Philadelphia

Transit Legacy Cities

Wendell Cox — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:50:08 -0500

Transit's greatest potential to attract drivers from cars is the work trip. But an analysis of US transit work trip destinations indicates that this applies in large part to just a few destinations around the nation. This is much more obvious in looking at destinations than the more typical method of analysis, which looks at the residential locations of commuters. This column is adapted from my new Heritage Foundation Backgrounder "Transit Policy in an Era of the Shrinking Federal Dollar."

Transit Legacy Cities

Transit commuting is heavily concentrated to destinations in just the six core cities (historical core municipalities) of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington (Backgrounder Chart 9). I call them the "transit legacy cities," because their high transit market shares relate to their development before the automobile became dominant. Because there is such a lack of clarity in the use of terms that apply to cities, it is important to emphasize that the transit legacy cities are municipalities, not the surrounding metropolitan areas or urban areas, where the majority of residents live (Note 1).

The transit legacy cities account for nearly 55 percent of the nation's transit commuters, by work trip destinations, according to the American Community Survey (2008-2010). By contrast, the transit legacy cities have an overall national employment market share barely one-tenth their national transit share (6 percent). Moreover, combined, the transit legacy cities cover a land area little larger than the core city (municipality) of Jacksonville, Florida.

At the same time, the "other side of the coin" is that commuting to other destinations is dominated by the automobile, from the suburbs in metropolitan areas with transit legacy cities, and even more so in the other 45 major metropolitan areas (with more than 1,000,000 population) and the balance of the nation.

Legacy Cities: Transit's Strength

The extent of the concentration in the six transit legacy cities is illustrated in Backgrounder Table 1. In some ways, transit is, first and foremost, really a New York story. More than one-third of all transit work-trip commuting is to destinations in the core city of New York. The dominance is even greater for high-capacity subways/elevated services, a mode in which where New York represents two-thirds of national commuting.

The Key: Large, Concentrated, Well Served Downtowns: The concentration of transit commuting in the six transit legacy cities reflects the factor that is probably more responsible than any other for attracting people from cars to transit. This is a highly concentrated downtown area (central business district, or "CBD") from which a dense network of rapid transit services radiates.

The six transit legacy cities are also home to the six largest CBDs in the nation, where transit's share of commuting is far higher than compared to the rest of the nation. Approximately three quarters of commuters to the sprawling Manhattan CBD in New York (south of 59th Street) commuted by transit in 2000. Less well known is that New York also contains the CBD with the second largest transit work trip destination, downtown Brooklyn (58 percent), which is followed by downtown Chicago (55 percent).

In addition, between nearly 40 percent and more than 50 percent of commuters used transit to the CBDs of Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington. While covering a land area less than one-half the size of Orlando's Walt Disney World, these downtowns accounted for 35 percent of national transit commuting.

Outside the Transit Legacy Cities: Automobile and Work at Home Country

So what about the 94 percent of US commuters who work outside the transit legacy cities? The answer is that the automobile dominates, and transit has been overtaken by working at home. In the suburban areas of metropolitan areas with transit legacy cities, the car carries 18 times as many people to work locations as transit. In the core municipalities of the 45 major metropolitan areas without legacy cities, cars carry 29 times as many commuters as transit, and 51 times as many in the suburbs. Outside the nation's major metropolitan areas, cars carry 82 times as many commuters as transit (Backgrounder Table 1)

Further, outside the transit legacy cities, working at home (including telecommuting) provides access to twenty percent more jobs than transit (Backgrounder Table 3).

An American Love Affair with the Automobile?

The enduring myth of the American love affair with automobile is countered by the huge transit market shares to city downtowns . For example, commuters to Manhattan are five times as likely to use transit as cars. On the other hand, commuters to the edge city of Parsippany, on the I-287 corridor in suburban New Jersey are 50 times as likely to use their cars as transit. Yet both employment centers serve the same labor market. The issue is not preferences, it is rather rational choice. It would be irrational for most people to commute to Manhattan by car, principally because of the traffic congestion and cost, particularly for parking. It would similarly be irrational for most people to commute to Parsippany by transit, because it either could not be done at all, or it would take too long.

Transit's work trip destination market share is an effective measure of its relevance to the market.

And lest anyone should counter that the answer is more money, consider this.

A Cost Not A Revenue Problem

Portland (with a core city that is not a legacy city) has long been held out as a model for improving transit. Yet, after billions of dollars in federal and local tax subsidies, more than 50 times as many people travel to work to suburban locations by car as by transit. More than five times as many work at home as use transit, and working at home costs taxpayers virtually nothing. Yet, despite all these billions, Portland's transit system is in crisis. Tri-Met's Executive Director Neil McFarlane has warned of 70 percent service cuts over 12 years without substantial changes to union contracts.

Transit’s fundamental problem is not insufficient revenue but insufficient cost control. Since 1983, national transit expenditures have risen at an inflation-adjusted rate nine times that of its increase in commuters (Note 2). Even if costs were under control, it would be financially impossible to provide automobile-competitive transit throughout the modern urban area, as Professor Jean-Claude Ziv and I showed in our WCTRS paper (Megacities and Affluence: Transport and Land Use Considerations).

Celebrating Transit

Yet, beyond its inability to convert generous taxpayer subsidies into corresponding ridership increases, transit deserves credit for the large number of people it moves to jobs in the legacy cities. This success should be celebrated although it remains an impossible, prohibitively expensive, dream elsewhere.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”

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Note 1: Each of the transit legacy cities has a lower population than the surrounding suburbs. This ranges from nearly 45 percent of the population in the suburbs of the New York metropolitan area to little more than 10 percent in Washington.

Note 2: Within the first 30 days of my time on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, I became convinced that transit's principal problem was cost control (see Toward More Prosperous Cities). This was then and today remains clear from the above-inflationary escalation of unit costs. Regrettably that trend continues today and has seriously impeded transit's ability to increase ridership.

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Photo: Downtown Philadelphia (by author)

The Dispersion of Financial Sector Jobs

Wendell Cox — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:10:26 -0500

When you think of financial services, one usually looks at iconic downtowns such as New York’s Wall Street, Montgomery Street San Francisco's or Chicago’s LaSalle Street. But since the great financial crisis of 2007-8 the banking business is on the move elsewhere. Over the last five years (2007 to 2012), even as the total number of financial jobs has declined modestly, they have been growing elsewhere.

This is the conclusion of an analysis of data supplied by Moody's Analytics for an article in The Wall Street Journal ("Meet Them in St. Louis: Bankers Move). This analysis adjusts the data provided by Moody's Analytics, combining portions of metropolitan areas (called "metropolitan divisions")into their complete metropolitan areas (See Note 1).

The financial sector tends to be comparatively concentrated. In 2007, approximately one-third of the financial sector jobs reported by Moody's were located in the New York metropolitan area. New York is the home of one of world's largest financial sector hubs, Manhattan.

New York: Financial Sector Employment Losses and Dispersion

However, the New York metropolitan area and the other four largest concentrations of financial sector jobs – New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco – accounted all of the net job losses over the period. Between 2007 and 2012, the five largest financial sector markets, lost 39,000 jobs. Outside these five metropolitan areas, the number of financial sector jobs increased by 12,000 (Figure 1).

The extent of this dispersal away from the five most concentrated markets is illustrated by the decline in their financial sector jobs compared to the other metropolitan areas. In 2007, the five most concentrated markets had 32,000 more financial sector jobs than the other metropolitan areas. By 2012, the other metropolitan areas achieved a total number of 19,000 more financial sector jobs than the five most concentrated markets (Figure 2).

The dispersion of financial sector jobs is evident even within the New York area itself. The central metropolitan division of the New York metropolitan area (New York-White Plains-Wayne), which includes Manhattan, lost 19,000. However, the balance of the New York metropolitan area experienced a 2500 increase in financial sector jobs, resulting in a overall loss of 16,500 jobs in the metropolitan area

Not all of the New York metropolitan area jobs were lost to places like Dallas-Fort Worth and Des Moines. The balance of the New York combined statistical area (formerly called consolidated metropolitan statistical areas) added 2000 jobs, principally in the Bridgeport (Fairfield County, Connecticut) metropolitan area (Figure 3). Thus, while the core of the New York metropolitan area was losing 9 percent of its financial sector jobs, the more suburban balance of the combined area gained 11 percent, even as the total region lost employment.

California: Substantial Financial Sector Employment Losses

However, New York's percentage losses paled by comparison to those in the Los Angeles (Los Angeles and Riverside-San Bernardino) and San Francisco combined (San Francisco and San Jose) statistical areas. The losses in the Los Angeles area were 21 percent, while in the San Francisco area the losses reached 17 percent. The losses in Los Angeles and San Francisco regions exceeded that of the New York combined statistical area, which had three times as many financial sector jobs in 2007. San Diego also experienced a 5percent job loss, while Sacramento's loss was miniscule. Overall, California lost 17 percent of its financial sector jobs between 2007 and 2012.

Texas: Gaining Financial Sector Employment

The large metropolitan areas of Texas and did better. Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin added 5400 financial sector jobs, an increase of 14 percent (Figure 4).

Metropolitan Area Performance

St. Louis added 5,600 financial sector jobs, the most of any single metropolitan area (Figure 5). The Washington area added 4,400, followed by Phoenix (3,900), Dallas-Fort Worth (2,600) and Bridgeport (2,000). New York, as mentioned above, lost 16,500 financial sector jobs, the most of any individual metropolitan area (Figure 6). Boston had the second largest loss (8,300), followed by Los Angeles (6,800), Miami (4,800) and San Francisco (4,400).

The metropolitan areas with the largest percentage gains include net job leader St. Louis which grew 85 percent (Figure 7). Phoenix gained 36 percent, Washington 28 percent, Tampa-St. Petersburg 18 percent and Dallas-Fort Worth 14 percent. Des Moines, which had only 1,400 financial sector jobs in 2007 had the largest percentage gain, at 96 percent.

Miami had the largest loss, at 27 percent (Figure 8). Charlotte, having risen to prominence with its large banks may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, losing 24 percent of its financial sector jobs, followed by Boston and Los Angeles (19 percent) and San Francisco (17 percent).

Dispersing to Lower Density Areas

The data is not sufficiently precise to distinguish between central business district, urban core and suburban trends. However, the metropolitan areas with high density historical core municipalities (above 10,000 persons per square mile or 4,000 per square kilometer in 2010), suffered a loss of 35,000 financial sector jobs between 2007 and 2012, more than the total national metropolitan loss of 27,000. The six high density historical core municipalities (Note 2) include New York, Chicago, Philadelphia Boston, San Francisco and Miami all suffered significant losses while the metropolitan areas with less dense cores gained 9,000 financial sector jobs (Figure 9).

Further, the losses were concentrated in the metropolitan areas with the four most dense major urban areas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and New York and the losses in these areas exceeded the overall industry loss. This movement away from density reinforces the often misconstrued conclusions of the Santa Fe Institute Urban Scaling research to the effect that metropolitan area size was a principal determinant of productivity, however not urban density (see: Density is Not the Issue: The Urban Scaling Research). Larger, less dense regions did far better --- for example Houston, Dallas and St. Louis --- than their more dense rivals.

Dispersion to Housing Affordability

There is also a strong trend of financial sector job gains where housing is more affordable and job losses where housing is less affordable. This is indicated by the median multiple (median house price divided by gross median household income) data from the 8th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey (Table below).

Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey Housing Affordability Rating Categories
Rating	Median Multiple
Severely Unaffordable	5.1 & Over
Seriously Unaffordable	4.1 to 5.0
Moderately Unaffordable	3.1 to 4.0
Affordable	3.0 & Under

Metropolitan areas rated as affordable (median multiple 3.0 or lower) gained 9,300 financial sector jobs between 2007 and 2012. Metropolitan areas rated moderately unaffordable (median multiple 3.1 to 4.0) gained 2,600 jobs. The metropolitan areas with the most unaffordable housing suffered a net loss in financial sector jobs. Seriously unaffordable (median multiple 4.1 to 5.0) metropolitan areas lost 3,700 jobs. Metropolitan areas rated seriously unaffordable (median multiple 5.1 or higher) lost 35,000 jobs. This is more than the overall loss reported in the data of 27,000 (Figure 10).

Financial Sector Jobs: Reflecting Urban Dispersion

The dispersion of financial sector jobs away from concentrated areas may come as a surprise, given the close association that the industry has with the largest central business districts. Yet, the trend mirrors the more general, but overwhelming trends of dispersion indicated over the last decade in both population and domestic migration.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”

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Note 1: The data used in this analysis is limited to that provided in The Wall Street Journal article. Data was provided for only is only for a part of the Boston metropolitan area (the Boston-Quincy metropolitan division).

Note 2: In 1940, at least 15 of the historical core municipalities had population densities exceeding 10,000 per square mile (4,000 per square kilometer)

Photo by Flickr user IABoomerFlickr

Urban Housing: A Master Plan for the Few

Richard Reep — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 00:09:07 -0500

How we, as a nation, find bounty and beauty in the future depends upon how we react to two trends emerging from the recent difficult period in American urbanism. The first of these trends is the increasing lack of affordability in mainstream urban America, with the costs of maintaining a middle-class lifestyle at a level where distinct have/have-not lines are now drawn. The second is the increasing authoritarianism in mainstream urban America, where decisions about how our cities function are guided by a new array of authority figures that represent the common good. Both trends point to a disempowerment of a vast section of the American population.

Our loss of housing affordability is an insidious development that will continue to eat away at the urban triumphalism that marked the beginning of this century. Generation Xers, seniors on fixed incomes and the struggling middle class will have much in common during the coming decade, with fewer and fewer housing solutions designed for them. If half of our consumer goods are purchased by the top ten percent, then the rest of us are increasingly irrelevant in terms of goods, and services, as well as in housing,

Affordability on Main Street was once a concern of Wall Street. It was broadly known as Fordism, from the days when Henry Ford paid decent wages so that his workers could afford his new product, the car. Today, with Main Street on its knees, Fordism is dead and Wall Street turns more and more to itself, and to large, multinational conglomerates for profits. Volume generated by the middle class comes from a few companies like Apple, and, as the class shrinks, psychological distance between the haves and have-nots widens the gap, especially for those with memories of the material wealth they had in earlier days.

Solutions to the affordability gap in the urban realm are conspicuous by their absence. Desirable addresses, decent houses, and access to amenities are now the province of relatively few, who are serviced by those on the outside, commuting into town from less hip and trendy places. New residential housing, driven by the Wall Street investment community, is geared towards the market-rate. The linkage between mass transit and affordable housing has been deftly snipped apart by the investment community, where the topic of affordable housing generates a yawn.

Solutions? We might do well to investigate anti-urban trends, where peripheral and rural communities are stable and growing, and look at how these communities cope. Housing solutions like prefabricated units (think trailer parks, America’s answer to the favela) might be studied.

Non-affordability, as a trend, is strongly linked to a co-evolutionary partner that is driving a wedge between the haves and have-nots: an authority figure which has become a new interlocutor in of the urban conversation, a sort of urban do-gooder to save us from ourselves, pushing more requirements and accepting fewer improvisations. Affordable housing has less to do with the square footage that is in that space, and more to do with the ingredients found within the square footage.

The gloved hand of quasi-government authority has come to rest upon our cities with an increasingly tight grip, in the name of the green lobby or in the name of the traditional town.

Cities underwent rapid change in the fifties and sixties due to the car, and subsequently parking garages, commercial strips, suburbs and highway overpasses sprouted. All these developments facilitated growth and expansion. Americans were remarkably unsentimental about their historic urban fabric, and notably experimental about innovative technological solutions to remove obstacles to this growth.

Today, our confidence is shaken. The rise of authorities to dictate urban form signals that the era of innovation and improvisation is over, and that American cities are entering a new era of more rigid control of what gets built. The authority, in the form of a Master Plan, treats the city as if it were a vast, private land holding, and its citizens as if they were animals in a forest that was about to be developed.

Master Plans have already been passed in Denver, Philadelphia, and Miami, and are on the boards for other cities in 2013. When a developer Master-Plans his land, he relies upon a Master to create the vision for the land, and this Master – credentialed, experienced, and hopefully talented – sets out the form of the future construction. The Master may have a passing interest in the voices from the land itself – biologists who count endangered species, for example – but the overarching form comes out of his mind, and the developer then implements the plan.

When the same process is used upon a living, dynamic city, the results vary. Future citizens, bound by the edicts of this Master Plan, may submit to the Master’s vision, or, they may chafe at its restrictions. These Master Plans are formulated with great citizen input and collaboration until the time at which they are set. After that, they are to be obeyed. The plans create a physical model, or form; they are like a glove into which the city must fit its future hand.

Master Plans attempt to take all possibilities into account, while creating 'perfect' rules by which the city can grow. Physical order, it is hoped, will lead to social order, as buildings once again behave like they did before the car. Should the future evolve as the Master predicts, the glove will fit the grown-up hand However, the future is notoriously difficult to predict.

The new regulatory regime has become fashionable as citizens, sickened by the dirt and ugliness of our cities, seek an authority to keep us from temptation. As such, Master Plans arise from a noble intent not unlike the one held by city planners at the turn of the 20th century: to improve urban hygiene. And they may be correct in thinking that emulating urban form as it was before the car might just bring walkability back into fashion once again.

The future, however, is ephemeral and dynamic, not static like a Master Plan, and may become frustrating to the Master Planners who have created elaborate blueprints for our nation’s cities. America’s fluid economic situation is giving rise to in-home workplaces, negating the need for traditional office space. It is giving rise to in-home manufacturing, reducing the size and complexity of factories. Warehouses, in today's era of just-in-time-delivery, are being converted into other uses. And finally, Master Plans all seem to reminisce about Main Streets with lovely, tree-lined rows of shops under apartment (parking would be safely tucked in the back). These shops, renting for top dollar, stand empty today, made even more remote from reality with the advent of online retail.

In short, Master Plans that rigidly enforce an urban form of yesteryear may become next year’s white elephants. Cities bearing these master plans may find themselves with a regulatory burden that is reducing their desirability as places to live and work. Following these cities specifically, learning of their successes and failures, and analyzing how Master Plans are working will tell us a lot about the future.

As affordability is reduced and regulation increases, American cities could soon evolve into forms that are quite different from those of our past. And as confidence in the future fades, our cities take increasing comfort in the past, fossilizing our urban form as the Romans once did. For those underneath the affordability curve, improvisation and innovation will still continue, and insight into both of these emerging trends will yield a new sense of direction for the places where we live and work.

Richard Reep is an architect and artist who lives in Winter Park, Florida. His practice has centered around hospitality-driven mixed use, and he has contributed in various capacities to urban mixed-use projects, both nationally and internationally, for the last 25 years.

Flickr photo by alesh houdek: A walled and gated Miami home.

Flocking Elsewhere: The Downtown Growth Story

Wendell Cox — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 01:38:19 -0400

The United States Census Bureau has released a report (Patterns of Metropolitan and Micropolitan Population Change: 2000 to 2010.) on metropolitan area growth between 2000 and 2010. The Census Bureau's the news release highlighted population growth in downtown areas, which it defines as within two miles of the city hall of the largest municipality in each metropolitan area. Predictably, media sources that interpret any improvement in core city fortunes as evidence of people returning to the cities (from which they never came), referred to people "flocking" back to the "city" (See here and here, for example).

Downtown Population Trends: Make no mistake about it, the central cores of the nation's largest cities are doing better than at any time in recent history. Much of the credit has to go to successful efforts to make crime infested urban cores suitable for habitation, which started with the strong law enforcement policies of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

However, to characterize the trend since 2000 as reflective of any "flocking" to the cities is to exaggerate the trend of downtown improvement beyond recognition. Among the 51 major metropolitan areas (those with more than 1 million population), nearly 99 percent of all population growth between 2000 and 2010 was outside the downtown areas (Figure 1).

There was population growth in 33 downtown areas out of the 51 major metropolitan areas. As is typical for core urban measures, nearly 80 percent of this population growth was concentrated in the six most vibrant downtown areas, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and San Francisco.

If the next six fastest-growing downtown areas are added to the list (Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, San Diego and Seattle), downtown growth exceeds the national total of 205,000 people, because the other 39 downtown areas had a net population loss. Overall, the average downtown area in the major metropolitan areas grew by 4000 people between 2000 and 2010. That may be a lot of people for a college lacrosse game, but not for a city. While in some cases these increases were substantial in percentage terms, the population base was generally small, which was the result of huge population losses in previous decades as well as the conversion of old disused office buildings, warehouses and factories into residential units.

Trends in the Larger Urban Cores: The downtown population gains, however, were not sufficient to stem the continuing decline in urban core populations. Among the 51 major metropolitan areas, the aggregate data indicates a loss of population within six miles of city hall. In essence, the oasis of modest downtown growth was more than negated by losses surrounding the downtown areas. Virtually all the population growth in the major metropolitan areas lay outside the six mile radius core, as areas within the historical urban core, including downtown, lost 0.4 percent.

Even when the radius is expanded to 10 miles, the overwhelming majority of growth remains outside. Approximately 94 percent of the aggregate population growth of the major metropolitan areas occurred more than 10 miles from downtown (Figure 2). Figure 3 shows that more than one-half of the growth occurred 20 miles and further from city hall. Further, the population growth beyond 10 miles (10-15 mile radius, 15-20 miles radius and 20 mile and greater radius) from the core exceeded the (2000) share of population, showing the continuing dispersal of American metropolitan areas (Figure 4).

Chicago: The Champion? The Census Bureau press release highlights the fact that downtown Chicago experienced the largest gain in the nation. Downtown Chicago accounted for 13 percent of the metropolitan area's growth with an impressive 48,000 new residents. However, while downtown Chicago was prospering, people were flocking away from the rest of the city. Within a five mile radius of the Loop, there was a net population loss of 12,000 and a net loss of more than 200,000 within 20 miles (Figure 5). Only within the 36th mile radius from city hall is there a net population gain.

Cleveland: Comeback City and Always Will Be? In view of Cleveland’s demographic decline (down from 915,000 in 1950 to 397,000 in 2010), any progress in downtown Cleveland is welcome. But despite the frequently recurring reports, downtown Cleveland's population growth was barely 3,000. Despite this gain, the loss within a 6 mile radius was 70,000 and 125,000 within a 12 mile radius. Beyond the 12- mile radius, there was a population increase of nearly 55,000, which insufficient to avoid a metropolitan area population loss.

Other Metropolitan Areas: A total of 30 major metropolitan areas suffered core population losses, despite the fact that many had downtown population increases.

Five major metropolitan areas suffered overall population losses (Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Katrina ravaged New Orleans).
St. Louis, with a core city that holds the modern international record for population loss (from 857,000 in 1950 to 319,000 in 2010), experienced a population decline within a 27 mile radius of city hall. Approximately 150 percent of the growth in the St. Louis metropolitan area was outside the 27 mile radius. Even so, there was an increase of nearly 6,000 in the population of downtown St. Louis.
There were population losses all the way out to a considerable distance from city halls in Memphis (16 mile radius), Cincinnati (15 mile radius) and Birmingham (14 mile radius). The three corresponding downtown areas also lost population.
Despite having one of the strongest downtown population increases (12,000), population declined within a 10 mile radius of the Dallas city hall. This contrasts with nearby Houston, which also experienced a strong downtown increase (10,000) but no losses at any radius of the urban core.
Milwaukee experienced a small downtown population increase (2,000), but had a population loss within an11 mile radius.

The other 21 major metropolitan areas experienced population gains throughout. Even so, most of the growth (77 percent) was outside the 10 mile radius. San Jose had the most concentrated growth, with only 24 percent outside a 10 miles radius from city hall. All of the other metropolitan areas had 60 percent or more of their growth outside a 10 mile radius from city hall.

As we have observed before, 2000 to 2010 was, unlike the 1970s and other decades, more friendly to the nation's core cities, although less so than the previous decade. Due to the repurposing of old offices and other structures, sometimes aided by subsidies, small downtown slivers may have done better than at any time since before World War II. But the data is clear. Suburban growth was stronger in the 2000s than in the 1990s. The one percent flocked to downtown and the 99 percent flocked to outside downtown.

Population Loss Radius: Major Metropolitan Areas
Miles from City Hall of Historical Core Municipality*

Major Metropolitan Areas (Over 1,000,000 Population	Share of Metropolitan Growth			Population Loss Radius (Miles)
Major Metropolitan Areas (Over 1,000,000 Population	"Outside Downtown" (2- Mile Radius)	Outside 5-Mile Radius	Outside 10-Mile Radius	Population Loss Radius (Miles)

MAJOR METROPOLITAN AREAS: TOTAL	98.7%	100.4%	93.5%	6

Atlanta, GA	99.6%	101.1%	99.9%	9
Austin, TX	98.1%	96.7%	81.9%	0
Baltimore, MD	106.5%	118.7%	99.5%	9
Birmingham, AL	104.2%	132.5%	124.9%	14
Boston, MA-NH	90.8%	76.9%	67.3%	0
Buffalo, NY	Entire Metropolitan Area Loss
Charlotte, NC-SC	99.1%	97.4%	75.0%	3
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	86.7%	103.3%	144.6%	35
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	105.1%	126.8%	135.2%	15
Cleveland, OH	Entire Metropolitan Area Loss
Columbus, OH	100.5%	104.3%	86.9%	7
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	99.0%	101.0%	100.7%	10
Denver, CO	98.0%	100.3%	89.8%	5
Detroit, MI	Entire Metropolitan Area Loss
Hartford, CT	99.2%	92.7%	67.2%	0
Houston, TX	99.2%	99.5%	98.0%	0
Indianapolis. IN	102.1%	112.1%	89.6%	8
Jacksonville, FL	100.2%	106.3%	85.3%	8
Kansas City, MO-KS	99.5%	109.0%	113.3%	12
Las Vegas, NV	101.4%	98.0%	63.6%	4
Los Angeles, CA	97.3%	102.2%	97.6%	8
Louisville, KY-IN	102.5%	108.5%	90.9%	8
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	101.2%	118.5%	143.5%	16
Miami, FL	99.4%	93.0%	91.3%	0
Milwaukee,WI	95.9%	109.0%	107.5%	11
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	97.4%	99.2%	100.1%	7
Nashville, TN	100.0%	101.4%	92.4%	7
New Orleans. LA	Entire Metropolitan Area Loss
New York, NY-NJ-PA	93.5%	81.7%	68.9%	0
Oklahoma City, OK	100.1%	96.8%	83.5%	2
Orlando, FL	99.7%	99.4%	84.2%	0
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	92.6%	98.8%	96.3%	7
Phoenix, AZ	100.7%	101.8%	93.6%	6
Pittsburgh, PA	Entire Metropolitan Area Loss
Portland, OR-WA	95.0%	91.5%	62.7%	0
Providence, RI-MA	96.2%	91.7%	70.1%	0
Raleigh, NC	99.6%	93.0%	67.7%	0
Richmond, VA	95.7%	91.7%	70.2%	0
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	99.5%	97.2%	85.8%	0
Rochester, NY	146.9%	149.3%	82.5%	9
Sacramento, CA	99.9%	94.4%	79.5%	0
Salt Lake City, UT	98.9%	95.1%	84.1%	0
San Antonio, TX	101.1%	102.5%	86.7%	7
San Diego, CA	96.3%	94.1%	90.1%	0
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	90.7%	87.6%	82.2%	0
San Jose, CA	95.1%	79.1%	24.3%	0
Seattle, WA	96.5%	91.9%	81.4%	0
St. Louis,, MO-IL	94.8%	119.7%	148.9%	27
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	98.6%	97.8%	83.7%	0
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	93.1%	90.1%	82.3%	0
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	97.5%	94.5%	87.9%	0

Calculated from Census Bureau data
*Except in Virginia Beach-Norfolk, Where Virginia Beach is used

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Notes:

Population Weighted Density: In its report, the Census Bureau uses "population-weighted density," rather than average population density to compare metropolitan areas. The Census Bureau justified this use as follows:

"Overall densities of CBSAs can be heavily affected by the size of the geographic units for which they are calculated. Metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas are delimited using counties as their basic building blocks, and counties vary greatly across the country in terms of their geographic size. With this in mind, one way of measuring actual residential density is to examine the ratio of population to land area at the scale of the census tract, which—of all the geographic units for which decennial census data are tabulated—is typically the closest in scale to urban and suburban neighborhoods".

The Census Bureau rightly points out the problem with comparing metropolitan area density. However, it is a problem of the federal government's making, by virtue of using metropolitan area building blocks (counties) that are sometimes too large for designation of genuine metropolitan areas. These difficulties have been overcome by the national census authorities in Japan in Canada, for example, where smaller building blocks are used (such as municipalities or local government authorities).

Further, the Census Bureau already has a means for measuring population density at the census tract level, which is "the closest in scale to urban and suburban neighborhoods." This is the urban area.

"Population-weighted density" is an interesting concept that can provide an impression of the density that is perceived by the average resident of the metropolitan area. Unfortunately, in its report, the Census Bureau is less than precise with its terminology and repeatedly fails to modify the term density with the important "population-weighted" qualification. This could lead to considerable misunderstanding.

The Census Bureau did not provide average population densities based for the mileage radii. Because of large bodies of water (such as Lake Michigan in Chicago can reduce land areas, it was not possible to estimate population densities by radius.

Census Bureau Revision of Incorrect Report: We notified the Census Bureau of errors in its press release and report on September 27. The problems included substitution of San Francisco population data for Salt Lake City as well as metropolitan population in the supporting spreadsheet file. On September 28, the Census Bureau issued a revised press release and report to rectify the errors. Later the erroneous spreadsheet was withdrawn and had not been re-posted as of October 1. We have made corrections to the spreadsheet for this analysis.

Note: Larger "Downtown" Populations in Smaller Metropolitan Areas: Because of the broad 2-mile radius measure used by the Census Bureau, most of the population increase characterized as relating to downtown occurred outside the major metropolitan areas. This is simply because in smaller metropolitan areas, such an area (12.6 square miles) will necessarily contain a larger share of the metropolitan area. Further, many smaller metropolitan areas are virtually all suburban and had experienced little or no core population losses over the decades that have been so devastating to many large core municipalities. On average, 2.7 percent of the population of major metropolitan areas was within a two-mile radius of city hall in 2010. By comparison, in smaller metropolitan areas, approximately 12.7 percent of the population was within a two mile radius.

Photograph: Chicago Suburbs: (where nearly all the growth occurred), by author

Megalopolis and its Rivals

Richard Morrill — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 01:10:13 -0400

Jean Gottman in 1961 coined the term megalopolis (Megalopolis, the Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the Unites States) to describe the massive concentration of population extending from the core of New York north beyond Boston and south encompassing Washington DC. It has been widely studied and mapped, including by me. (Morrill, 2006, Classic Map Revisited, Professional Geographer). The concept has also been extended to describe and compare many other large conurbations around the world.

Maybe it’s time to see how the original has fared? And what has happened to other metropolitan complexes in the US, most notably Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and should we say Florida?

Table 1 summarizes the population of Megalopolis from 1950 to 2010 and Table 2 compares Megalopolis with other US mega-urban complexes. Megalopolis grew fastest in the 1950s and 1960s, with growth rates of 20 and 18.5 percent. The northeast has since been outpaced by the growth in other regions, but growth was still substantial in the last decade. Megalopolis added almost 3 million people, by 6.8 %, to reach an amazing 45.2 million.

Table 1: Growth of Megalopolis 1950-2010
Year	Population	Change	% Change
2010	45,357	2,983	7
2000	42,374	5,794	15.8
1990	36,580	2,215	6.4
1980	34,365	360	1.2
1970	34,005	5,436	18.5
1960	29,441	4,910	20
1950	24,534

From Table 2 I note four major subregions of Megalopolis: Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. New York is still the biggest player, but the locus of growth over time has shifted South. This reflects the increasing world importance of Washington, DC. New York’s almost 20 million may not surprise, but the fact that greater Boston has grown to almost 9.5 million may be more surprising. The Washington-Baltimore area grew by far the fastest at almost 15 percent (not much sign of shrinkage of government!). In contrast New York, Boston and Philadelphia’s growth was relatively paltry.

Table 2: Megalopolis and Its Rivals
Place	2010 Pop	2000 Pop	Change	% change

Megalopolis
New York	19,923	19,209	717	3.7
Boston	9,445	8,967	478	5.3
Philadelphia	8,415	76,781	773	9.5
Baltimore-Washingt	7,403	7,681	960	14.9
All	45,181	42,302	2,888	6.8

Chicago	10,817	10,305	512	5

Los Angeles	12,151	11,789	362	3.1
Central	903	857	46	5.4
North	928	634	294	46
East	2,884	2,105	475	37
South	3,543	3,210	337	10.4
All Los Angeles	20,404	18,599	1,810	9.8

San Francisco-Sacramento
San Francisco	7,330	6,946	384	5.5
Sacramento	3,171	2,604	572	22
All San Francisco-Sacramento	10,501	9,550	951	10

Florida
Miami	6,027	5,311	716	13.5
Tampa	4,818	3,894	974	25.3
Orlando	2,915	2,193	722	33
Jacksonville	1,483	1,191	2,242	24.5
All Florida	15,243	12,544	2,699	21.5

Greater Los Angeles is the second largest conurbation, with some 20.4 million, growing by 1.8 million, and 10 percent from 2000. In the table I distinguish between the core Los Angeles urbanized area and the satellite urbanized areas west, north, south and east. The core LA area grew by only 3 percent, while the spillover areas to the north and east had astonishing growth, at 46 and 37 percent over the decade. These include several places with a fairly long history, such as Riverside and San Bernardino, San Diego and Santa Barbara, but many are rapidly growing large suburbs and exurbs, a spillover of growth from the Los Angeles core. Much of the fastest growth has been in Mission Viejo, Murietta-Temecula, Indio, Lancaster, Santa Clarita and Thousand Oaks.

For greater San Francisco, I distinguish two subregions, the Bay area of San Francisco-San Jose (west) and Sacramento (central valley). Some might consider these totally distinct, but they have become one in a conurbation sense, as evidenced by commuting patterns. Many people live in the less costly Central Valley area but commute to the expensive Bay Area cities. Together, the conurbation is now 10.5 million, up 10 percent from 2000. The central valley (Sacramento) portion grew far more rapidly than San Francisco-San Jose (22 percent compared to 5.5 percent).

Compared to its rivals the Chicago conurbation has grown less rapidly but is still large, with a population of 10.8 million in 2010 , growing 512,000 (5 percent) since 2000. Chicago and Milwaukee are the well-known core cities, but there are also less well known components with far faster growth such as Round Lake-McHenry and West Bend, WI.

Florida

The more interesting and difficult conurbation to try to define is what might be called the Florida archipelago. Greater Miami has long been recognized as a conurbation, but I contend that virtually all the urbanized areas of the state are in effect a complex web of urban settlement, with little clear demarcation. This is in part a reflection of rapid and expansive growth. Nevertheless it makes sense to recognize four sub-regions, centered on Miami, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando and Jacksonville.

Together these areas have reached an astonishing 15.2 million, up 2.7 million or 21.5 percent in one decade. Because settlement is spread across the state in such a web-like fashion with no single dominant center, they constitute a newish form of urban concentration. Besides the well-known centers such as Miami, Tampa-St. Petersburg ), Orlando and Jacksonville, there are many satellite cities, often quite large. These include North Port, Cape Coral encompassing older Ft. Meyers, Bonita Springs, Kissimmee, Palm Bay-Melbourne, Palm Coast-Daytona, and Port St. Lucie. An interesting but hard to answer question is how much of Florida’s phenomenal growth is a result of transfer of people and accumulated wealth from the North (and especially from the original Megalopolis).

The United States is a large and diverse country, with many other giant cities and a vast countryside. But it is important to realize the importance of these megalopolitan areas, with an aggregate population of 102.6 million, one third of the nation’s population.

What’s next? Look for the rise of now just somewhat smaller conurbations such as Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Seattle, Phoenix, and Denver. In terms of numbers and rates of growth Texas is a front runner, but its stars do not coalesce into a megalopolis, at least not yet. The belt of urban growth from Atlanta, through Greenville, SC, Charlotte to Raleigh-Durham is also a likely future conurbation candidate.

Richard Morrill is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Washington. His research interests include: political geography (voting behavior, redistricting, local governance), population/demography/settlement/migration, urban geography and planning, urban transportation (i.e., old fashioned generalist).

Back to the City?

Aaron M. Renn — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:38:34 -0400

The 2010 Census results were mostly bleak for cities, especially for those who believed the inflated hype about the resurgence of the city at the expense of the suburbs. Despite claims of an urban renaissance, the 2000s actually turned out to be worse than the 1990s for central cities. The one bright spot was downtowns, which showed strong gains, albeit from a low base. The resurgence of the city story seemed largely fueled by intra-census estimates by the government that proved to be wildly inflated when the actual 2010 count was performed.

But beyond the headline numbers, there is intriguing evidence of a shift in intra-regional population dynamics in the migration numbers. The Internal Revenue Service uses tax return data to track movements of people around the country on a county-to-county and state-to-state basis. These can be used to look at movements of people within a metro area.

Because this data is at the county level, it does not map directly to what we might think of as the “urban core” as most counties that are home to central cities contain large suburban areas as well. There are also areas inside many central cities themselves that are suburban in their built form.

However, there are a limited number of cities that have combined city-county definitions that approximate the urban core. Looking at a few of these – New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC – we see that over the 2000s out-migration from the core to the suburban counties was relatively flat or even declined late in the decade as general mobility declined in the Great Recession. In contrast, migration from the suburban counties to the core stayed flat or actually increased, even late in the decade when again overall migration declined nationally.

It should be stressed that the overall trend is still that of net out-migration from the core to the suburbs. But in searching for any potential inflection point, changes in the dynamics are clearly of interest.

New York City

First let us look at New York City. The city proper consists of five boroughs, each of which is a separate county. Treating the city as a whole as the core reveals these migration trends during the 2000s:

Note: Core defined as the five boroughs of New York City

This chart renders migration as an index, to show changes in in- and out-migration on the same scale. This should not be confused with the total number of people moving, which still shows overall net out-migration, though the trend lines show the same dynamic as above:

Note: Core defined as the five boroughs of New York City

Philadelphia

Perhaps the most dramatic shift in these four cities was in Philadelphia, where the central city actually gained population for the first time since 1950.

Here are the raw migration numbers, which again show net out-migration, but a distinct shift over the decade.

San Francisco

The Bay Area has been divided into two metro areas by the government, San Francisco and San Jose. Therefore, an intra-regional migration analysis looking at San Francisco alone will miss certain migration within the broader Bay Area. With that caveat in mind, we see again the same trend, albeit somewhat less pronounced:

And here are the total migrants:

Washington, DC

Due to its very nature as a government town, Washington’s migration patterns differ from the many other cities. However, it has still experienced the same suburbanization phenomenon as the rest of America, and the same changes in intra-regional migration dynamics as the other cities highlighted here, though we see the shift beginning only in mid-decade:

And the raw values:

Conclusion

Given the overblown triumphalist rhetoric about the urban core that ultimately hasn’t been backed up by the data, we should be cautious about reading too much into this. Again, net migration remains outward towards the suburbs and away from denser cities to smaller, generally less dense ones (from Chicago to Indianapolis or New York to Raleigh). Overall city population figures were disappointing. And the housing crash and the Great Recession have clearly wreaked havoc with migration patterns on a national level.

Still, these are clearly figures that should inspire some at least small-scale optimism in urban advocates. There has clearly been a shift affecting the net migration in these cities. And the same pattern is visible, though less easily attributable to just the urban core, in a large number of other metros around the country. In particular, the fact the in-migration from the suburbs to the core held steady or even increased is a sign of some urban health.

Back to the city as a mass movement? Not yet. But it’s certainly an improvement. These intra-regional migration statistics are key figures to keep an eye on as we look for any sign of a true inflection point in the overall population trends for America’s urban centers. The whole pattern could also shift again --- in one direction or the other --- as the economy, albeit slowly, comes back to life and people once again get back into the housing market.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs based in the Midwest. His writings appear at The Urbanophile, where this piece originally appeared. Telestrian was used to analyze data and to create charts for this piece.

Chicago photo by Storm Crypt / Flickr

More Americans Move to Detached Houses

Wendell Cox — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:38:34 -0400

In defiance of the conventional wisdom in the national media and among most planning professionals, Americans continue not only to prefer, but to move into single family detached houses. Data from the 2010 American Community Survey indicates that such housing attracted 79.2% of the new households in the 51 major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) over the past decade.

In contrast households in multi-unit buildings (apartments and condominiums) represented 11.8% of the new housing, while two-unit attached housing represented 11.3% of the increase. There was a 2.3% decline in the "other" category of new housing, which includes mobile homes and boats. A total of 4 million net new occupied detached houses were added in the largest metropolitan areas, while there were 590,000 additional apartments and condominiums and 570,000 attached houses (Figure 1).

Detached Vacancy Rate Rises Less than Multi-Unit: Another conventional assumption is that single family homes have been disproportionately abandoned by their occupants, particularly since the collapse of the housing bubble. This is also not true. In 2010 detached housing enjoyed a 92.4% occupancy rate in 2010 which is higher than the 89.4% occupancy rate in attached housing and 84.2% occupancy rate in multi-unit buildings. Because a more of the multi-unit housing is rental, it is to be expected that the vacancies would be the highest in this category. However, at the national level, overall vacancy rates rose the most in multi-unit housing, with an increase of 61%, from 10.7% in 2000 to 17.1% in 2010. The vacancy rate in detached housing rose at a slower rate, from 7.3% in 2000 to 10.7% in 2010, an increase of 48%. Attached housing – such as townshouses – have the slowest rise in vacancy rate, from 8.4% in 2000 to 11.0% in 2010, an increase of 32% (Figure 2).

Detached and Attached Up in Most Markets, Apartments and Condominiums Down in Most: The move to detached housing was pervasive at the major metropolitan area level. Among the 51 largest metropolitan areas, the share of detached housing rose in 44 and declined in seven. The share of attached housing rose in 32 of the metropolitan areas, while declining in 19. Multi-unit housing experienced an increase in its market share in only three markets, while declining in 48.

Largest Metropolitan Areas: Detached housing also increased more than attached housing and multi-unit housing in each of the nation's five largest metropolitan areas.

In the largest metropolitan area, New York, 51.9% of the new housing was detached. This is considerably more than the 36.9% detached market share in 2000. Multi-unit housing accounted for 24.1% of the increase in the market. This is a far smaller share than the 55.7% that multi-unit housing represented in 2000. Attached housing was 19.9% of the increase, nearly 3 times its 2000 share of 6.7%. This movement of New Yorkers to less dense housing forms is particularly significant, in view of the fact that New York has historically had the lowest share of lower density housing (detached and attached) and the highest share of multi-unit houses.
In the second largest metropolitan area, Los Angeles, 96.0% of the new housing was detached. This is nearly double the 49.7% that detached housing represented of the market in 2000. The balance of the new housing was split between a share of 18.6% for multi-unit housing and a loss of 11.8% in the attached housing. The share of new units represented by multi-unit houses was less one-half than its percentage of the market in 2000 (39.0%).
In the third largest metropolitan area, Chicago, 95.9% of the new housing was detached, well above the 52.5% share in 2000. There was a huge loss in apartment and condominium share, at 31% of the market, while attached housing captured 40.4% of the market.
In the fourth largest metropolitan area, Dallas Fort Worth, 84.3% of the new housing was detached, well above the 62.0% share in 2000. Multi-unit housing accounted for 13.5% of the increase, approximately one-half the 2000 market share. Attached housing represented 3.2% of the increase.
In the fifth largest metropolitan area, Philadelphia, 77.6% of new housing was detached, well above the 45.3% market share for detached housing in 2000. Apartments and condominiums accounted for 27.7% of the increase between 2000 and 2010, slightly more than the 2000 market share 23.7%. Attached housing represented a minus 4.3% of the new housing.

Despite being only the fourth largest metropolitan area, Dallas-Fort Worth accounted for 46% of the new housing in the five largest metropolitan areas (Figure 3).

The three largest metropolitan markets where there was an increase in multi-unit housing share were San Jose, New Orleans and Denver. In San Jose, 55.5% of new housing was multi-unit, while only 10.3 percent was detached. New Orleans had a similar 10.5% detached new housing share, while 65.8% of the new housing was multi unit. In Denver, 31.3% of the new housing was multi-unit, while 60.2% was detached.

The share of detached housing also declined between 2000 and 2010 in Boston, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Portland. In each of these metropolitan areas, the share of attached housing increased, while the share of multi-unit housing decreased. Nonetheless, detached housing continued to attract a majority of new housing in Kansas City (70.8 percent) and Portland (56.6 percent). Despite Portland's strong planning emphasis on high density housing, its share of multi-unit housing, and 26.8% between 2000 and 2010 was less than its 2000 market share of 27.5%, with a strong 20.6 percent share in attached housing. Attached housing also accounted for a comparatively large share of new housing in Boston (45.7 percent), Minneapolis-St. Paul (39.7 percent) and Kansas City (25.8 percent). The stronger densification policies that existed in Minneapolis-St. Paul until the middle of the decade may have artificially raised the share of attached new housing.

Share by housing type data is provided for the major metropolitan areas in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1
Occupied Housing by Major Metropolitan Area: 2000

Metropolitan Area	Detached	Attached	Multi-Unit	Other

Atlanta, GA	66.6%	3.5%	25.5%	4.4%
Austin, TX	57.7%	3.7%	32.1%	6.6%
Baltimore, MD	46.0%	28.5%	24.2%	1.3%
Birmingham, AL	68.3%	2.6%	17.9%	11.2%
Boston, MA-NH	48.9%	4.4%	45.4%	1.3%
Buffalo, NY	60.0%	2.8%	35.1%	2.1%
Charlotte, NC-SC	67.5%	3.4%	21.8%	7.3%
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	52.5%	6.3%	40.1%	1.1%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	64.7%	3.6%	27.8%	3.9%
Cleveland, OH	65.7%	5.5%	27.7%	1.2%
Columbus, OH	62.8%	5.5%	29.1%	2.6%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	62.0%	3.1%	30.3%	4.6%
Denver, CO	60.9%	7.8%	29.0%	2.3%
Detroit, MI	70.5%	5.5%	20.7%	3.3%
Hartford, CT	60.0%	5.2%	34.1%	0.8%
Houston, TX	61.4%	3.6%	29.1%	6.0%
Indianapolis. IN	68.4%	5.2%	23.2%	3.3%
Jacksonville, FL	63.5%	3.9%	22.3%	10.3%
Kansas City, MO-KS	71.3%	4.6%	21.4%	2.6%
Las Vegas, NV	53.4%	6.0%	34.7%	5.9%
Los Angeles, CA	49.7%	8.6%	39.6%	2.0%
Louisville, KY-IN	70.7%	2.1%	22.2%	5.0%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	69.1%	3.8%	22.8%	4.2%
Miami, FL	45.4%	9.9%	42.1%	2.6%
Milwaukee,WI	55.7%	5.3%	38.3%	0.7%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	62.8%	7.7%	27.4%	2.0%
Nashville, TN	64.9%	4.4%	24.4%	6.2%
New Orleans. LA	59.9%	7.7%	28.5%	3.9%
New York, NY-NJ-PA	36.9%	6.5%	56.3%	0.4%
Oklahoma City, OK	71.6%	3.1%	19.2%	6.0%
Orlando, FL	61.5%	4.5%	25.1%	8.9%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	45.3%	29.8%	23.5%	1.4%
Phoenix, AZ	61.6%	6.1%	24.9%	7.4%
Pittsburgh, PA	68.8%	6.5%	20.4%	4.4%
Portland, OR-WA	63.8%	3.3%	27.5%	5.5%
Providence, RI-MA	54.3%	2.9%	41.6%	1.2%
Raleigh, NC	63.6%	5.2%	21.5%	9.8%
Richmond, VA	71.3%	4.9%	20.4%	3.4%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	67.0%	5.1%	18.6%	9.3%
Rochester, NY	65.7%	4.3%	26.5%	3.5%
Sacramento, CA	66.1%	6.0%	24.0%	3.9%
Salt Lake City, UT	67.0%	4.8%	25.4%	2.8%
San Antonio, TX	67.4%	2.9%	22.2%	7.5%
San Diego, CA	51.7%	9.4%	34.5%	4.4%
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	50.3%	9.3%	39.1%	1.3%
San Jose, CA	57.0%	9.1%	30.5%	3.4%
Seattle, WA	60.2%	3.5%	31.6%	4.8%
St. Louis,, MO-IL	70.2%	3.1%	21.9%	4.8%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	58.4%	4.6%	25.7%	11.4%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	61.4%	10.4%	25.2%	3.0%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	47.6%	19.4%	32.1%	0.8%
Average (Weighted)	55.9%	7.5%	33.3%	3.3%

Data from 2000 Census
Metropolitan areas over 1,000,000 population as defined in 2010

Table 2
Occupied Housing by Major Metropolitan Area: 2010

Metropolitan Area	Detached	Attached	Multi-Unit	Other

Atlanta, GA	69.2%	5.3%	22.7%	2.7%
Austin, TX	60.4%	2.6%	31.8%	5.1%
Baltimore, MD	47.4%	27.3%	24.2%	1.1%
Birmingham, AL	70.8%	2.4%	16.8%	10.0%
Boston, MA-NH	48.7%	5.9%	44.2%	1.2%
Buffalo, NY	62.3%	2.9%	33.0%	1.8%
Charlotte, NC-SC	68.9%	5.1%	20.4%	5.6%
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	54.2%	7.6%	37.1%	1.1%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	68.9%	4.8%	23.2%	3.1%
Cleveland, OH	68.7%	5.1%	25.1%	1.1%
Columbus, OH	64.1%	7.3%	26.6%	2.1%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	65.9%	3.1%	27.4%	3.6%
Denver, CO	60.8%	7.9%	29.4%	1.9%
Detroit, MI	71.6%	6.3%	19.1%	2.9%
Hartford, CT	60.9%	5.3%	33.1%	0.7%
Houston, TX	65.1%	3.5%	26.0%	5.3%
Indianapolis. IN	71.3%	5.0%	21.1%	2.6%
Jacksonville, FL	66.3%	4.8%	21.3%	7.6%
Kansas City, MO-KS	71.3%	6.4%	20.1%	2.2%
Las Vegas, NV	60.9%	5.4%	29.9%	3.8%
Los Angeles, CA	51.0%	8.0%	39.0%	1.9%
Louisville, KY-IN	71.6%	3.6%	20.9%	4.0%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	72.5%	3.3%	20.4%	3.7%
Miami, FL	47.0%	10.8%	40.0%	2.1%
Milwaukee,WI	56.2%	6.5%	36.5%	0.8%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	61.5%	11.0%	25.9%	1.6%
Nashville, TN	67.2%	5.6%	22.3%	4.9%
New Orleans. LA	65.1%	6.1%	24.6%	4.2%
New York, NY-NJ-PA	37.2%	6.7%	55.7%	0.4%
Oklahoma City, OK	74.3%	3.0%	17.1%	5.6%
Orlando, FL	64.1%	5.5%	23.4%	6.9%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	46.6%	28.5%	23.7%	1.3%
Phoenix, AZ	67.2%	4.8%	22.2%	5.8%
Pittsburgh, PA	69.4%	7.5%	19.1%	4.0%
Portland, OR-WA	62.8%	5.5%	27.4%	4.3%
Providence, RI-MA	55.7%	3.7%	39.6%	1.0%
Raleigh, NC	65.4%	8.0%	20.5%	6.2%
Richmond, VA	73.2%	4.9%	19.0%	3.0%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	70.7%	4.3%	17.1%	7.9%
Rochester, NY	66.9%	4.8%	25.3%	2.9%
Sacramento, CA	68.8%	5.6%	22.6%	3.0%
Salt Lake City, UT	67.8%	6.1%	23.9%	2.2%
San Antonio, TX	70.8%	2.2%	21.1%	5.9%
San Diego, CA	53.0%	9.0%	34.5%	3.5%
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	50.7%	9.4%	38.8%	1.1%
San Jose, CA	54.3%	10.7%	32.0%	3.0%
Seattle, WA	60.5%	4.2%	31.5%	3.8%
St. Louis,, MO-IL	70.8%	4.2%	21.1%	3.9%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	59.6%	5.6%	24.7%	10.1%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	62.5%	11.1%	24.0%	2.5%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	48.1%	19.6%	31.7%	0.7%
Average (Weighted)	57.8%	7.9%	31.5%	2.8%

Data from 2010 American Community Survey
Metropolitan areas over 1,000,000 population as defined in 2010

In Housing, Preference Trumps Policy: The trend of the last decade is evidence of a continued preference of American households for detached housing. The results are remarkable for at least two reasons:

The first is that there have been unprecedented policy initiatives to discourage, if not to prohibit the building of new detached houses. It seems likely that the miniscule new detached housing share in San Jose, for example, is a direct result of that metropolitan area's virtual prohibition of new detached housing, rather than any evidence that households have begun to prefer higher density housing. A small detached housing share in the face of a strong public policy bias toward higher density housing says nothing about preferences.

Second; the media and wishful advocates of denser settlement patterns have continuously referred to detached housing as having been severely overbuilt during the housing bubble, while suggesting an imperative for households to move into multiunit, often rented housing. The new data, with the larger increase in multi-unit vacancy rates, indicates that there was at least as much overbuilding in more dense housing types as there was in detached housing.

Despite the expressed preferences of planners, academics and even many builders, American households continue to make their own decisions about housing.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Lead photo: Houses in Los Angeles. Photograph by author.

The Shifting Geography of Black America

Aaron M. Renn — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:38:32 -0400

Black population changes in various cities have been one of the few pieces of the latest Census to receive significant media coverage. The New York Times, for example, noted that many blacks have returned to the South nationally and particularly from New York City. The overall narrative has been one of a “reverse Great Migration.” But while many northern cities did see anemic growth or even losses in black population, and many southern cities saw their black population surge, the real story actually extends well beyond the notion of a monolithic return to the South.

The map below, showing total growth in Black Only population from 2000 to 2010, indeed shows that northern and west coast cities had low or even negative growth while various southern cities boomed.

Here is a list of the top ten metro areas (among those with more than a million total people) for black population growth:

And here are the bottom ten (among those with more than one million people):

Of course, looking at total population numbers can mislead. Some cities grew slowly or lost people as a whole while others boomed. With Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta all adding over a million people each, it's no surprise these regions added lots of blacks. Working and middle class African-Americans likely shared many of the same motivations to move to these cities – such as lower housing prices – as Americans of other ethnicities. In that light, a look at change in black population share (the percentage of the population that is black) provides additional perspective:

Here we see not a single-minded return to the South, but a complex mixture of shrinking and growing regions in various parts of the country. This includes some surprising places, like Minneapolis-St. Paul, which was one of the top ten metros in the country for total black population growth, and also saw its black population share grow strongly. Now the Twin Cities, along with Columbus, Ohio, another strong performer, are two of the top destination for African immigrants from Somalia and elsewhere, which doubtless accounts for part of that strong growth. But anecdotal reports indicate that they are also benefitting from Chicago's expanding black diaspora, along with places like Indianapolis and various Downstate metros.

Atlanta, well known as America's premier metro area for blacks, continued to dominate the charts. Not only far and away the leader in adding raw numbers of blacks, the African-American share also grew share strongly too. Charlotte is also clearly emerging as another key black population hub, ranking #6 in America for total black population growth, which is impressive for a smaller city, and adding nearly two percentage points in black population share. It grew its black population much faster than other fast growing small cities like Raleigh or Nashville, and added share at more than three times as fast.

By contrast, Houston, which grew total black population significantly, had a much lower share gain. Austin, one of America's fastest growing metros, added only 28,000 blacks and actually lost black population share. And Washington, DC, despite being a traditional black population and cultural hub, also lost black population share regionally as gentrification in the District resulted in its loss of its black majority for the first time in decades, according to the Brookings Institution.

So even among rapidly growing metro areas in the South, the appeal to black population is selective, favoring places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Florida cities, and even slower growing cities along the length of the Mississippi River like Memphis. Even some cities in the North are retaining their allure to blacks as well. Less favored or even out of favor are metros like DC, Dallas, and Houston as well as cities such as Charleston and Savannah along the southeast coast.

Slow or negative black population growth is particularly concentrated in traditional tier one “global cities”, as well as those facing economic or other hardship like Detroit, Cleveland, and immediate post-Katrina New Orleans.

The latter may be understandable – whites have been leaving these regions as well – but the former is quite troubling. The global city model, focused on high end and creative services, is supposedly the bright and shining savior of American urbanism. Indeed, it's hard to find a city that doesn't have some aspect of that as a core plank in its civic strategy. Yet the cities that have been most focused at promoting this notion – such as New York, San Francisco, and Chicago – are generally those disproportionately driving blacks away. The reasons for this aren't clear, but the high and increasing cost of living in those places seems like one logical explanation.

Here's a more detailed look at the percentage growth in Black Only population in some tier one global type metros:

New York barely broke even on black population, while Chicago, LA, and the Bay Area all actually lost black residents, a stunning reversal from their past as black magnets. However, Boston, not a traditional black population hub, grew its black population strongly on a percentage basis, as did Miami and DC, though as noted before, the share change in DC was negative. Here is that metric for the same metros:

With the notable exceptions of Boston and Miami – and Philadelphia, seldom ranked highly as a global city but still a traditional large northern metropolis – most global city regions appear to be increasingly inhospitable to Blacks. Thus their model of success, whatever its appeal to some, at a basic level simply lacks inclusiveness. This shows its clear limits as an overall model for America’s urban centers as a whole.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs based in the Midwest. His writings appear at The Urbanophile. Data analysis, maps, and charts in this piece were prepared with Telestrian.

New Jersey: Still Suburbanizing

Wendell Cox — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:47:06 -0500

The state of New Jersey virtually defines suburbanization in the United States. New Jersey is not home to the core of any major metropolitan area but, major portions of the nation's largest metropolitan area (New York) and the fifth largest metropolitan area (Philadelphia) are in the state (See map). These two metropolitan areas comprise 17 of the state's 21 counties. Another county (Warren) is in the Allentown, Pennsylvania metropolitan area, while Atlantic (Atlantic City), Cumberland and Cape May are single-county metropolitan areas. No one, however, should make the mistake of imagining that New Jersey is wall to wall suburbanization. In the 2000 census, more than 60 percent of the state's land area was rural, with urban areas (areas of continuous urban development) making up less than 40 percent of the state's land area, while 94 percent of the 2000 population was urban (which includes suburban).

Map courtesy of Passaic Public Library

The recently released 2010 census data indicates that the dispersion of New Jersey population, which was underway by 1900 and continued apace in the last decade.

New Jersey's Larger Municipalities: This is not to suggest that it was a bad decade for the larger municipalities in the state. However, the 20th century was not kind to New Jersey's largest municipalities. At some point during the century, six municipalities reached a population of 100,000 or more. Four of these municipalities were near the city of New York and were eventually engulfed by its suburbanization (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Elizabeth). Another, Camden, was engulfed by Philadelphia’s expansion and the last, the state capital Trenton, is midway between the cores of the two metropolitan areas and has more recently become a part of the New York metropolitan area.

The new decade started out better for these municipalities. Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth and Camden gained population between 2000 and 2010. However, even after the population gains, Newark's population remains 165,000 (37 percent) below its 1930 peak. Jersey City remains 70,000 (22 percent) below its 1930 peak, despite the growth of a new financial district just across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan. Camden remains approximately 35,000 (37 percent) below its 1950 peak. Of the four municipalities gaining population, Camden did the best, adding 6.9 percent to its population, a full 50 percent above the statewide increase of 4.5 percent.

Paterson and Trenton posted small population losses. Trenton remains nearly 45,000 (33 percent) below its 1950 peak (Table 1).

Table 1
New Jersey Municipalities Achieving 100,000 Population

	Census Population				Peak
Municipality	2000	2010	Change	% Change	Population	Year
Newark	273,946	277,140	3,194	1.2%	442,337	1930
Jersey City	240,055	247,597	7,542	3.1%	316,715	1930
Paterson	149,222	146,199	(3,023)	-2.0%	149,227	2000
Elizabeth	120,568	124,969	4,401	3.7%	124,969	2010
Trenton	85,403	84,913	(490)	-0.6%	128,009	1950
Camden	78,672	84,136	5,464	6.9%	124,555	1950
Total	947,866	964,954	17,088	1.8%	1,285,812

Balance of State	7,466,484	7,826,940	360,456	4.8%

New Jersey	8,414,350	8,791,894	377,544	4.5%	8,791,894	2010

Elizabeth and Paterson however have been far more successful in retaining their population than other older municipalities, both in New Jersey and around the nation. Both Elizabeth and Paterson have become majority Hispanic and have a sizeable African American community. They also have a large immigrant community. In Elizabeth, 45 percent of the population is foreign born, almost four times the national rate. Paterson has an immigrant population of 25 percent.

The Older Suburban Counties: Nonetheless, even with the modest population reversals in four of the five municipalities in the Philadelphia and New York metropolitan areas, their corresponding older suburban counties grew slower than the rest of the state in the 2000s. Combined, Camden, Essex, Hudson, Passaic and Union counties – fast growing suburbs of the early 1900s – grew at a rate of 1.6 percent, compared to the statewide growth rate of 4.5 percent, capturing 12 percent of the statewide growth. (Table 2).

Table 2
New Jersey County Population Growth by Area

Area	2000	2010	Change	% Change	Share of Growth
5 Older Suburban Counties	2,923,130	2,969,617	46,487	1.6%	12.3%
Balance of NY & Phila Metropolitan Counties	4,887,467	5,184,873	297,406	6.1%	78.8%
Outside NY & Phila Metropolitan Area	603,753	637,404	33,651	5.6%	8.9%
Total	8,414,350	8,791,894	377,544	4.5%	100.0%
Note: 5 Older Suburban Counties Include Camden, Essex, Hudson, Passaic and Union

The Newer Suburban Counties: The bulk of New Jersey's growth has taken place, as in the rest of the country, in more newly suburbanizing counties of the Philadelphia and New York metropolitan areas (Note 1). The growth rate in these counties was 6.0 percent, well above the statewide growth rate of 4.5 percent. Overall, the outer suburban counties accounted for 73 percent of the state's population growth during the 2000s. The strongest growth was in Ocean County, which is at the furthest distance (fifty to one hundred miles) from New York City. Ocean County grew 13 percent, adding 66,000 people to its population, nearly one-fifth of the state population gain. Gloucester County, in the Philadelphia area also grew 13 percent, adding 33,000 to its population. Ocean and Gloucester accounted for more than one-quarter of New Jersey's population growth. Only one other county added more than 50,000 people, Middlesex, which is adjacent to the New York City borough of Staten Island in New York, much of which is made up of postwar suburbanization.

Counties Outside the Large Metropolitan Areas: The counties outside the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan area, Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Warren added 5.6 percent to their population and nine percent of the state's population gain. The largest growth was in Atlantic County (8.7 percent) and Cumberland County (6.1 percent), both adjacent to counties of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Cape May County had the largest population loss in the state, at 4.9 percent (Essex County, where Newark is located, lost 1.2 percent, the only other county to lose population).

Small Area Analysis: The dispersion of the population is also illustrated by "place" data, which includes incorporated municipalities (Note 2) and "census designated places."

Generally, newer housing reflects the distance of suburbs from the urban core. Gaining a larger share of population growth, this demonstrates a primarily suburban, rather than urban core oriented, expansion. An analysis of the more than 500 places (municipalities and "census designated places") indicates that the greatest share of New Jersey's growth is in new suburban areas.

Among places in which housing has a median construction date of 1945 or earlier, there was a 0.8 percent reduction in population. The growth rate then rises with each 10 year increment, reaching 4.0 percent in places with a median construction date of 1976 to 1985 and 11.1 percent for places with a median construction date of later (though this is the smallest category).

However, the growth in these places accounts for only 18.5 percent of the state's population gain. The other 81.5 percent was outside the incorporated municipalities and the census designated places. This population is generally in the state's townships, some of which are older (such as North Bergen or Woodbridge), but most of which are much newer. However, much of the growth in the townships was in newer areas, with 84 percent in areas with median construction dates of 1966 or later (Note 3)

Thus, all-metropolitan New Jersey is becoming more suburban, while older, major municipalities such as Newark, Jersey City and Camden are enjoying a welcome respite from their generally steep declines.

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Note 1: These counties include Bergen, Burlington, Cumberland, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Salem, Somerset and Sussex.

Note 2: New Jersey township officials have been engaged with the Census Bureau in a dispute over whether New Jersey townships should be considered incorporated. This analysis uses the "non-incorporated" status as defined by the Census Bureau, without taking a position on the nature of the disagreement.

Note 3: The Census Bureau routinely makes changes to "census designated places" between censuses. As a result it is not possible to reconcile the township and place totals to the state total. There is a discrepancy of approximately 1.5 percent. This discrepancy is small enough to make the township figures generally reflective of the median construction dates.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

America's Biggest Brain Magnets

Joel Kotkin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:28:59 -0500

For a decade now U.S. city planners have obsessively pursued college graduates, adopting policies to make their cities more like dense hot spots such as New York, to which the "brains" allegedly flock.

But in the past 10 years "hip and cool" places like New York have suffered high levels of domestic outmigration. Some boosters rationalize this by saying the U.S. is undergoing a "bipolar migration"--an argument recently laid out by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. On the one hand the smart "brains" head for cool, coastal cities like New York and Boston, while "families" and "feet"--a term that seems to apply to the less cognitively gifted--trudge to the the nation's southern tier--a.k.a. the Sun Belt--for cheap prices and warm weather. "College graduates with bachelor's degrees or higher," Thompson notes, "have been moving to the coasts, like salmon swimming against the southwesterly current."

However, this analysis--no matter how widely accepted in the media--is grossly oversimplified, perhaps even misleading. Indeed, college graduates, for the most part, are heading not to the big cities on the coasts, but to smaller, less dense and quite often Sun Belt cities.

To come up with our list of the country's biggest brain magnets, we took the 52 largest metropolitan areas (all those over 1 million population) and ranked them by gains in people with college educations compared to the population over 25 years of age between 2007 and 2009, using the latest data from the American Community Survey provided by demographer Wendell Cox. It turns out that none of the top 10 gainers were large Northeastern cities, but largely Southern or Midwestern. New Orleans; Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; Nashville; Birmingham, Ala.; Kansas City, Mo.-Kan.; and Columbus, Ohio, all scored high marks. Only one California city, San Diego, made the top 10. Perennial "brain gainers" Denver, Colo., and Seattle round out the top 10.

Among those metropolitan statistical areas with populations over 5 million, the best ranking went to the Philadelphia region (No. 12 overall), arguably the least glitzy and most affordable of the large northeast cities. The San Francisco metropolitan area, long a leader in its percentage of college-educated adults, held the next spot at No. 13. On the other hand, supposed "brain" magnets Boston and Chicago managed middling rankings, right behind Charlotte, N.C., and just ahead of San Antonio, Texas. Both fell well behind such overlooked "brain gain" areas as Jacksonville, Fla.; St. Louis, Mo.-Ill.; and Indianapolis. New York, the nation's intellectual capital, ranked a mediocre 29th and Los Angeles an even worse 37th. To put in perspective, Nashville's rate of college educated migration growth was 3.7%, compared with 1.4% for New York and a measly 0.7% for Los Angeles.

Rather than following a clear path to the world of the "hip and cool," college graduates appear influenced by a more nuanced and complex series of factors in terms of their location. New Orleans' No. 1 ranking, for example, is likely product of the continuing recovery of its shrunken population, where the central city appears to be somewhat more attractive to professionals than before Katrina while the suburban populations have recovered more quickly from the disaster. The strong showing of Birmingham may likely be traced not to changes in the core city itself, but to the rapid growth in its surrounding suburban counties and the rapid expansion of the region's medical complex.

This reflects something not often mentioned: the spreading out of intelligence. Conventional theory suggests that the new generation of college graduates will go to the largest, densest places, eschewing, as The Wall Street Journal put it snidely, their parent's McMansions for small abodes in the inner city. Yet the ACS numbers indicate that, overall, college migrants tend to choose less dense places. In the two years we covered, the growth rate in urban areas with lower urban area densities (2,500 per square mile) boasted a 5% increase in college-educated residents, compared with roughly 3.5% for areas twice as dense.

This can be seen in the pattern of migration toward relatively low-density metropolitan areas like Nashville, Columbus, Raleigh or Kansas City as opposed to more packed regions like New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. And wherever these college graduates migrate, they are at least as likely to settle outside the urban core. Another overlooked fact: Most places with the highest percentages of college-educated people are in suburbs. Only two of the 20 most-educated counties in the country are located in the urban core: New York (Manhattan) and San Francisco. Virtually all the rest are suburban.

Another somewhat surprising statistic revolves around affordability and job growth. The college-educated, particularly in this tepid economy, are not immune to reality. They may want to go one place--for example, ever-alluring New York or sunny Los Angeles--but may soon find they can find neither a good job there nor an affordable place to live in order to stay there. Overall our analysis shows that many end up in places with lower housing prices. Areas with the highest price housing experienced college-educated growth at a rate only 60% of those with more affordable real estate. This is one thing that makes an Austin or Raleigh, even a Columbus or Kansas City, more attractive than a Boston, New York or Los Angeles

Finally we have to consider employment trends. For the most part college graduates, like most folks, preferred cities with lower unemployment and more job growth. Some top gainers, such as Raleigh, Columbus and Kansas City, all boast lower than average unemployment and appear to be recovering from the recession. But this is not always the case: Some relatively poor performers on the job front, like Portland, Ore., and San Diego, have managed to maintain their appeal--for now.

As the economy recovers these patterns are likely to accelerate, although they could also shift a bit as regions gain or lose employment momentum. Meanwhile, the best strategy for attracting graduates lies in creating jobs, as well as in offering both affordable housing and a range of housing options, including both reasonably priced urban and lower-density living. Generally speaking an area that is economically vital as well as physically or culturally appealing will do best. In the next decade advantages will also fall to family-friendly regions, particularly as the current crop of millennial-generation graduates starts entering en masse their family-forming years. These factors, more than hipness or dense urbanity, may well be more influential in determining which regions do best in the ongoing war for talent.

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No. 1: New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, La.

Grad Gain: 36,666

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 5.42%

New Orleans' No. 1 ranking is likely due to former exiles returning after Hurricane Katrina. A recent report from the Census Bureau estimates that area's population in the past decade has shrunk 29%. Recovery in the urban core has remained patchy, but suburban populations have recovered more quickly from the disaster.

No. 2: Raleigh-Cary, N.C.

Grad gain: 28,748

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 4.27%

Even in hard times Raleigh-Durham--the fastest-growing metro area in the country--has repeatedly performed well on Forbes' list of the best cities for jobs. The area is a magnet for technology companies fleeing the more expensive, congested and highly regulated northeast corridor. Affordable housing and short commute times are no doubt highly attractive to millennials seeking to start a family. Indeed, a 2010 Portfolio.com/bizjournals survey ranked the city the third-best for young adults.

No. 3: Austin-Round Rock, Texas

Grad gain: 42,117

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 4.23%

Brains are flocking to Austin for good reason. Forbes ranked it the best large urban area for jobs in 2010. Along with Raleigh-Durham, Austin is emerging as the next Silicon Valley, luring lots of brains who would have previously headed toward the West Coast. Austin owes much both to its public-sector institutions (the state government and the main campus of the University of Texas) and its expanding ranks of private companies--including foreign ones--swarming into the city's surrounding suburban belt. Its vibrant cultural scene certainly helps in attracting college-educated millennials.

No. 4: Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tenn.

Grad gain: 36,975

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 3.68%

A high quality of life, a vibrant cultural and music scene and a diverse population make Nashville a desirable place to live. Low housing costs drive down the cost of living, which is even lower than in other affordable cities like Raleigh, Austin or Indianapolis. Nashville is also home to a growing health care industry: More than 250 health care companies have operations in Nashville, and 56 are headquartered there.

No. 5: Kansas City, Mo./Kan.

Grad gain: 38,398

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 2.96%

The two-state Kansas City region boasts strong population growth and net in-migration-- and for good reason. The city has one of the lowest costs of living, one of the highest personal-income growth rates and one of the healthiest real estate markets in the country. Short commute times also add to the attractiveness of the city for families. The city is the second-largest rail hub in the U.S. and is actively growing its life science and technology sectors.

No. 6: Birmingham-Hoover, Ala.

Grad gain: 21,111

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 2.86%

Birmingham's strong showing on this list is likely due to the rapid growth in its surrounding suburban counties. One big development sure to lure brains: the rapid expansion of the University of Alabama's medical center and surrounding private medical industry.

No. 7: San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif.

Grad gain: 51,151

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 2.71%

The only MSA from the "hip and cool" state of California to make the top 10, despite high levels of out-migration and a relatively poor performance in the job front. For now, at least, the area's beautiful beaches and idyllic weather manage to attract plenty of college graduates, but it will need to get out of its slump in order to retain them.

No. 8: Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, Colo.

Grad gain: 43,853

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 2.69%

A perennial magnet for college graduates, and one of the "hip and cool" cities to make the top of our list, Denver was one of the darlings of the information age, and its suburbs have long incubated tech companies. Its technology sector is still strong, but higher prices and greater regulation have driven companies to regions like Austin and Raleigh, which are more business-friendly and cheaper.

No. 9: Columbus, Ohio

Grad gain: 29,515

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 2.6%

While the recession has taken a huge toll on the rest of Ohio, Columbus has been thriving, thanks to being home of the state capital, a booming startup culture and the largest college campus in the country--Ohio State University, a major employer and information center. Forbes named the Columbus metropolitan area--home to 1.8 million residents-- one of America's best housing markets, as well as one of the best places for businesses and careers. The city enjoys below-average unemployment and a strong tech presence that includes Battelle Memorial Institute, which oversees laboratories for several federal agencies.

No. 10: Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.

Grad gain: 53,869

Gain as a Share of Total 25+ 2007 Population: 2.39%

Seattle has long been one of the big winners in the brain battle as well. It has some of the country's most important cutting-edge firms--Microsoft, Costco, Amazon, Starbucks--one of the country's best arrays of urban and suburban neighborhoods. Housing is no longer cheap, but remains far less expensive than its main rival, the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Photo by Jeanette Runyon

This piece originally appeared in Forbes.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.