Dallas

America's Great Migration

Joel Kotkin — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:18:28 -0500

‘For many states that were once great have now become small; and those that were great in my time were small formerly. Knowing therefore that human prosperity never continues in one stay.’ So wrote Herodotus in his Histories, in the fifth century BC. He reminds us that world history is not a morality tale between the ‘powerful’ and their victims. Rather, societies evolve, grow stronger and overcome weaker ones. People – and, more recently, capital – migrate to places that offer greater opportunities.

This was certainly true in the time of Herodotus. He was born in Greek colonies in what is now Turkey and died in another Greek colony in Italy. The search for better conditions – whether for grazing, farming or, more recently, manufacturing and technology – unravels older orders and paves the way for new ones. As a result, centres of power move. As French historian Fernand Braudel noted, between the 16th and 18th centuries, capitalism shifted from one hub to another – Venice to Antwerp to Amsterdam, and then to London.

With these shifts in power often come shifts in migration patterns. Where droves once headed to Western Europe from the former Soviet bloc, as the old centres stagnate, many may consider returning to the Eastern bloc, and even parts of the once-cursed ‘Club Med’, including Herodotus’s Greece.

Nowhere is this pattern more dynamic than in the United States. Most settlers who flocked there from the old world were motivated by hopes for a better life, not as a quest to impose racial supremacy, as is so often claimed today. Whereas Europe’s density tends to anchor power in London, Paris or Berlin, all of them capitals, the balance of power is constantly shifting in the US, from New England, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, to the mid-Atlantic states, followed by the rapid rise of the upper Midwest, which was then supplanted first by California and the West Coast, and more recently by Texas and the South.

Travel across America and the differences between regions can seem almost like those between nation states. The elite classes – and their chattering-class interlocutors – remain concentrated in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, places that retain much of the world’s ultra-rich. Yet the supremacy of these cities is being undermined by their growing failure to offer working- and middle-class citizens, particularly the young, the prospect of a better life.

Over the past decade, economic and demographic momentum has accelerated towards Texas, Arizona, the Carolinas and Florida – places once dismissed as economically and culturally backward. None of America’s major growth hubs is now located in the north-east or California. The rising cities of today include Dallas-Fort Worth, Raleigh, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, Nashville and Salt Lake City.

This shift has been fuelled by stronger job growth in states such as Idaho, Utah, Texas, the Carolinas and Montana. By contrast, large urban states like New York, California, Illinois and Massachusetts sit near the bottom of the rankings. The same pattern applies to smaller metropolitan areas where job growth has surged, such as Fayetteville, Arkansas; Greenville, North Carolina; Grand Forks, North Dakota; and Ogden, Utah.

Read the rest of this piece at Spiked.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo: Aerial view of Austin, via Goodfon under CC 4.0 License.

More on Cities and Distressed Neighborhoods

Pete Saunders — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:28:38 -0400

It’s time for me to follow up on the post I wrote ten days ago in response to fellow planner and Substacker Bill Fulton’s "garlic knot" cities concept.

Here’s a quick summary. Fulton notes in his article that there are metro areas across the country anchored by core cities that have solid and successful downtowns surrounded by quickly rising close-to-downtown neighborhoods and growing suburban areas further out. However, many have struggling neighborhoods in between the downtown and suburbs, either awaiting the boom that revitalized downtown or becoming recognized as a great alternative to suburbia. Here’s how he put it, after being reminded of this while spending time in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor:

“Not all of Baltimore, of course, is like this. Like many older rust belt cities that have lost population – Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland – the suburbs are still growing and the center is getting very strong, but the old city neighborhoods are in rough shape. A mile away from where I was enjoying a high-amenity experience, people are trapped in neighborhoods of extreme poverty.

We used to call places like Baltimore and Detroit “donut cities,’ because there was nothing left in the center. But after decades of both public and private revitalization efforts, they’re not really donuts anymore. Some time ago, the Christian urbanist (no, that’s not an oxymoron) Aaron Renn called them “The New Donut,” but that term doesn’t quite fit either.

Instead, I’d call them Garlic Knot Cities – very dense and satisfying in the center, but the center is small and doesn’t have much of substance surrounding it.”

It’s an astute observation, and one I’ve noted as well (without any cool name for it). I think it stands out as one of the most pressing issues of urban planning, policy and governance today, yet it’s almost never framed in this way. There are loud voices in cities advocating for new housing, so housing becomes more affordable. Meanwhile, the machinery that has supported the growth of suburbia continues to build more on the periphery of metro areas. Sun Belt metros, particularly in Texas and Florida, remain locked in on the suburban model. The middle neighborhoods, unfortunately, get left out of the discussion.

Why is this? Mostly because that’s where a significant chunk of urban distress is housed in American cities. These are the areas noted for high crime, poor quality schools, abandoned or obsolete housing, limited access, lacking in amenities, few job opportunities and other ills that plague cities. Residents of these neighborhoods are often looking for the kind of substantial public investment that turned downtowns around, or the private investment that boosted neighborhoods that were once very similar to them into attractive hip hotspots.

But these neighborhoods inhabit a different space than the revitalized downtown and the still-growing suburbs. Back when the term “donut cities” did make sense, cities realized the importance of strengthening the center. In came the new stadiums, mixed-use developments, institutional expansions, and a new commercial ecosystem to support them. And it worked. As I mentioned earlier, the suburban model keeps chugging along, even in weak metro economies. Without the appeal of being a metro area’s showroom to the world, or a metro area’s next shiny new thing, those in between continue to lag.

Read the rest of this piece at The Corner Side Yard.

Pete Saunders is a writer and researcher whose work focuses on urbanism and public policy. Pete has been the editor/publisher of the Corner Side Yard, an urbanist blog, since 2012. Pete is also an urban affairs contributor to Forbes Magazine's online platform. Pete's writings have been published widely in traditional and internet media outlets, including the feature article in the December 2018 issue of Planning Magazine. Pete has more than twenty years' experience in planning, economic development, and community development, with stops in the public, private and non-profit sectors. He lives in Chicago.

Photo: A residential street view of a neighborhood in South Dallas. Few people associate neighborhoods like this with Dallas, choosing to focus on its revitalizing interior or booming outskirts. But neighborhoods like this exist there, and a big part of the Metroplex’s success is hiding this view from outsiders. Source: google maps.

The Lone Star State is Soaring: America's Future Will Be Made in Texas

Joel Kotkin — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 20:28:38 -0500

The United States is a misnomer. Despite its title, our republic has rarely been united, instead hosting an endless gladiatorial contest between different states and regions. In the early 19th century, New York and New England struggled for supremacy against the Virginians and their empire of cotton. Gotham then took the field against the Chicago stockyards, before losing out to those upstarts in California. And now, the West Coasters are themselves under attack: from the Lone Star State.

Texas today is irrepressible. If the numbers are right, it could soon pass California and become America’s most populous state. Texas is also the nation’s second youngest state, even as it enjoys higher net migration than any of its peers. Tellingly, many new arrivals are exiles from the Golden State. This buoyancy isn’t hard to understand. Shaking off its reactionary heritage, Texans now wallow in progress, building more and making more than anyone else, with some boozing and dancing as they go. At its best, in fact, this blend of high-tech growth and gentle multiculturalism could yet rebuild America — if, that is, its worst conservative instincts can be repressed.

In a sense, Texan success within the United States is ironic. After declaring independence from Mexico, in 1836, it enjoyed a reputation as a place to “flee” the tyranny of Washington. By the time it joined the union, nine years later, the 28th state was dominated by planters and ranchers, groups that eagerly embraced both slavery and the Confederacy. After losing the Civil War, Texans were left bitter and impoverished, their natural bounty in hock to far-off Northern bankers. To quote Wilbert “Pappy” O’Daniel, governor and then senator in the Forties, Texas had become “New York’s most valuable foreign possession”.

For all its bloody-minded independence — Steinbeck was surely right when he called Texas “a nation in every sense of the word” — it would ultimately be the federal government that dragged the state’s marshes and prairies into the 20th century. The New Deal brought electricity to remote rural areas, and massively expanded the all-important Houston Ship Channel. The boom in a quintessentially Texan product surely helped too. “Oil is money,” the historian Robert Bryce has written. “Money is power.”

Dovetailed with a degree of racial pragmatism, with Houston desegregating far more easily than Atlanta, Texas also began to move beyond its dependence on oil and gas. Prodded along by LBJ and other native sons, for instance, Houston emerged as the centre of a gigantic new space centre. And if that banished memories of the city’s parochial past — as recently as 1946, the writer John Gunther grumbled about hotels filled with cockroaches — other towns rose too. Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin, together known as the Texas Triangle, are now home to two-thirds of the state’s population and 70% of its GDP.

Not, of course, that this is simply a historical tale. For if 20th-century Texas flourished on a mix of social peace, low taxes and light-touch regulation, their successors are sipping much the same brew. The numbers here are clear. Texas’s overall tax burden, according to one recent study, ranked 37th out of 50: hardly the best, but much better than California (5th) or New York (1st).

Read the rest of this piece at Unherd.

Photo: Circa 1938 postcard, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

How Texas Can Defy the Demographic Odds

Justin Coppedge — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 20:28:58 -0500

In the center of the American Sun Belt lies the eighth-largest economy in the world, home to nearly one out of 10 Americans. After decades of sustained economic and population growth, Texas is in the early days of a demographic shift that will profoundly shape its future. As states and countries around the globe grapple with declining populations, Texas is defying the trend by continuing to expand. Such growth is likely to continue. While it will bring many benefits, however, a more populous Texas will also present challenges – challenges that must be addressed if the state hopes to secure the future of its residents and avoid the fate of other regions that were unprepared for the growth they experienced.

Bigger and better?

By the time Texas, home to 30 million people, celebrates its bicentennial in 2036, projections developed by the Texas Demographic Center indicate that the state will have between 3 million and 5 million more residents than it does today. By 2060, Texas will have 6 million to 14 million more inhabitants. This growth – and the declines facing many other states – mean Texas is on track to become the most populous state in the country by the turn of the next century, if not sooner.

Texas also has a young population. With a median age of 35, Texas was the second-youngest state in the nation in 2023, trailing only Utah, which has a median age of almost 32 years old. This puts it in stark contrast to, say, Maine – the oldest state in the nation, which has a median age just shy of 45 years old.

In the past, population growth in Texas was driven by a high fertility rate, which also kept the median age low relative to other states. Fertility in Texas has declined over the last two decades, however, and is now below the rate needed to maintain population size. And yet Texas has continued growing thanks to domestic migration from other states. A large percentage of these migrants have been younger adults attracted by an affordable cost of living and abundant employment opportunities. These people have not only helped the state grow; they have also kept it relatively young.

As Texas’ population continues to expand, however, an interesting dichotomy will form as the median age shifts older. Texas is relatively young compared with other states because of historically higher fertility and current in-migration by young adults. But like all states and the rest of the developed world, Texas is on a trajectory to grow older over time because of the large cohort of aging baby boomers and because of medical and health advances contributing to greater longevity, coupled with lower fertility rates. According to projections by the Texas Demographic Center, between 2023 and 2050, the number of Texans 65 and older will increase by more than 88%, while the number of Texans 45 to 64 is expected to increase by 57%. Although some regions of the state, particularly rural areas, have already begun experiencing this shift in significant ways, many have not. But that will soon change.

Texas, as the second-largest state by land mass, offers new residents substantial space to settle. The state’s population growth has been far from evenly distributed, however. The “Texas Triangle,” as the urban and suburban areas of metro Austin-San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston are known, account for 87% of the state population today, and the exurbs surrounding these metro areas have enjoyed most of the recent growth. Between 2010 and 2020, 37 of Texas’ 254 counties grew faster than the statewide rate, and 14 of those counties saw their population increase by between 30% and 55%. Another 74 counties, largely ringing the highest-growth counties around metro areas, grew but at a rate slower than the state’s overall population growth rate. And 143 counties, many of them rural, lost population during that same time period.

Read the rest of this piece at The Bush Center.

Justin Coppedge is Senior Vice President, Strategy and Operations at Texas 2036, a nonpartisan policy organization focused on the future of Texas. He is also a 2024 Presidential Leadership Scholar.

Photo: Diego Ramirez via Pexels in Public Domain.

Dallas-Fort Worth to Top Los Angeles? Official State Population Projections

Wendell Cox — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 20:28:58 -0400

Recently we reported that current, official population projections by state agencies indicate that Texas will become the most populous state by 2050. Over the following 10 years, the gap is projected to increase to nearly 5,000,000, with Texas at 44.4 million and California at 39.5 million (Figure 1).

If these projections turn out to be correct (and projections are often not accurate, as conditions change), Texas will add 13.9 million residents, more residents than live in Pennsylvania, while California would add 500,000, about the population of the city of Fresno (Figure 2).

There would be substantial changes in the comparative populations at the local level. This is evident in an analysis of the three largest metropolitan areas in the two states, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.

Currently Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston are the second, fourth, and fifth largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Currently, metro Los Angeles is by far the most populous of the three, with a population of 12.8 million (2023). This is 4.7 million larger than Dallas-Fort Worth (8.1 million) and 5.1 million larger than Houston (7.7 million).

Metropolitan areas, (also called functional cities or city-regions by demographers) are composed of complete counties. Metro areas are defined by the Office of Management and Budget based on commuting data. This article estimates metropolitan area populations in 2060 based on the present county components and the official county projections.

This analysis uses the counties currently comprising the three metropolitan areas and their respective projections to estimate the overall population.

The data suggests that Dallas-Fort Worth would pass Los Angeles, to become the largest of the three metropolitan areas. With a projected population of 12.4 million, it seems likely that Dallas-Fort Worth would become the second most populous metropolitan area in the nation, following New York (Note). This would be an increase of more than 50% from its 2023 population.

Houston would nearly match the population of metro Los Angeles, at 11.4 million in 2060, just 200,000 less than Los Angeles. With Houston still growing and Los Angeles losing, it would not be long before Houston would pass Los Angeles (Figure 3 and Figure 4).

Among smaller Texas metros, there is constant speculation that Austin and San Antonio will be merged into a single metropolitan area. It seems more likely that the two will be converted into a combined statistical area (CSA), rather than an MSA, because CSAs have less stringent commuting requirements. Metro Austin’s 2060 population is projected to be 5.2 million, up from 2.5 million in 2023. San Antonio would reach 4.4 million in 2060, up from 2.8 million in 2023.

Among the smaller California metros, Riverside-San Bernardino would move from 4.7 million to 4.9 million. Metro San Francisco is projected to increase from 4.6 million to 5.2 million, San Diego would remain at 3.3 million and Sacramento would increase from 2.4 million to 2.8 million.

The limitations of this data should be recognized. The areas covered by population projections can change metropolitan area definitions as commuting patterns change. So that if counties are not currently meeting the metropolitan area, criteria should qualify later, it would be added to a metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan areas change over time. In the case of Los Angeles, for most of the 20th century, metro Los Angeles added more new residents than any other metropolitan area in the nation but now is expected to decline in the next few decades. The situation is not much better statewide. As late as 2007, the California Department of Finance was projecting growth to 60 million by 2050. Over the period, California’s cost of living, driven by its overly regulated (and distorted) residential land market drove people to move elsewhere, with net 3.8 million (ins versus outs) moving elsewhere the nation.

The stagnation and even losses of California have to be among the most important demographic shifts in the history of the United States. From its 1850 admission to the Union, California has tended to grow well above the national average, at least before 2000. As for Texas, its advance has been, at least to some degree, propelled by the rising migration of both people and companies from California. The American future seems to be more Lone Star State than a Golden one.

Note: Population projections were not researched for the New York metropolitan area, however I expect that New York would remain the largest in the nation through at least 2060.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

Photo: Southern Methodist University, University Park, Dallas-Fort Worth via
Wikimedia in Public Domain.

Top Zip Codes for New Apartments: 2018 - 2022

Wendell Cox — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 20:28:38 -0400

Rentcafe.com has just published a list of the 51 ZIP Codes in the United States that have had the most apartment construction over the last five years (2018-2022). These neighborhoods are located in 20 metropolitan areas (which are housing and labor markets). This article provides data from Rentcafe.com for each of these metropolitan areas, the urban core versus suburban distribution of the new apartment zip codes, as well as recent building permit data for multi-family and single-family housing for the first 8 months of 2023 annualized.

Dallas-Fort Worth, TX a metropolitan area known for its broad expanse of single-family housing, lead the list with 30,557 new apartments. Dallas-Fort Worth had the most zip codes among the top 51, with eight. Two of the zip codes were in or near the urban core, while six were in the suburbs (Farmers Branch, Richardson, McKinney, Frisco, Grand Prairie and The Colony). About 80% of the new apartments are in the suburbs. In 2023 (through August), Dallas-Fort Worth ranked 2nd nationally in multi-family permits and 2nd in single-family permits.

Second place was taken by the Washington, DC-VA-MD-WC metropolitan area with 17,613 new apartments. Washington included the two zip codes with the largest number of new apartments, which are located near the Capitol. A third zip code is in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2023 (through August), Washington ranked 9th nationally in multi-family permits and 15th in single-family permits.

Austin, Texas, the fastest growing metropolitan area in many recent years, added 17,479 new apartments, for third place. Five zip codes are ranked in the top 51. Three are located in or near Austin’s urban core, while two are in the suburbs (San Marcos and Pflugerville). In 2023 (through August), Austin ranked 3rd nationally in multi-family permits and 7th in single-family permits.

New York, NY-NJ-PA, which has by far the largest number of apartments in the nation, ranked fourth with 15,174. This included three zip codes, two in New York City (Brooklyn and Queens) and one in Exchange Place, which has become an across-the-Hudson extension of New York City’s Lower Manhattan and also includes downtown Jersey City. None of the zip codes was in the urban core of Manhattan. In 2023 (through August), New York ranked 1st nationally in multi-family permits and 11th in single-family permits.

Chicago, IL-IN-WI ranked fifth with 13,713 new apartments. This includes four zip codes, which virtually surround the Chicago’s Loop (the central business district), on the south, west and north sides. In 2023 (through August), Chicago ranked 25th nationally in multi-family permits and 22nd in single-family permits.

Seattle ranked sixth, adding 13,016 apartments in three zip codes. One is in suburban Redmond (headquarters of Microsoft), with two more in Belltown and Lake Union-Queen Ann near the urban core. In 2023 (through August), Seattle ranked 13th nationally in multi-family permits and 29th in single-family permits.

Atlanta ranked seventh with 12,174 new apartments in three zip codes in the city of Atlanta. In 2023 (through August), Atlanta ranked 7th nationally in multi-family permits and 4th in single-family permits.

Miami ranked eighth, adding 11,989 apartments, two in Miami zip codes and one in Fort Lauderdale. In 2023 (through August), Miami ranked 5th nationally in multi-family permits and 37th in single-family permits.

Houston ranked ninth and added 11,558 in three urban core zip codes. In 2023 (through August), Houston ranked 4th nationally in multi-family permits and 1st in single-family permits.

Phoenix ranked 10th, adding 9,254 apartments, one in a city of Phoenix zip code and the other in a suburban Tempe zip code. In 2023 (through August), Phoenix ranked 8th nationally in multi-family permits and 3rd in single-family permits.

The San Francisco metropolitan area ranked 11th, adding 8567 apartments, in one San Francisco and one Oakland zip code. In 2023 (through August), San Francisco ranked 36th nationally in multi-family permits and 65th in single-family permits.

Denver ranked 12th, adding 7038 new apartments, two in urban core zip codes. In 2023 (through August), Denver ranked 11th nationally in multi-family permits and 21st in single-family permits.

Nashville ranked 13th, adding 6806 new apartments in a single urban core zip code. In 2023 (through August), Nashville ranked 10th nationally in multi-family permits and 8th in single-family permits.

Columbus ranked 14th, adding 6605 new apartments in one urban core zip code and a zip code on the outskirts of the city of Columbus. In 2023 (through August), Columbus ranked 24th nationally in multi-family permits and 38th in single-family permits.

Charlotte, NC-SC ranked 15th, adding 6363 new apartments, one zip code in the central business district and one in a more distant zip code within the city of Charlotte. In 2023 (through August), Charlotte ranked 16th nationally in multi-family permits and 5th in single-family permits.

San Diego ranked 16th, adding 5346 apartments, all in a central business district zip code. In 2023 (through August), San Diego ranked 22nd nationally in multi-family permits and 77th in single-family permits.

Tampa – St. Petersburg ranked 17th, adding 3379 apartments in a central business district zip code. In 2023 (through August), Tampa-St. Petersburg ranked 14th nationally in multi-family permits and 9th in single-family permits.

Jacksonville ranked 18th and added 3243 new apartments in a zip code on the outskirts of the city of Jacksonville. In 2023 (through August), Jacksonville ranked 18th nationally in multi-family permits and 13th in single-family permits.

Los Angeles ranked 19th, adding 3138 new apartments, in a Hollywood district zip code in the city of Los Angeles. In 2023 (through August), Los Angeles ranked 6th nationally in multi-family permits and 10th in single-family permits.

Orlando ranked 20th, adding 2806 new apartments in the central business district zip code. In 2023 (through August), Orlando ranked 15th nationally in multi-family permits and 6th in single-family permits.

State Analysis

Texas led the nation among the top 51 new apartment zip codes, capturing 3.7 times its share relative to the 2019 (used as the midpoint year, because there was no apartment stock data in 2020) national apartment stock, according to ACS data (Figure). Three other states exceeded a ratio of 2.0 (Washington, Arizona, Georgia and Tennessee) and four other states exceeded a ratio of 1.0 (Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio). Three states had ratios less than 1.00, New York and New Jersey, with all zip codes in the New York metropolitan area and California. California has fallen into population decline in the last few years, though state officials indicate that there is a 3.5 million deficit in housing units.

The District of Columbia, which is a single city as opposed to a metropolitan area, added apartments at a rate equal to more than 15 times its stock of apartments.

Among the 13 states with the top 51 new apartment Zip Codes reported by Rentcafe.com, Colorado had the largest number of apartment building permits as reported by the Census Bureau through in 2023 (through August), annualized, at 3.53 per 1,000 population. Florida was second at 3.27, followed by North Carolina at 2,83, Texas at 2.73, Georgia at 2.68, Tennessee at 2.60, Washington at 2.55 and New Jersey at 2.15. California had 1.39 apartment building permits per 1,000 population, followed by 1.01 in Ohio, 0.89 in New York and 0.55 in Ohio.

Among the three largest states (all with more than 20 million residents), Florida and Texas have had nearly double or more the apartment building permits per 1,000 population than California in 2023, despite the fact that public policy is heavily biased toward multi-family construction and against single-family housing construction, which the overwhelming majority of households prefer.

The District of Columbia had 4.53 apartment permits per 1,000 population through August of 2023.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a founding senior fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, Houston, a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Photo: Downtown Dallas by Michael Barera via Wikimedia under CC 2.0 License.

Preservation Deed Restrictions Can Save Homes and Bring Higher Prices for Sellers

Douglas Newby — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 20:28:38 -0400

Many think preservation deed restrictions and easements diminish the value of a property. In many cases in Dallas neighborhoods the opposite is true. The historic and architecturally significant homes I have sold with preservation deed restrictions and facade easements implemented by the seller have protected the homes and helped the homes sell for more than their appraised values.

Not Successful are Calls for a Tyrannical Government Approach to Restrict a Few Homeowners and Treat Them Differently Than Their Neighbors

Many preservation groups and individuals think the solution to stopping teardowns is government regulations for targeted properties that reduce the property rights of their owners in relationship to neighboring properties. It is not realistic to implement laws that pass on the cost of preservation to small groups of owners of historic houses because preservationists as a group do not want to incur the cost of preservation. Imposing restrictions on just a few targeted homeowners of historic homes is even more unrealistic in the Dallas neighborhoods of Highland Park, University Park and Dallas. Much more effective and proven to be successful are preservation-minded sellers and buyers who create transactions that protect the homes.

Weed Out Wholesale Lot Buyers and Focus on Buyers Who Love the Home

Preservation deed restrictions and facade easements weed out lot buyers and shift the focus to home buyers who love historic and architect-designed homes. Having just the dimensions of a lot, lot buyers can quickly make a cash offer when that lot comes up for sale. A cash offer with a quick closing is often compelling to a seller which preempts home buyers who like the land but love the house. It is these home buyers who will pay the same amount of money for the land as a lot buyer, but will also pay additional money for the house. However, these home buyers need a chance and some time to learn about the historic house.

What About a Small House on a Huge Lot?

This historic home in 6292 Mercedes is on one of the largest lots in a very desirable neighborhood in Wilshire Heights.

Preservation advocates and builders also think that whenever there is a small house on a huge lot, the house will automatically be a teardown. However, 6292 Mercedes Avenue has a small 2,600 square foot home on a large, two-thirds of an acre lot and it was successfully sold at a price above the appraised value with preservation deed restrictions that will keep the historic and architecturally significant home from being torn down.

6292 Mercedes Avenue and 3211 Mockingbird Lane are Both Small Houses on Huge Lots That Sold and Are Protected

Two architect-designed historic Dallas homes, one a Dallas modern home at 6292 Mercedes Avenue in Old East Dallas and the other a Normandy style cottage at 3211 Mockingbird Lane in Highland Park sold and are good case studies. While 5,000 and 10,000 square foot homes designed by prominent architects on similar size lots have been torn down, these two homes will not be torn down.

Living room and staircase of David Williams designed home at 6292 Mercedes.

Living room that architect Mark Lemmon designed at 3211 Mockingbird.

Architectural and Historic Attributes of David Williams Designed Home at 6292 Mercedes Prompted a Sale with Preservation Deed Restrictions

Pine trim with dental moulding expresses frontier artisanship of David Williams designed Texas modern home 6292 Mercedes.

This historic and architecturally significant home in Dallas has desirable architectural qualities that the seller recognized and attracted homebuyers. These are the type of attributes that buyers need to know about a home to help save the home from being torn down.

The home at 6292 Mercedes was designed by architect David Williams who is considered the godfather of the Texas Modern style of architecture. The working drawings were done by O’Neil Ford, another modern architect of iconic status. This home is well documented in journals and books over the last 90 years as the first Texas Modern home. This home also influenced the design of Dallas modern homes across Texas and has influenced the work of many Dallas architects.

Architect Mark Lemmon Designed Home Also Protected by Front Facade Easement

Architect Mark Lemmon was inspired by his time in Normandy when he designed this home for his family.

The historic and architecturally significant home at 3211 Mockingbird Lane designed by architect Mark Lemmon is another good example of a small house on a large double lot in Highland Park that sold above its appraised value and was protected by a deed restriction and front and side facade easements. If this facade easement is violated, a $1 million penalty goes into effect. The buyers were thrilled to be able to purchase an architecturally significant home designed by Mark Lemmon, especially the very home Mark Lemmon designed for his own family where they lived for 40 years. It is in Highland Park across Mockingbird Lane from SMU where Mark Lemmon built the Highland Park Methodist Church, Perkins Chapel and several other buildings on the SMU campus in University Park. The buyer is renovating and expanding the home and would never think of tearing down this Mark Lemmon-designed home, so the deed restrictions were easily accepted. The home sold with a facade easement that has a $1 million penalty if the easement is violated.

Facade Easements of Historic Homes are a Wonderful Tool to Save Homes

The beauty of front facade easements are that they protect the most visible elements of an architecturally significant and historic home. If the front facade and roofline are protected, it is virtually impossible to tear down the historic home. Further, the easements can be negotiated to include many things a buyer may do to the house such as renovate or expand it. Both of these Dallas homes will be renovated and expanded, but the original facade of the homes are protected, protecting the architecture and history of the homes. In addition, the more money spent on the renovation and expansion of a historic home, the less likely the home will be torn down in the future.

The Key to Preservation Are the Sellers of Historic Homes

The owners of both 6292 Mercedes and 3211 Mockingbird first contacted me years ago to ask how they might protect their homes from being torn down when it came time to sell. Both families knew they would live in their homes for many years to come; however, I know their enjoyment of their homes was even greater knowing there was a good vehicle in place to save the homes from destruction when it came time to sell their architecturally significant homes. In both cases, we never spoke about it again until years later, when the owner of one home, now a widower, and a widow, the owner of the other home, told me that it was time to place our preservation plans into action. Both of these significant homes sold for more than their appraised values and with preservation deed restrictions. This is a victory for the seller and buyer of both of these historic and architecturally significant homes. It is also a good reminder that private transactions save more historic homes than imposed government regulations.

Lead photo: by Douglas Newby. Architect David Williams designed home at 6292 Mercedes saved with preservation deed restrictions.

America Keeps Moving to High Opportunity Cities

Cullum Clark — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 20:28:58 -0400

Americans migrated in massive numbers to large Sun Belt metro areas and fast-growing suburban cities between 2021 and 2022, according to newly released Census data. These patterns reflect the age-old inclination of Americans to seek out places offering good economic opportunities and affordable quality of life – and run counter to early press reports on the data.

Media reporting on the Census Bureau’s latest release suggests that pandemic-era demographic shifts started to reverse last year, with a return to core cities on the East Coast and elsewhere. The population of Manhattan island grew slightly between July 2021 and July 2022, for instance. But a closer look shows two key demographic trends remain intact: migration from large coastal and Midwest metros to the Sun Belt and movement from core urban areas to suburbs.

Some core counties – like Manhattan’s New York County – eked out modest growth over the past year, but the main reason wasn’t inbound migration from elsewhere in the United States. It was the fact that immigration rebounded from depressed pandemic levels, when emergency restrictions caused a large fall-off in immigrant arrivals.

Booming Sun Belt metros

The top 10 destinations for absolute population growth over the last year are all Sun Belt metros. Four are in Texas: Dallas-Fort Worth (#1), Houston (#2), Austin (#6), and San Antonio (#9). Three are in Florida: Orlando (#5), Tampa (#7), and Jacksonville (#10). Third-ranked Atlanta, Georgia; fourth-ranked Phoenix, Arizona; and eighth-ranked Charlotte, North Carolina, round out the list. All 10 ranked among America’s fastest-growing metros from 2010 to 2020. And all 10 score high in a George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative study of opportunity and economic mobility in U.S. cities.

Meanwhile, the 10 metros that lost the most people over the past year are all places where population stagnated between 2010 and 2020. These include five on the coasts: New York City, which saw by far the largest decline; Los Angeles; San Francisco; San Jose; and Philadelphia. This group also includes Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and New Orleans.

The same pattern holds for net inbound migration rates from elsewhere in the United States, measured as a percentage of 2021 population. Among America’s 100 largest metros, five of the top 10 for net domestic in-migration rates over the last year are in Florida (North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville); two are in Texas (Austin and San Antonio), two are in other Southeastern states (Knoxville, Tennessee, and Charleston, South Carolina), and one is in the Mountain states (Boise, Idaho). The 10 metros with highest net out-migration rates include New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose.

Contrary to stories emphasizing slowdowns in the Sun Belt, geographic mobility retreated modestly across the country from the extraordinary pace of the first full pandemic year, 2020 to 2021. Existing U.S. home sales, for instance, were down 18% in 2022 compared with 2021, reflecting the surge in mortgage interest rates. It was also inevitable that long-distance moves would diminish somewhat as Americans partly returned to offices from the COVID-19 work-from-home experiment, which untethered millions of workers from traditional workplaces.

Read the rest of this piece at BushCenter.org.

J.H. Cullum Clark is Director, Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative and an Adjunct Professor of Economics at SMU. Within the Economic Growth Initiative, he leads the Bush Institute's work on domestic economic policy and economic growth. Before joining the Bush Institute and SMU, Clark worked in the investment industry for 25 years.

Photo: Yinan Chen via Wikimedia under Public Domain.

Comparing Canadian and U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Wendell Cox — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 20:28:58 -0400

Canada and the United States are among a minority of national governments that formally designate metropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas are labor and housing markets which include a core urban area (built up or developed area) as well as rural territory from which workers commute in large numbers to jobs in the urban area. The concept is illustrated in Figure 1, which uses Paris as an example. Other countries, such as Japan, Brazil, and France also formally designate metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan Areas: More Rural than Urban

Usually the land area of metropolitan areas is overwhelmingly rural, with only a small portion being in the core urban area. According to data from the 2021 census, 87% of the land area in Canada’s metropolitan areas was rural, with only 13% being urban development. Similarly, the data from the 2010 Census indicated that 81% of the land in US major metropolitan areas was rural, with only 19% being urban development. The Paris metropolitan area was 83% rural and 17% urban in the early 2010s.

This article compares Canadian and US major metropolitan areas (1,000,000 plus population) analyzing the last five years of available data (2017 to 2022). In 2022, 190 million people lived in the major metropolitan areas of the United States, while 18.5 million lived in Canada’s metropolitan areas (“census metropolitan areas”). Thus, about 10 times as many people live in major US metropolitan areas as in Canada. Moreover, there are 56 major metropolitan areas in the United States and six in Canada, a similar 10 to 1 ratio.

The Largest Metropolitan Areas

The largest metropolitan area in Canada or the United States is New York, with a population of 19.6 million in 2022. Los Angeles is second, at 12.8 million. Chicago is third at 9.4 million and has been losing population in recent years, raising questions about whether the metropolitan area will ever achieve megacity status (10 million). Dallas-Fort Worth ranks 5th, at 7.9 million, with nearby Houston at 7.3 million. Toronto is the only Canadian metropolitan area ranking in the top 10, with a population of 6.7 million (Figure 2).

Measured in population, Toronto is more significant in relation to Canada than New York is to the United States. The Toronto metropolitan area has 17.3 percent of Canada’s population. The New York metropolitan area has 5.8% of the US population, two-thirds less of the national population share than Toronto (Figure 3).

Population Gains and Losses

Dallas-Fort Worth is the fastest growing major metropolitan area in the two nations, adding 606,000 new residents in the last five years. Toronto was the second fastest growing metropolitan area, adding 468,000 residents. The Dallas-Fort Worth annualized growth rate was 1.60% from 2017 to 2022, slightly above the Toronto rate of 1.46%. Over the last year (2021-2022), Dallas-Fort Worth retained the lead, adding 170,000 residents compared to Toronto’s 138,000 and retaining its slim lead in percentage population gain of 2.19% to 2.11%.

Houston was close behind Toronto, at 441,000. Atlanta, Austin, New York, and Phoenix gained more than 250,000. Vancouver was the second Canadian metropolitan area in the top ten, ranking ninth, with an increase of 226,000 (Figure 4).

Four Canadian metropolitan areas ranked among the top ten in percentage growth. Austin had largest percentage population increase from 2017 to 2022 at an annual rate of 2.77%. Jacksonville and Raleigh followed Austin. Calgary was the highest ranking Canadian metropolitan area, ranked fourth, with a annual population growth rate of 1.98%. Orlando gained 1.87%. Edmonton ranked sixth with a 1.76% rate, followed by Nashville, at 1.75%. Vancouver ranked eighth at 1.67%, Dallas-Fort Worth, at 1.60% and Ottawa-Gatineau ranked 10th at 1.59% (Figure 5). Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolitan area, ranked 12th in percentage population growth, at 1.46% annually.

California accounted for four of the five largest population losses. Los Angeles lost 394,000 people between 2017 and 2022. This is a stunning result for metropolitan area that had grown quickly for decades. San Francisco lost the second largest population loss (132,000), while Chicago lost 72,000. San Jose and San Diego had the fourth and fifth largest population losses. No Canadian metropolitan areas were among the those with the smallest gains (Figure 6).

California similarly dominated the lowest percentage population changes. Los Angeles had an annual population loss rate of 0.60%. San Francisco’s loss rate was 0.57% and the San Jose loss rate was 0.57%, New Orleans lost 0.40% annually. San Diego lost 0.26%. No Canadian metropolitan areas were in the bottom 10 in percentage change (Figure 7).

Prospects

According to Statistics Canada, Canada was the fastest growing G-7 nation in 2022, and had a 2.7% annual growth rate in calendar 2023. This was the first year that Canada added more than one million residents in its history (1,050,000). Meanwhile, population growth was significantly muted in the United States in calendar year 2023, adding 1.571 million residents, with a growth rate of only 0.5%. One factor was Canada’s increased immigration targets.

But both countries are experiencing a significant movement of people out of the larger metropolitan areas to smaller areas and even rural areas. In the United States (Figure 8), domestic migration has shifted strongly away from the largest metropolitan areas (with some notable exceptions, such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Phoenix). In Canada, the census metropolitan areas (over 100,000 population) lost a net 252,000 internal migrants from 2017 to 2022. while the census agglomerations (populations from 10,000 to 100,000) gained 125,000. The big surprise was that the largest gain was in the under 10,000 category, where the gain was 127,000 (Figure 9). Both national trends are in contrast to nearly opposite trends before the middle of the last decade.

Photo: Peace Arch, Blain, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia. By U.S. Embassy and Consulate, via Flickr, in public domain.

A New Rideshare Model

Randal OToole — Sun, 14 May 2023 20:28:58 -0400

Alto is a rideshare company that was founded in Dallas and so far is also operating in Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and Washington. The company differs from traditional rideshare operations like Uber and Lyft in that it owns all of its automobiles and all of its drivers are employees, not contractors. This is supposed to make it more attractive to passengers, especially women, who may be squeamish about riding in a stranger’s car.

Alto claims that its rides are “elevated” above other ridesharers. Its fleet currently seems to consist of Buick Enclaves, a cross-over with three rows of seating. It has replaced the Buick logo on the grill with its own and added its logo to other parts of the vehicles as well. However, it plans to transition soon to all-electric vehicles.

While I’m always intrigued by new business models, I can’t help but feel this one is going in the wrong direction. The intercity bus market went from Greyhound, which owned its own buses, stations, and maintenance facilities, to Megabus, which owned buses and maintenance facilities but no stations, to Flx, which didn’t even own its own buses and maintenance facilities. In other words, the newer models shed costs and spread the risk to more operators.

Uber and Lyft disrupted the taxi market because they replace call centers and human taxi dispatchers with smart phones and automated dispatch. In 2019, some predicted that Uber would never be profitable, but it had its first profitable quarter in 2021 and today both Uber and Lyft claim to be making a profit.

Uber and Lyft have been criticized for treating drivers as contractors and not employees, yet most taxi companies do the same. Uber and Lyft may make less effort than taxi companies to ensure uniformity of service, as not all drivers own the same make and model of vehicles, but it has been my experience, at least, that vehicles are clean, in good condition, and relatively new. The drivers, not Uber or Lyft, take the risk that the vehicles they own won’t earn enough to pay for themselves, but from the customer’s viewpoint that leads to more competition and faster service.

Alto’s model absorbs all of the risk that Uber and Lyft spread among their drivers. That could be quite expensive. Buick Enclaves list for about $45,000, and while I’m sure Alto gets quantity discounts, the $60 million it had raised by mid-2021 is hardly enough to buy 3,000 Enclaves, much less replace them all with electric vehicles by the end of this year, which was Alto’s goal.

Given the limited number of vehicles in its fleet, Alto won’t promise 5-minute wait times like Uber and Lyft can often do. While people can pre-schedule a car, spontaneous Alto customers can expect to wait 10 to 15 minutes. Also, Alto doesn’t operate 24 hours a day; instead, depending on the city, it is shut down for three to five hours each night. Furthermore, while Uber and Lyft are available in hundreds of U.S. cities, Alto is currently limited to just six, which means frequent travelers will keep the Uber and/or Lyft apps even after they’ve tried Alto. Another disadvantage is that all of Alto’s fleet of cars have to be big enough to carry the largest party that might want to use them (i.e., six passengers), while Uber and Lyft can tailor the size of the vehicles they send to the number of people in each party.

Read the rest of this piece at The Antiplanner.

Randal O'Toole, the Antiplanner, is a policy analyst with nearly 50 years of experience reviewing transportation and land-use plans and the author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future.

Photo: courtesy Alto.