th biggest city
24. San Antonio 3,248.4 -7th biggest city
28. San Jose 6,436.4 - 12th biggest city
29. Austin 2,921.0 - 10th biggest city
35. Columbus 3,036.4. - 14th biggest city
37. Charlotte 2,098.3. - 15th biggest city
40. Jacksonville 2,175.9 - 11th biggest
42. Nashville 1,980.7 - 21st biggest
46. OKC 2,329.2. - 20th biggest city
Hmmm...since I mentioned Duke, I should also note that North Carolina has both the best higher-education system and the biggest medical research center in the South. However, none of these things are in Charlotte.
That's a great point. Excluding DC & Baltimore Duke hands down the best university/ medical research center in the south, but it's not in Charlotte.
You would expect the city with both to be most prominent. In neighboring Georgia, Atlanta by far has the most prominent School and medical research facilities.
I like your explanation for Florida, but it indeed had its share of Robber Barons. The most influential was Henry Flagler. He operated around the same time as Rice and Vanderbilt, but I guess Florida was more new exploration at the time, and like you said developed around tourism. I would add retirees and foreign transplants fleeing poverty, and persecution
In which case, let's look at the part I bolded, because that passage pretty much describes Kansas City after World War II.
The city's land area grew fivefold from 1946 to the early 1980s while its population grew by only 51,000 or so during that period of annexation and had actually begun to fall in the 1970s as the original 61-square-mile city of 1945, where all the civic assets people identify with the city were located*, began emptying out.
The city has since regained its population loss and now has more residents than it had in 1970, and some of the emptied-out parts of the old core city have been redeveloped — but many have not. And in terms of its place in the big-city hierarchy, it's been lapped by every one of those Sunbelt metros save the legacy city of New Orleans. It was the 25th biggest MSA in the country when I was growing up there; it's 33d now.
But it does have a modern streetcar line that's being extended southward to link the downtown with the tony Country Club Plaza shopping district and the university campus. So is this making it more relevant, or are the Chiefs?
*though in the 1970s, the football and baseball stadia (which were one) moved from the old city core to the annexed territory, as did its airport, which remains surrounded by farmland even though it lies within the city limits.
P.S. If you haven't read it, you might want to read Strong Towns' dissection of KC as an example of everything that's wrong with the American postwar urban growth model:
To your point: Not so much city limits per se but rather how cities added territory. I'd still maintain (perhaps contrary to Losfrisco?) that when assessing a city's relevance, we do need to take in the entire urbanized metropolis — which I think is what you are also saying. Edited to add: To sort of back up your argument: The presence of the state line that just about divides Greater Kansas City neatly in two yet is very permeable means that much of its economic growth took place in other cities in the state next door. One of them is Overland Park, a suburb that has grown into an edge city and Kansas' second-largest by population (its population density is higher than KCMo's thanks to all the farmland in the latter). Neither Nashville nor Columbus have edge cities with the employment numbers OP has.
I’m not sure the OP is saying what you’re stating at all. The OP is stating Nashville and Columbus are artificially boosting their city population numbers through annexation/consolidation. Essentially stating if it weren’t for annexation/consolidation these cities would be loosing population (which could apply to every city on the poll), therefore being less “relevant”.
In Nashville’s case he states that pre consolidation that Nashville lost population (which is true) so that must mean the consolidation masked any future population gains through artificial means.
My retort to that would be city county consolidation prevent any future annexation due to the boundaries being fixed, therefore any future population growth can’t be “masked” through annexation.
Also if you wanted to track Nashville’s pre consolidated city limits population growth you’d just track the zip codes.
I’m not sure the OP is saying what you’re stating at all. The OP is stating Nashville and Columbus are artificially boosting their city population numbers through annexation/consolidation. Essentially stating if it weren’t for annexation/consolidation these cities would be loosing population (which could apply to every city on the poll), therefore being less “relevant”.
In Nashville’s case he states that pre consolidation that Nashville lost population (which is true) so that must mean the consolidation masked any future population gains through artificial means.
My retort to that would be city county consolidation prevent any future annexation due to the boundaries being fixed, therefore any future population growth can’t be “masked” through annexation.
Also if you wanted to track Nashville’s pre consolidated city limits population growth you’d just track the zip codes.
I think you meant to say "loss" or "losses" where you wrote "growth" and "gains" in the passages I boldfaced, and given that, okay, I understand what you're saying the OP was saying in that post.
And — correct me if I'm wrong on this — I think you're countering that the growth that really counts is at the metropolitan level, regardless what political jurisdiction it takes place in. After all, growing metros with shrinking core cities are just about a dime a dozen in much of the Northeast and Midwest. In that respect, focusing on how many people are living within the city limits, or for that matter whether a shrinking core city population makes a city "less relevant," is barking up the wrong tree.
I think you meant to say "loss" or "losses" where you wrote "growth" and "gains" in the passages I boldfaced, and given that, okay, I understand what you're saying the OP was saying in that post.
And — correct me if I'm wrong on this — I think you're countering that the growth that really counts is at the metropolitan level, regardless what political jurisdiction it takes place in. After all, growing metros with shrinking core cities are just about a dime a dozen in much of the Northeast and Midwest. In that respect, focusing on how many people are living within the city limits, or for that matter whether a shrinking core city population makes a city "less relevant," is barking up the wrong tree.
Yes, meant losses, thanks for the correction. For all intense and purposes yes, when comparing cities it’s best to compare at the MSA level as that’s how most cities are measured, especially with cities with small municipal boundaries that show small city population with massive MSA’s such as Atlanta and Miami. Doesn’t help when the OP seems to make up their definition of “relevant” as they go.
Last edited by jkc2j; 02-19-2024 at 02:00 PM..
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