How much further can Pittsburgh's population drop before it hits rock bottom? (New Castle: house, unemployment)
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One thing that Cranberry is missing is a town center, like a shopping mall but nobody's really building those anymore. I agree that Cranberry can be considered the Monroeville of the north, although I think it will become more like Tysons Corner (DC suburb) in the future rather than Monroeville due to the extensive highway infrastructure and close proximity to Pittsburgh.
So due to the aging of the population, some shifts in living preferences, increasing energy costs and environmental concerns, and so on, we are already seeing a shift nationally to more building in walkable urban neighborhoods and less in traditional post-WWII car-dependent suburbs. And as a variation on that theme, some suburbs--including the aforementioned Tysons Corner--are trying to "retrofit" themselves into more something along the line of walkable small towns. Here are a few links and excerpts:
Urbanists have long prophesied the decline of suburban fringe development and a return to downtown as the nation becomes more populous, more diverse, and more carbon-conscious. A new report by the EPA suggests that this geographic shift is already well underway in many points on the map.
The study, which looked at residential building permits in the nation’s 50 most populous metro regions from 1990 to 2007, offers quantitative evidence that city neighborhoods are making a comeback. More than half of the markets in the study saw a dramatic shift away from exurban greenfield development and an uptick in urban core redevelopment over an 18-year period. In 15 of those markets, the central city more than doubled its share of housing permits, with the most accelerated spikes occurring in the past five years. . . .
Many planning experts expect this reverse migration to continue as baby boomers and echo boomers--the largest demographic groups on the market--drive housing preferences. Additional factors weighing heavily on the shape and location of housing include increased immigration, smaller households, concerns over energy usage and climate change, and downsized consumer expectations in the wake of the current recession.
[A]s the country ages, suburbia's widely assumed benefits—privacy, elbow room, affordability—tend to vanish. Maintaining yards and homes requires more effort; driving everywhere, and for everything, becomes expensive and, eventually, impossible. . . . [A solution] finding favor in more circles, is the idea of "retrofitting" suburbia and developing, as seen on the drawing board in Fayetteville, "lifelong communities." Such projects typically involve taking a neighborhood or site within an existing town or suburb and creating a compact, walkable community—one with alternatives to single-family homes, such as condominiums or row houses. Ideally, older residents in large homes will have the option of downsizing and remaining in a community where they can access restaurants, shopping and other amenities and services on foot.
Imagine a Tysons Corner built for people, not cars. As envisioned by the Tysons Land Use Task Force, Tysons will become a livable and vibrant urban center where people live, work, play, shop, worship, and even retire.
Tysons will be transformed from a textbook case of suburban sprawl into a true 21st century urban center that addresses the challenges of sustainable growth, energy conservation, environmental protection, affordable housing, and safe communities.
I'm not sure all this has really shown up in Pittsburgh yet (there may have been a bit of an uptick in new builds in the City, but I suspect not enough to make a huge difference in terms of the City's share in the overall Metro), but it could change the local dynamics quite a bit if it does. And of course the City can add population just by having people move into renovated formerly vacant properties, or having families replacing older singles and empty-nesters in homes, and so on, without it showing up as new builds.
So due to the aging of the population, some shifts in living preferences, increasing energy costs and environmental concerns, and so on, we are already seeing a shift nationally to more building in walkable urban neighborhoods and less in traditional post-WWII car-dependent suburbs. And as a variation on that theme, some suburbs--including the aforementioned Tysons Corner--are trying to "retrofit" themselves into more something along the line of walkable small towns.
It's all the rage in the exurbs of Houston and Dallas to build faux-urban, walkable, bikable town centers. This is just one of them:
I'm not sure all this has really shown up in Pittsburgh yet (there may have been a bit of an uptick in new builds in the City, but I suspect not enough to make a huge difference in terms of the City's share in the overall Metro), but it could change the local dynamics quite a bit if it does. And of course the City can add population just by having people move into renovated formerly vacant properties, or having families replacing older singles and empty-nesters in homes, and so on, without it showing up as new builds.
One would think it would benefit the center city, but it does not. The new cities are built 30-40 miles outside of the center city. I'd expect the next big retail development in Cranberry to use this concept, building housing units around a retail core with lots of parking and easy access to I-79. This further drains people from the city ostensibly looking for an 'urban environment that's safe.' And pretty much generic.
It's all the rage in the exurbs of Houston and Dallas to build faux-urban, walkable, bikable town centers. . . . One would think it would benefit the center city, but it does not. The new cities are built 30-40 miles outside of the center city. I'd expect the next big retail development in Cranberry to use this concept, building housing units around a retail core with lots of parking and easy access to I-79. This further drains people from the city ostensibly looking for an 'urban environment that's safe.' And pretty much generic.
I guess I have a little skepticism about this suburb-retrofitting model in general. Again, part of the story I sketched above is that cities are increasing their share of new builds, and in many cities there is plenty of room for renovation and infill. My hunch is that such an infill approach is inherently more efficient for serving this market than the retrofitting: you often already have a lot of the necessary infrastructure in terms of walkable street grids and public transit in place, maybe some usable structures, proximity to existing urban amenities, and so on, and environmental factors generally favor infill as well.
The big barrier might be the branding of central cities as places full of poverty, crime, and drugs. But the reality is that these problems are already shifting out of redeveloping central neighborhoods (sometimes controversially, but it is hard to stop it from happening), and these problems may well start shifting into the suburbs in noticeable ways. So I think that branding issue may end up being diminished and maybe even reversed in the long run.
Generally, this retrofitting idea actually strikes me as the mirror image of the attempts of central cities to transform urban neighborhoods into more suburban-like areas in response to the post-WWII outmigration to the suburbs. And for the most part those efforts were a miserable failure, and indeed often hastened the decline of the relevant areas as they succeeded neither as urban nor as quasi-suburban areas. So I wonder if trying to turn sprawl-era suburbs into urban areas is going to fare much better. But we shall see.
As an aside, as of 2000, the urbanized area of the Pittsburgh MSA was growing--it was population loss in the rural/small town parts of the MSA that was causing the net population loss. I'm not sure that population loss in the rural parts really means much for the people living in the urbanized area.
Anyway, the population losses spiked a bit at the height of the housing bubble, and as of 2008 had come way down. This is a fairly common pattern in non-bubble post-industrial cities, and it remains to be seen whether that trend will continue, but if it does we could see population growth in the MSA very soon (in fact maybe already, meaning in 2009).
A statistic I'd be interested in seeing is how many people native to the region leave and then return. I know my husband and I did it, and we have several friends who have done or are planning to do the same. Unfortuntely, it seems like to get that first "good" job, you need to go elsewhere--no one here wants to take a chance on a kid straight out of school. But we had no problems finding jobs here after 3 or so years of work experience out of town.
As an aside, as of 2000, the urbanized area of the Pittsburgh MSA was growing--it was population loss in the rural/small town parts of the MSA that was causing the net population loss. I'm not sure that population loss in the rural parts really means much for the people living in the urbanized area.
Anyway, the population losses spiked a bit at the height of the housing bubble, and as of 2008 had come way down. This is a fairly common pattern in non-bubble post-industrial cities, and it remains to be seen whether that trend will continue, but if it does we could see population growth in the MSA very soon (in fact maybe already, meaning in 2009).
I'm not sure which years you consider "the housing bubble". According to crystalblue's link, In the last 10 years, there have been 3 years that >10,000 people left the metro area, 4 years that >5000 people left, two years that <5000 people left, and one year (2000) when an unspecified number of people left. In some years, large losses are followed by small losses, and vice versa.
Regarding the urbanized area, I know there is a specific definition, but actually, population loss from rural areas may be large in percentage, but small in numbers, owing to rural areas being more sparsely populated.
I'm not sure which years you consider "the housing bubble".
The bubble popped in early 2006. In 2005, the Pittsburgh Metro experienced its largest net migration (domestic and international) loss of the decade, -9723. As home prices were crashing elsewhere, in 2006 that number went to -7891 and in 2007 to -3351. At the end of 2007 the recession began, and house prices continued to fall nationally while unemployment started to spike, but less so in Pittsburgh. In 2008, net migration was down to -708.
I might note this correlation is not the only evidence in support of a housing-bubble-related migration effect. See, for example, page 11 of this report:
Regarding the urbanized area, I know there is a specific definition, but actually, population loss from rural areas may be large in percentage, but small in numbers, owing to rural areas being more sparsely populated.
So to be precise, when you subtract the urbanized area out of the metro area, you get a combination of rural areas and also small towns.
Anyway, these are the numbers (1990, 2000, difference):
Metro 2468289 2431087 -37202
Urbanized Area 1678745 1753136 +74391
Non-Urbanized Area 789544 677951 -111593
So it is true the non-urbanized area portion contains fewer people than the urbanized area portion. But the loss of population in the non-urbanized area portion was so severe it more than reversed the gain in population in the urbanized area portion.
Anyway, these are the numbers (1990, 2000, difference):
Metro 2468289 2431087 -37202
Urbanized Area 1678745 1753136 +74391
Non-Urbanized Area 789544 677951 -111593
So it is true the non-urbanized area portion contains fewer people than the urbanized area portion. But the loss of population in the non-urbanized area portion was so severe it more than reversed the gain in population in the urbanized area portion.
Here's a possible cause for the seeming de-population of the rural non-urbanized area. Perhaps a few areas, say the outer fringes of Cranberry were moved from Non-Urban to Urbanized. That would bump up the Urbanized numbers and drop the Non-Urbanized. It could be, matter of fact it is likely, that the Urbanized Area of 1990 is a smaller geographical area than the Urbanized Area of 2000 because of the continuing propensity of metro areas to sprawl.
And then to further understand the large drop of population in the Non-Urbanized area, perhaps, some of the areas that were counted as Non-Urban in 1990 were only borderline Non-Urban, and actually were fairly dense, just not quite dense enough to meet the qualification for urban. When these areas were transferred from the Non-UA to the UA category, a significant amount of population that was living there in 1990 actually moved with them.
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