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I think it’s Chicago. It has really good bones, all it needs to do is get out of its own way. It’s arguably the most affordable of any city which has big city amenities, and it has great ties to other parts of the country. Winter holds it back, though, and Chicago doesn’t really defend itself as far as showing the reality of how localized crime is. It’s a city of neighborhoods, and that’s at least as true of crime as anything else.
Philly's growth in areas outside of downtown are due to Center Cities growth and the domino effect that causes city wide.
Now that sounds closer to an accurate description of Philadelphia's relative vitality. In large part, yes that's true. You also cannot ignore University City's growth and position as an economic hub in this picture either.
I think it’s Chicago. It has really good bones, all it needs to do is get out of its own way. It’s arguably the most affordable of any city which has big city amenities, and it has great ties to other parts of the country. Winter holds it back, though, and Chicago doesn’t really defend itself as far as showing the reality of how localized crime is. It’s a city of neighborhoods, and that’s at least as true of crime as anything else.
I like Chicago a lot.
I"d like to believe it will come back and have a good influx of people. But big issues remain to prevent this.
Illinois taxes are a big challenge--very high.
Crime is a stubborn problem in many neighborhoods, outside of the loop, northside and areas adjacent to downtown.
The winters are not for all. Granted, with climate change continuing to encroach on many areas, winters may become milder. But for now, the biting cold and big snow amounts from November until April are challenging for many.
I think it will remain relatively steady or decline slightly over the years.
I"d like to believe it will come back and have a good influx of people. But big issues remain to prevent this.
Illinois taxes are a big challenge--very high.
Crime is a stubborn problem in many neighborhoods, outside of the loop, northside and areas adjacent to downtown.
The winters are not for all. Granted, with climate change continuing to encroach on many areas, winters may become milder. But for now, the biting cold and big snow amounts from November until April are challenging for many.
I think it will remain relatively steady or decline slightly over the years.
I think Chicago is setting up a good basis for turning around with a lot of corporate relocations in a primary industry (food and agricultural products) such that it becomes a hub for the industry rather than a (fairly successful) jack of all trades. The continued growth of the West Loop and the Near South Side has the city pushing development (or redevelopment) back out from the Loop so it's not just the North Side that's doing relatively okay. There's been a steady, though still underwhelming, amount of lead abatement and removal which should continue to pay dividends in the future. There's a pretty good shot of turning Chicago Union Station into a through-running station as the first step towards making Chicago becoming an even more vital intercity rail hub as well as better leveraging existing commuter rail infrastructure to serve as an express rapid transit service in the region while the CREATE program continues to untangle freight and passenger rail lines so that they don't disrupt each other. It also still has existent and *operating* infrastructure for when the city was much more populated.
The Illinois taxes are a large issue and the debt is still there, but under Pritzker, Chicago's credit rating has seen substantial improvements and there has been a reasonable effort to prioritize certain debts while not completely degrading government services.
I don't think it'll be the first to get to its peak population, but I don't think it's that much of a longshot.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-15-2023 at 11:05 AM..
I think Chicago is setting up a good basis for turning around with a lot of corporate relocations in a primary industry (food and agricultural products) such that it becomes a hub for the industry rather than a (fairly successful) jack of all trades. The continued growth of the West Loop and the Near South Side has the city pushing development (or redevelopment) back out from the Loop so it's not just the North Side that's doing relatively okay. There's been a steady, though still underwhelming, amount of lead abatement and removal which should continue to pay dividends in the future. There's a pretty good shot of turning Chicago Union Station into a through-running station as the first step towards making Chicago becoming an even more vital intercity rail hub as well as better leveraging existing commuter rail infrastructure to serve as an express rapid transit service in the region while the CREATE program continues to untangle freight and passenger rail lines so that they don't disrupt each other. It also still has existent and *operating* infrastructure for when the city was much more populated.
The Illinois taxes are a large issue and the debt is still there, but under Pritzker, Chicago's credit rating has seen substantial improvements and there has been a reasonable effort to prioritize certain debts while not completely degrading government services.
I don't think it'll be the first to get to its peak population, but I don't think it's that much of a longshot.
When 2/3 of the city is bleeding population, the city will either decline, remain steady, or best case scenario the northside/downtown growth hits higher than the decline of the south/west sides. Until Crime lowers, nothing will change. Lowering crime will attract investment, which will attract new people, which will give property taxes to improves schools, and the increased tax base could possibly help lower taxes.
When 2/3 of the city is bleeding population, the city will either decline, remain steady, or best case scenario the northside/downtown growth hits higher than the decline of the south/west sides. Until Crime lowers, nothing will change. Lowering crime will attract investment, which will attract new people, which will give property taxes to improves schools, and the increased tax base could possibly help lower taxes.
It's nowhere near 2/3rds of the city bleeding population since a good chunk of west side and south side closer towards the loop have been growing or have stabilized since they've hit a nadir. Surprisingly, some of the north side neighborhoods have lost population even as prices have gotten higher as household sizes have gone down. Rough south side neighborhoods like Fuller Park, Douglas, and Grand Boulevard have actually posted growth since their nadir as some measure of new developments have occurred and people have been moving in near the transit stations. There are definitely several neighborhoods in the south side, and to a much lesser extent the west side, going through high double-digit percentage loss over the last decade, but these aren't that massive in absolute numbers anymore since it's on a base of a much smaller population in those neighborhoods than in the past. There's about ten or so of Chicago's 77 community areas that lost double digit percentage population from the 2010 to 2020 census, but there was about equal number who had double digit percentage gain and some of those gains like in the Near West Side or the Near South Side were massive.
Crime has fluctuated in recent years and there was a spike perhaps related to the pandemic spike most urban cities saw, but there's some evidence that was a spike since 2022 was down and 2023 seems even further down. The development of a primary industry and jobs to go with it, infrastructure investments both as short-term influx of funds and as a way to make its market more competitive and expand job access, and continued gradual reduction of lead exposure of young people and the likely corresponding crime and unemployment that entails are overall pretty favorable tailwinds for Chicago.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-15-2023 at 02:45 PM..
Out of the poll choices, here is my estimation of their ranking, in terms of chances--
11 St Louis - will only continue losing population. Hard to believe this city had 856,000+ in 1950. Already having plummeted, with a population well below 275k--it could go as low as 200k in 50 years (or less?!). Best chance for a boost is to combine with the county, but probably not happening any time soon.
10 Detroit - never happening. Already plummeting from its peak of 1.850 million in 1950, the city will keep "right sizing" in terms of population and decline will continue. I'd estimate it to bottom out at roughly 450k in the next 50 years.
9 Cleveland - the population decline continues. The city is not bleeding as badly as it was, but population still a far cry from its peak of 914,000. I'd say the city drops to 300-320k, or less, in 50 years.
8 Buffalo - not shredding people as badly as it was, drop has stabilized. Population may slightly increase (a few thousand here or there) but by no means will it get close to where it was at its peak.
7 Milwaukee - slight drops will probably continue. The city is not losing at a fast clip, but drops may continue, and in 50 years, could go to 500k-ish.
6 Baltimore - the city will probably continue slowly losing population. In 50 years, similar to Milwaukee at around 500k or so. It may fall as low as 450k or so.
5 Pittsburgh - this city could actually see a slight uptick in the next couple of decades due to strong white collar job integration, gentrification and overall economic growth. I could see it gaining up to around 325-350k, from roughly 302k now. Nowhere near its peak though.
4 Chicago - the city is relatively steady, but will see a slow loss of population continue, I think. I would guess in 50 years, it will be around 2.550 to 2.650 million. A far cry from its peak of 3,620,000 in 1950, though.
3 Philadelphia - could see a continued increase in the city population, as folks move here for less costly inner city real estate. A cheaper option to New York. A surge in population, pushing it near, or past its peak of 2,071,000 in 1950, could happen.
2 Boston - increasing gentrification, strong economic job opportunity and a surge in desirability could increase its
population past its peak of 801,000, in 50 years. Sitting at roughly 660k now, not super far off. We shall see.
1 Washington, DC - strongest case of the options listed. DC has done a great job at inner city development infill, and the population is growing, sitting at roughly 690,000 people, today. It is a much safer city today, and I could see it passing its population peak of 802,000 from 1950, in the next 20 years or so.
**Bonus city is Cincinnati, OH. Cincinnati hit its peak of roughly 503,000 in 1950. It currently has roughly 310,000 people, and has been slightly growing lately. I would predict the city to keep growing a bit, steadily, and possibly even grow to 350,000 in 50 years. Interesting one to watch!
D.C. has really gotten it right. My only quib is D.C. is income inequality and lack of focus on creating middle income jobs.
Richmond was at 250,000 in 1970, and is at 229,000 now. Rich bottomed out at 198,000 in 2000, and has grown 15.7% since then. At the post-00 pace, it'll hit 250,000 by 2037 and realistically it'll probably clear that 250k before then, it's not gonna take 15 years for Richmond to top 250,000...
I think Richmond is important to this topic as it's developmentally historically mirrors most of the cities on this thread. It's built more like these cities, too, and often gets compared to Pittsburgh, with obvious similarities to DC and Baltimore and Philadelphia and Western NY cities as well...
If household size has fallen by 30% since the peak, you'd need over 40% more households to make up the difference. This is tough without large-scale densification unless you already had big greenfield areas. (Omitting annexation of course)
I think it’s Chicago. It has really good bones, all it needs to do is get out of its own way. It’s arguably the most affordable of any city which has big city amenities, and it has great ties to other parts of the country. Winter holds it back, though, and Chicago doesn’t really defend itself as far as showing the reality of how localized crime is. It’s a city of neighborhoods, and that’s at least as true of crime as anything else.
Given the disparity between HCOL and amenities around the rest of the nation, on paper, there should be a stampede of people trying to move to Chicago. I'm curious to know how big a role "winter" really played/plays in its population decline, as other places where people are moving seem to have equally extreme weather.
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