NewGeography.com blogs

There has been additional attention to the exaggeration of transit ridership trends claimed by the American Public Transit Association. Writing in The Washington Post, David King of Columbia University. Michael Manville of Cornell University and Michael Smart of Rutgers University said that the "association’s numbers are deceptive" and that the "interpretation is wrong.” Noting their strong support of public transportation, King, Manville and Smart said that "misguided optimism about transit’s resurgence helps neither transit users nor the larger traveling public." They further say that "there is no national transit boom."

They examine the data by metropolitan area and find that "transit use outside New York declined in absolute terms last year, and conclude that this "fact shows how crucial public transportation is to our largest city and how small a role it plays in most other Americans’ lives.

Also see: No Fundamental Shift, Not Even a Shift.

In a hard fought election campaign, voters in the city of Tigard appear to have narrowly enacted another barrier to light rail expansion in suburban Portland. The Washington County Elections Division reported that with 100 percent of precincts counted, Charter Amendment 34-210 had obtained 51 percent of the vote, compared to 49 percent opposed.

The Charter Amendment establishes as city policy that no transit high capacity corridor can be developed within the city without first having been approved by a vote of the people. High capacity transit in Portland has virtually always meant light rail.

In a previous ballot issue, Tigard voters had enacted an ordinance requiring voter approval of any city funding for light rail. Similar measures were enacted in Clackamas County as well as King City in Washington County. Across the Columbia River in Clark County (county seat: Vancouver), voters rejected funding for connecting to the Portland light rail system. After the Clackamas County Commission rushed through a $20 million loan for light rail (just days before the anti-light rail vote), two county commissioners were defeated by candidates opposed to light rail, with a commission majority now in opposition.

Further, a Columbia River Crossing, which would have included light rail to Vancouver was cancelled after the Washington legislature declined funding. In a surreal aftermath, interests in Oregon seriously proposed virtually forcing the bridge on Washington, fully funding the project itself. A just adjourned session of the Oregon legislature failed to act on the proposal, which now (like Rasputin) appears to be dead.

At the same time, Portland's transit agency faces financial difficulty and has been seriously criticized in a report by Secretary of State. The agency has more than $1 billion in unfunded liabilities and carries a smaller share of commuters than before the first of its six light rail and commuter rail lines was opened. Moreover, the latest American Community Survey data indicates that 3,000 more people work at home than ride transit (including light rail and commuter rail) to work in the Portland metropolitan area. Before light rail (1980), transit commuters numbered 35,000 more than people working at home. Over the period, transit's market share has dropped one-quarter.

Charles Heying, the author of Brews to Bikes: Portland’s Artisan Economy, covers Portland’s indie fashion, book and music sector, its recycling/reuse businesses, craft businesses, bike sector, technology businesses and non-profits.

His thesis is that Portland represents a return to the craftsmanship that defined the pre-industrial age. Heying mostly denies that the artisan economy produces high-end goods for a limited market, and sees it as a broader shift in our society away from mass production. A critic of Richard Florida’s theories, he denies that cities should make cosmetic changes to attract well educated professionals. Instead, he sees the artisan economy as something that emerges from below, rather than imposed from above by local officials.

But there are some problems with this thesis. Portland has many coffee roasters, but it also has many Starbucks. Silicon Forest, Portland’s tech hub, includes IBM, Intel and Techtronics. None of these firms are small, artisan firms. There are indie designers in Portland but Nike and Columbia Sportswear and Adidas also call Portland home. Sure, twelve percent of people in Portland bike, but that means a lot rely on the car as a primary mode of transportation. And only twelve percent of the beer consumed in Portland is craft beer. If 'small is beautiful' really defines this city, then why are there so many big companies lurking around?

Artisanal enterprises come along with the advancement of information technology, but will in no way replace mass production. I don’t think there will be many small-scale train, airline or automobile companies. The mini-economy represents a side of us that doesn’t want the creative impulse to die, and wants a more socially responsible model, but it won’t shove aside the big model anytime soon.

Andy Kiersz's article in the Business Insider  (see Americans are Still Moving to the Suburbs) summarizes data from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) to conclude that "Americans still love the suburbs, and are still moving there from big cities."

This has long been and continues to be indicated in the data, even as major media rely on anecdotes are to suggest that large numbers of people are leaving the suburbs to "return" to the core cities (from which, by the way, most never moved). There is no doubt that the core cities are doing much better than before, and that is a good thing. Much of this is because the cities are safer than in the 1970s and 1980s. The historic urban core has been restored as an integral part of the modern urban area. However, promoting the health of core cities does not require demeaning or dismissing the suburbs, which are just as integral to modern urbanism as core cities.

Kiersz refers to a list of the 25 largest met migration movements between counties as reported by the ACS for 2007 to 2011. In every case, the 25 largest net domestic migration movements are from more highly urban core environments to more suburban environments (domestic migration is measured only at the county level).

The list shows that even within the nation's largest core city, New York, people are moving to more dispersed areas. This includes net migration from Manhattan to the Bronx and Brooklyn to Queens. Then there is the suburban movement, with a stream of migrants from Queens, in the city to adjacent, suburban Nassau County. Migration from Nassau County even further out, to Suffolk County also made the top 25.

The outward movement is not limited to New York. A net 50,000 people left the Los Angeles metropolitan area than arrived, just among the 25 largest county migration pairs. Most went to the Riverside-San Bernardino area (which depending on the definition can be called "exurban") and a large number to the Bakersfield metropolitan area. Within the metropolitan area, 10,000 moved from Los Angeles County to Orange County.

The city (also a county) of San Francisco, which has had the strongest growth of any fully developed major US municipality that has not annexed since 1950, lost 5,000 people to nearby suburban San Mateo County.

The top 25 also includes nearly 20,000 people moving from Chicago's core Cook County to three suburban counties.

It will probably be quite a long time, if ever, before the top 25 migration list has meaningful representation showing movement from suburban counties to core counties. Yet, today's more healthy cities will do better if they genuinely tackle their remaining challenges. Most important are their education systems that send a disproportionate share of young families to the suburbs. However, from the United States to Europe, Japan, and China, the natural order is that cities (metropolitan areas with their core cities, suburbs, and exurbs) tend to disperse as they add population. That reality is again confirmed by the new data.

According to the Indianapolis Star, Mayor Greg Ballard of Indianapolis is poised to improve the slowing growing city's competitive position relative to the suburbs.  The Star  noted:

"Indianapolis may be a bigger draw than surrounding areas in attracting young residents, but it’s got a problem."

"Right as they begin raising families, many in their 30s split for the suburbs — taking their growing incomes, and the local taxes they pay, to bedroom communities in Hamilton, Johnson, Hendricks and other counties."

Mayoral Chief of Staff Ryan Vaughn told The Star that initiatives would include a focus on improving schools, and public safety, both of which had much to do with the decades long declines of US central cities. Vaughn told the newspaper that "Ballard wants to focus on strategies to compete more fiercely with suburban counties that draw — and keep — middle- and higher-income residents."

Certainly, the fact that central cities are far safer today than they were when New York's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani implemented his much copied policy of intolerance toward crime in the early 1990s. Even so, Mayor Ballard has it right. Long term, sustainable recovery of cities as livable environments within the metropolitan economy requires both good public schools and an environment in which parents feel that they and their children are safe.

There is a cautionary note however. While the Mayor's office is on the right track in wanting to solve the endemic problems that have so weakened core cities such as Indianapolis, he has yet to take a position on a proposed commuter tax that would be levied against employees who live in suburban counties and work in the city. This would make the suburbs more attractive for employers who are presently located in the city. Further, it would make the suburbs more competitive to businesses that choose the Indianapolis area for relocation. Trying to attract and keep middle income households, while repelling business makes little sense.