Metro areas 50 year growth comparison -500k plus metros (state, rates, largest) - City vs. City - City-Data Forum

mjlo · 08-15-2021, 11:54 AM

Over the last year I've been putting together a data base of all MSAs over 500k based on the 2018 county alignment. I have gathered data for all counties in each of these MSAs going back to 1950. My plan is to use it as a tool for comparisons on historical growth between the MSAs. Now that the official 2020 numbers are out I can go ahead and play around with it. The below charts are the first results of this comparisons.

Please note the following:
1. All of the data is per the US census bureau, by and large it is accurate. For most of the historical data there was no easy way to convert into the data base so I had enter it manually. I had a pretty strict process of reviewing to make sure all was accurate, that said you may find some errors. I will correct them if I'm notified.

2. Please note that all numbers represent the 2018 MSA alignment. Historically not all counties in the 2018 alignment would have been counted as part of a metropolitan area in 1970 (which is my historical reference point). It is very difficult to find perfect county alignments from 1970, and the data transcription would be astronomical. Therefore I used modern day county alignments for the reference point. It is still a geographical apples to apples comparison.

3. Those who are familiar with my posts over the last several years know how strongly I feel about the classifications of certain statistical areas being separated from main statistical areas. The following Metro areas have been combined for what I feel is a more accurate representation of the core area. (Again this is not meant to mimic government statistical classifications, but rather my own logic)

a. The data for New York contains the Fairfield, Bridgeport, and Poughkeepsie MSA's
b. The data for Los Angeles contains the Oxnard and Riverside MSA's(Riverside is a fraud metro)
c. The data for San Francisco contains the San Jose MSA
d. The data for Detroit contains the Ann Arbor MSA
e. The data for Cleveland contains the Akron, and Canton MSA's
f. The data for Raleigh contains the Durham MSA
g. The data for Salt Lake City contains the Ogden and Provo MSA's

There may be other areas that should have been combined. I'm not familiar enough with all markets to perfectly join areas in this fashion. I joined parts of certain CSA's that had little to no break in urban form. Outside of that I consider CSAs largely to be a vanity comparison. I don't consider an urban cluster separated by several miles of no development part of a main metro. I'm open to hearing about other potential combinations. But I'm not going to split hairs for anyone who disagrees with the combinations I've made.

4. The below charts are NOT based on official government regional designations. They are based on my own logic and how I perceive regions, though they largely do follow conventional regional placement. That said anyone who can't help themselves but split hairs over how I grouped these cities will have their comments removed. This is not a debate, and I do not consider these groupings official.

5. Per number 2 I am also including charts that compare Rustbelt and Sunbelt cities. Again these are not official lists. If you see a city listed in one of these categories that you don't agree with please refrain from commenting. This thread is meant to compare data for growth of these metros, and to compare relatively similar metros. If you disagree with my classifications you are welcome to make your own charts.

6. If there are cities you'd like to see compared that are not, feel free to reach out with a request and I will make a chart for them (time permitting).

I grouped Washington in with the NE cities simply because it is part of the Bos-Wash corridor. It had the highest growth in the last decade as well as the last 50 years.

Des Moines had the highest growth among Midwest metros, Madison had the strongest number for the last 50 years. For large Midwest metros the Twin Cities posted the largest gains.

I think how I clustered southern cities will have the most disagreements. I separated out Florida and Texas into their own categories and then divided the rest by old and new south cities. There's a lot of room for debate as to where to place cities in this regard but this is the comparison.

Texas/Oklahoma and Florida metros in their own lists. Please note that Tucson added into the Texas cities is an error. I must have copied it in with Tulsa by accident please ignore for now.

Western metros compared. Boise stand out as the largest % gain for the last decade. Las Vegas is the fastest growing metro of the las 50 years, though like all western metros it seems to be slowing a bit. LA's raw growth over the last 50 years is still quite impressive as well. In terms of raw growth it stands alone for any metro.

Quite a few western metro's had a slowing in their growth rates over the last 10 years. Still posting pretty strong numbers, but not quite as powerful as decades past.

More traditional Sunbelt metros compared.

Rustbelt metro's and a few outliers that have had similar struggles compared.

rnc2mbfl · 08-15-2021, 12:37 PM

Thanks for all that work! It's much appreciated.

QQ for you.
Have you calculated these numbers based on a static geographic data set (meaning today's metro boundary), or have you calculated them based on what the metro was defined as at that specific interval of time?

Also, I think that that I'd include Winston-Salem and Greensboro as Old South as they are cities/metros that were heavily steeped in the traditional Southern industries of textiles, furniture, and tobacco. Arguably, Durham (but not Raleigh) could be considered an Old South city that has transitioned to New South.
I suspect that others may argue that some other New South cities could be described as Old South, but I don't know enough about all of these cities to make that claim for them.

Okay...so, I have answered my own question, at least as far as Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte are concerned. If we use the populations of the counties that make up the current MSA designations (in the case of Raleigh and Durham, it's the combination of both MSAs, but not the extra county in the CSA), we get the following 1970 numbers:
Charlotte: 1,009,171
Raleigh-Durham: 625,628
From that apples to apples comparison to the current numbers:
Charlotte has grown by ~164%
Raleigh-Durham by ~230%.
Note that I only ran these numbers once and there could be mistakes, but it's clear that the 1970 numbers don't reflect current counties in the MSAs.

Another one that stuck out to me was Orlando, so I ran those numbers based on the current 4 county MSA, and its total was 522,575 in 1970. Just Orange County, FL alone was 344,311 in 1970. Not sure where the 189K number can even come from since the base county was already way above that.

I think that the comparisons should be based on the current counties associated with the MSAs. It gives you an apples to apples comparison of the actual growth. I know that it would take an awful lot of extra work to go through this one MSA at a time, but it's really necessary in the Sunbelt where MSAs have largely grown in geography over time and as their sprawl created suburbs out of many additional counties.

mjlo · 08-15-2021, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rnc2mbfl

Thanks for all that work! It's much appreciated.

QQ for you.
Have you calculated these numbers based on a static geographic data set (meaning today's metro boundary), or have you calculated them based on what the metro was defined as at that specific interval of time?

It's all based on today's metro boundary. It's been difficult to find concrete information on what the historical MSA boundaries were. To keep things an equal comparison i just used counties in the current alignment and got the census data for them.

Quote:

Also, I think that that I'd include Winston-Salem and Greensboro as Old South as they are cities/metros that were heavily steeped in the traditional Southern industries of textiles, furniture, and tobacco. Arguably, Durham (but not Raleigh) could be considered an Old South city that has transitioned to New South.
I suspect that others may argue that some other New South cities could be described as Old South, but I don't know enough about all of these cities to make that claim for them.

I'll admit I struggled on how to classify them. I'm not as familiar with the medium sized metro's in NC as I am in other states so I ultimately just lumped them in with Raleigh and Charlotte.

rnc2mbfl · 08-15-2021, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjlo

It's all based on today's metro boundary. It's been difficult to find concrete information on what the historical MSA boundaries were. To keep things an equal comparison i just used counties in the current alignment and got the census data for them.

See my edited initial post because I ran some numbers for a few of these and came up with wildly different data. I was prompted to do this because I didn't believe that Charlotte has been out growing (by rate) Raleigh-Durham over the last 50 years and I wanted to see for myself if those percentages were true. I could imagine them being close, but I didn't believe that they were as different as reported.

Heel82 · 08-15-2021, 02:01 PM

Yeah, that Charlotte number looked off. Great chart mjlo and good catch rnc2mbfl.

Just for reference, Mecklenburg (354,000) and Gaston (148,000) alone had 500,000 in 1970.

Boston Shudra · 08-15-2021, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjlo

6. If there are cities you'd like to see compared that are not, feel free to reach out with a request and I will make a chart for them (time permitting).

If you’re keeping a running list, I might like to see how Manchester/Nashua’s growth compares to Boston, Worcester, and Providence over 50 years!

mjlo · 08-15-2021, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rnc2mbfl

Another one that stuck out to me was Orlando, so I ran those numbers based on the current 4 county MSA, and its total was 522,575 in 1970. Just Orange County, FL alone was 344,311 in 1970. Not sure where the 189K number can even come from since the base county was already way above that.

I think that the comparisons should be based on the current counties associated with the MSAs. It gives you an apples to apples comparison of the actual growth. I know that it would take an awful lot of extra work to go through this one MSA at a time, but it's really necessary in the Sunbelt where MSAs have largely grown in geography over time and as their sprawl created suburbs out of many additional counties.

You had me thinking I was crazy for a second. This data IS based on the current county alignments there is no deviation. I triple checked the data I complied for Raleigh and Charlotte, and also Orlando.

The data base is correct so no problems there. I must have made a copy/paste error when preparing the Charlotte data. As for Orlando, I used the 1950 information and not the 1970

It's all corrected now.

Here's the data for both Charlotte and Raleigh below should you have any more questions. Note I haven't added all of the 2020 numbers into the data base just yet. It takes a while to go through it all.