Census 2010

Aging America: The Cities That Are Graying The Fastest

Joel Kotkin — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:59:38 -0500

Notwithstanding plastic surgery, health improvements and other modern biological enhancements, we are all getting older, and the country is too. Today roughly 18.5% of the U.S. population is over 60, compared to 16.3% a decade ago; by 2020 that percentage is expected to rise to 22.2%, and by 2050 to a full 25%.

Yet the graying of America is not uniform across the country — some places are considerably older than others. The oldest metropolitan areas, according to an analysis of the 2010 census by demographer Wendell Cox, have twice as high a concentration of residents over the age of 60 as the youngest. In these areas, it’s already 2020, and some may get to 2050 aging levels decades early.

For the most part, the oldest metropolitan areas — with the exception of longtime Florida retirement havens Tampa-St. Petersburg and Miami — tend to be clustered in the old industrial regions of the country. These are regions that have suffered mightily from deindustrialization and the movement of people toward the South and West. These metro areas now make up eight of the 10 oldest among the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan statistical areas.

The oldest city in America is Pittsburgh, where 23.6% of the metro area’s population is over 60 (see the full list in the table below). The old steel capital is followed by such former robust manufacturing hubs as Buffalo (No. 3 on our list), Cleveland (fifth), and Detroit (ninth).

How did these places get so old? The biggest factor: migration deficits. More Americans have been leaving these cities than moving there, and people who move tend to be younger. Meanwhile these graying cities attract relatively few immigrants from abroad. Pittsburgh, for example, ranks 34th among the 51 biggest metro areas in net domestic migration, losing some 2% of its population to other places over the past decade. It also stands 50th in foreign immigration over the same period. Buffalo has fared even worse: it’s 40th in domestic migration and 49th in new foreign-born residents.

Another factor is low birth rates. An aging population, not surprisingly, does not produce many children. In 2000 only three U.S. metro areas had more elderly than children under the age of 15 (Pittsburgh, Miami and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.). The 2010 Census showed we now have 10, with the addition of Buffalo, Boston, Cleveland, Hartford, Providence, Rochester and San Francisco to the first three. Thus the elderly population is overtaking the younger population not only in Florida’s retirement havens, but in a number of Rust Belt and Northeastern cities — and the West Coast may not be far behind.

The graying trend, like aging itself, is pervasive. The number of children relative to elderly declined over the past decade in every one of the 51 largest major metropolitan areas.

But not all of America’s most rapidly aging cities are in Florida and the Rust Belt. Even the New York metro area, usually associated with the “young and restless,” is also getting senescent, with an elderly population nearly equal to that of the young. It ranks 15th on our list of the grayest cities. This is surprising, since like more-old-than-young San Francisco (17th place), immigration from abroad has been strong.

Other metropolitan areas widely celebrated as magnets for the young and hip are also aging rapidly. For example, while Portland remains younger than average, it rose from 36th oldest in 2000 to 29th oldest in 2010. Even Seattle got older, rising from 39th place in 2000 to 34th in 2010.

This pattern is surprisingly prevalent even in the urban cores that are at the heart of these regions. In New York County, better known as Manhattan, roughly 19% of the population is over 60, well above the national average. In San Francisco the percentage of elderly is a tad higher at 19.2%. These choice places are expensive to move into, so getting there some decades ago is a big plus. As the entrenched populations age, these places may become far more geriatric than commonly assumed.

But it’s not just the core cities that are getting older. In fact, in terms of rate of aging, some of the places going gray the fastest include suburbs of these cities that used to be the primary destinations of young families. Among the most rapidly aging places within the country’s largest metro areas are New York City’s bedroom communities of Nassau County, N.Y., and Bergen County, N.J.; Middlesex outside of Boston; and suburban St. Louis County.

What does this mean to employers, investors, and, most importantly, residents of these regions? In some cases there are positives in the near-term economic picture. Some aging metro areas like Pittsburgh and Boston have done relatively well over the course of the recent long recession. This may be in part because older homeowners were less impacted by the housing bubble than younger ones, who tend to cluster in Sun Belt cities such as Atlanta.

In some cases, inertia from a large employed base of older skilled workers may have also insulated local economies. Older workers have tended to weather the recession better than younger ones and a surprising number have managed to stay in the workforce. Indeed, senior employment has jumped 27% in the last five years while that of younger and middle aged workers has fallen notably.

Seniors may also become something of an entrepreneurial engine for local economies, notes one recent Kauffman Foundation Study. In fact, the share of new entrepreneurs who are 55 to 64 year old has risen from 14.3% in 1996 to 20.9% in 2011.

Yet there are also long-term problems implicit in too rapid graying, chiefly in the prospect of a deficient future workforce. In Massachusetts, known among some demographers as “the granny state,” the population under 18 fell 5% over the past decade and there was a slightly larger drop in the 18 to 44 demographic. As the population of those 45 and older grows, there may not be sufficient new income to cover the rising costs for elder care.

More troublesome may be the labor force impacts of rapid aging, as there is a shortage of some skilled workers, both in the Rust Belt and tech centers, particularly younger ones. This reality is already causing problems in Europe, particularly in the economically devastated south, and also more prosperous East Asia, particularly Japan.

An older population, and fewer families, tend to depress economic growth, consumer demand and entrepreneurial creativity. Japan today is not only much older, but also more financially hard-pressed than in its ’80s heyday, heavily in debt and losing its once dominant position in several critical industries.

It is conceivable that some now rapidly aging metropolitan areas will be able to shrug off these effects, by attracting immigrants and newcomers from other parts of the country. But to do so, they will have to become more attractive to families, by creating more affordable, lower density housing and growing the local economy.

This, however, may prove difficult to achieve, especially in cities that seeking to severely limit or even outlaw “family friendly” detached housing (such as in California and the Northwest). Economic growth could also be hampered as the electorate ages and political pressure builds to increase support for the elderly (a dynamic already evident in Europe and Japan), even at the expense of future generations.

Major Metropolitan Areas Ranked by 60 & Over Share of Population

	Metropolitan Area	2000	Rank	2010	Change
1	Pittsburgh, PA	22.1%	2	23.6%	6.8%
2	Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	23.8%	1	23.5%	-0.9%
3	Buffalo, NY	19.9%	4	21.6%	8.6%
4	Miami, FL	20.6%	3	21.3%	3.5%
5	Cleveland, OH	18.6%	5	21.2%	14.0%
6	Hartford, CT	17.9%	7	20.0%	11.7%
7	Providence, RI-MA	18.1%	6	19.9%	9.8%
8	Rochester, NY	16.5%	12	19.8%	20.0%
9	Detroit, MI	15.6%	18	18.9%	21.5%
10	St. Louis,, MO-IL	16.8%	9	18.9%	12.2%
11	Birmingham, AL	16.8%	10	18.8%	11.8%
12	Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	17.2%	8	18.7%	8.7%
13	Louisville, KY-IN	16.2%	14	18.7%	14.9%
14	Boston, MA-NH	16.3%	13	18.6%	13.9%
15	New York, NY-NJ-PA	16.6%	11	18.4%	11.1%
16	Baltimore, MD	15.9%	17	18.2%	14.9%
17	San Francisco-Oakland, CA	15.4%	20	18.1%	17.6%
18	New Orleans. LA	15.0%	25	18.0%	19.4%
19	Jacksonville, FL	14.7%	28	17.9%	21.6%
20	Richmond, VA	15.1%	23	17.9%	18.2%
21	Milwaukee,WI	16.1%	16	17.8%	10.4%
22	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	15.4%	21	17.7%	15.0%
23	Orlando, FL	16.2%	15	17.6%	8.8%
24	Phoenix, AZ	15.5%	19	17.5%	12.6%
25	Sacramento, CA	14.9%	27	17.3%	16.2%
26	Kansas City, MO-KS	15.2%	22	17.2%	13.8%
27	Oklahoma City, OK	15.1%	24	17.0%	12.7%
28	Las Vegas, NV	14.9%	26	16.9%	13.1%
29	Portland, OR-WA	13.6%	36	16.8%	22.9%
30	Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	13.8%	34	16.7%	21.2%
31	Chicago, IL-IN-WI	14.4%	29	16.4%	14.0%
32	San Diego, CA	14.3%	30	16.1%	12.7%
33	San Antonio, TX	14.3%	31	16.0%	12.4%
34	Seattle, WA	13.4%	39	15.9%	18.6%
35	Nashville, TN	13.9%	33	15.9%	14.4%
36	Indianapolis. IN	14.1%	32	15.8%	12.0%
37	Memphis, TN-MS-AR	13.5%	38	15.8%	17.4%
38	Los Angeles, CA	13.0%	41	15.7%	21.0%
39	Columbus, OH	13.5%	37	15.7%	16.3%
40	San Jose, CA	12.9%	42	15.7%	21.6%
41	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	12.8%	43	15.6%	22.1%
42	Denver, CO	12.1%	45	15.2%	25.6%
43	Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	12.4%	44	15.0%	21.2%
44	Charlotte, NC-SC	13.2%	40	15.0%	13.6%
45	Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	13.7%	35	15.0%	9.5%
46	Atlanta, GA	10.8%	48	13.8%	28.2%
47	Raleigh, NC	11.0%	46	13.6%	23.7%
48	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	10.8%	47	13.3%	23.2%
49	Houston, TX	10.8%	49	13.2%	23.0%
50	Salt Lake City, UT	10.7%	50	12.7%	19.3%
51	Austin, TX	9.8%	51	12.4%	26.4%

Data from US Census

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

This piece originally appeared at Forbes.com.

"Senior Citizens Crossing" photo by Flickr user auntjojo.

Core City Growth Mainly Below Poverty Line

Wendell Cox — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 01:38:31 -0400

Over the toughest economic decade since Great Depression, the nation's core cities continued to gain more than their share the below poverty line population in the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population. Between 2000 and 2010, core cities (Note 1) attracted approximately 10 percent of the increase in population (Note 2) while adding 25 percent of the increase in people under the poverty line (Figure 1).

Most New Core City Residents in Poverty: The core city poverty trend was overwhelming. In the core cities of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population (2010), 81 percent of the aggregate population increase was under the poverty line. This compares to the 32 percent of the suburban population increase that was below the poverty line. This may be a much lower figure than the concentration in the core cities, but even that also is far too high (Figure 2).

The trend in core city poverty concentration was also pervasive. In 39 of the 51 metropolitan areas, core cities accounted for a greater share of poverty level population growth than overall population growth. One of the exceptions was Louisville, where the core city expanded to nearly six times its 2000 land area and more than doubled its population (Note 3). The result was to convert Louisville into a largely suburban city, which masks the high poverty rate in genuine urban core of the former city.

Poverty in the Suburbs: At the same time, as core city population growth has stalled, much of the numeric increase in the below poverty line population has been in the suburbs. In 2010, the Brookings Institution reported that a majority of the metropolitan population below poverty was in the suburbs (Note 3). This is to be expected, since suburban areas account for nearly 75 percent of major metropolitan area population.

Partially in response to the Brookings Institution finding, there has been some misinterpretation as to the relative economic fortunes of the core cities and the suburbs. This is consistent with the continuing "drumbeat" of the "return to the cities," which results of the last definitive ten year census only briefly quieted. The "great inversion" cited by Aaron Ehrenhalt and others, wherein the affluent "flock" (the recurring term) to the cities, as the suburbs are ghettoized, remains far from an actual reality.

Overall the average major metropolitan area poverty rate rose from 10.9 percent in 2000 to 14.1 percent in 2010. Rather than gentrify, the core city rate rose from 19.2 percent to 23.3 percent, while the suburban rate rose from 8.2 percent to 11.3 percent (Figure 3).

Core City Poverty Rates Double the Suburbs: In 2010, core city poverty rates were higher in every major metropolitan area than in the suburbs. Overall, average core city poverty rates were more than double that of the suburbs in most metropolitan areas (27 of 51). Among the 10 largest metropolitan areas, the core cities of New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami, Washington and Boston (Figure 4) suffered poverty rates more than double those of their suburbs. The cities of Milwaukee and Hartford had the highest poverty rates relative to their suburbs, at four or more times.

Shares of Poverty Level Population in the Core Cities: On average, 41 percent of metropolitan area populations living below the poverty rate resided in the core cities. The city of San Antonio had the highest share of its metropolitan below poverty population, at 73 percent, followed closely by the city of Milwaukee, at 72 percent. New York City accounted for 63 percent of its metropolitan below poverty line population and the city of San Jose 61 percent. Even after incorporating suburbs, the city of Louisville contained 57 percent of its metropolitan below poverty level population (Figure 5).

Highlights of the 2010 Data: The 2010 poverty rates for metropolitan areas, core cities and suburbs are shown in the table below. Highlights of the data are described below:

Metropolitan Areas: The highest metropolitan area poverty rates were in Memphis (19.1 percent), New Orleans (17.4 percent) and Riverside-San Bernardino (17.1 percent). The lowest metropolitan area poverty rates were in Washington (8.4 percent), Hartford (10.1 percent) and Boston (10.3 percent).

Core Cities: The city of Detroit had the highest poverty rate, at 37.6 percent, The city of San Bernardino, whose city council voted to file for bankrupcty on July 10, had the second highest poverty rate at 34.6 percent, and Cleveland ranked third highest, at 34.0 percent. The lowest core city poverty rates were in high-tech centers, the city of San Jose (12.6 percent), the city of Seattle (14.7 percent and in the two core cities of San Francisco-Oakland (15.7 percent). Despite the strong metropolitan area showing (#1) and high suburban ranking (#3), the city of Washington had only the 15th lowest poverty rate among core cities.

Suburbs: The highest suburban poverty rates were in Riverside-San Bernardino (16.2 percent), Miami (15.9 percent) and Oklahoma City (15.2 percent). The lowest suburban poverty rates were in Baltimore (6.7 percent), Milwaukee (6.9 percent) and Washington (7.1 percent), with Baltimore and Washington profiting from strong federal government employment and contracting.

The data reflects the continuation of longer term trends as wealth losses continue to afflict many core cities and as domestic migrants continue to move away (As was previously reported core counties, the lowest level at which there is migration data, have predominantly lost domestic migrants, both between 2000 and 2009 and in the latest estimates, between 2010 and 2011.) The problem, however is much larger. Both the core cities and the suburbs are are challenged by heightened poverty rates. The entire urban form, from the exurbs and the suburbs to the core cities need a substantial reduction in poverty, although present economic trends are working against this result.

2010 Poverty Rates: Major Metropolitan Areas, Core Cities & Suburbs
		Poverty Rates
Metropolitan Area (MSA)	Historical Core City (HCM)	MSA	City	Suburbs	City/ Suburbs
Atlanta, GA	Atlanta	14.8%	26.1%	13.9%	1.88
Austin, TX	Austin	15.9%	20.8%	11.7%	1.78
Baltimore, MD	Baltimore	11.0%	25.6%	6.7%	3.80
Birmingham, AL	Birmingham	17.0%	29.5%	14.2%	2.08
Boston, MA-NH	Boston	10.3%	23.3%	8.3%	2.80
Buffalo, NY	Buffalo	14.4%	30.2%	9.7%	3.13
Charlotte, NC-SC	Charlotte	14.5%	17.2%	12.6%	1.36
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	Chicago	13.6%	22.5%	10.0%	2.24
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	Cincinnati	14.0%	30.6%	11.4%	2.69
Cleveland, OH	Cleveland	15.1%	34.0%	10.7%	3.19
Columbus, OH	Columbus	15.7%	22.6%	10.5%	2.16
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	Dallas	14.6%	23.6%	12.5%	1.88
Denver, CO	Denver	12.5%	21.6%	9.7%	2.21
Detroit, MI	Detroit	16.6%	37.6%	12.4%	3.02
Hartford, CT	Hartford	10.1%	31.2%	7.8%	3.99
Houston, TX	Houston	16.5%	22.8%	13.1%	1.74
Indianapolis. IN	Indianapolis	14.8%	21.1%	9.1%	2.31
Jacksonville, FL	Jacksonville	15.3%	16.7%	13.1%	1.28
Kansas City, MO-KS	Kansas City	12.4%	20.4%	10.0%	2.05
Las Vegas, NV	Las Vegas	15.1%	16.0%	14.7%	1.09
Los Angeles, CA	Los Angeles	16.3%	21.6%	14.0%	1.54
Louisville, KY-IN	Louisville	15.3%	18.9%	12.2%	1.55
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	Memphis	19.1%	26.5%	12.0%	2.20
Miami, FL	Miami	17.1%	32.4%	15.9%	2.04
Milwaukee,WI	Milwaukee	15.5%	29.5%	6.9%	4.30
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	Minneapolis & St. Paul	10.9%	23.7%	7.6%	3.10
Nashville, TN	Nashville	15.4%	20.8%	12.2%	1.71
New Orleans. LA	New Orleans	17.4%	27.2%	13.4%	2.02
New York, NY-NJ-PA	New York	13.8%	20.1%	9.0%	2.24
Oklahoma City, OK	Oklahoma City	15.9%	16.8%	15.2%	1.11
Orlando, FL	Orlando	14.7%	18.5%	14.2%	1.30
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	Philadelphia	12.7%	26.7%	7.9%	3.36
Phoenix, AZ	Phoenix	16.3%	22.5%	13.0%	1.73
Pittsburgh, PA	Pittsburgh	12.2%	22.3%	10.7%	2.08
Portland, OR-WA	Portland	13.4%	18.5%	11.7%	1.59
Providence, RI-MA	Providence	13.7%	30.5%	11.7%	2.60
Raleigh, NC	Raleigh	12.9%	18.4%	10.0%	1.84
Richmond, VA	Richmond	11.6%	25.8%	8.9%	2.91
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	San Bernardino	17.1%	34.6%	16.2%	2.13
Rochester, NY	Rochester	14.2%	33.8%	9.3%	3.62
Sacramento, CA	Sacramento	15.1%	21.5%	13.3%	1.62
St. Louis,, MO-IL	St. Louis	13.3%	27.8%	11.5%	2.42
Salt Lake City, UT	Salt Lake City	13.1%	22.3%	11.3%	1.98
San Antonio, TX	San Antonio	16.3%	19.1%	11.7%	1.64
San Diego, CA	San Diego	14.8%	17.4%	13.0%	1.34
San Francisco-Oakland, CA	San Francisco & Oakland	10.9%	15.7%	9.0%	1.74
San Jose, CA	San Jose	10.6%	12.6%	8.4%	1.49
Seattle, WA	Seattle	11.7%	14.7%	11.1%	1.33
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	Tampa	15.4%	21.3%	14.6%	1.46
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	Norfolk	10.6%	16.4%	9.7%	1.69
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	Washington	8.4%	19.2%	7.1%	2.69
Average (Unweighted)		14.1%	23.3%	11.3%	2.18

Data from American Community Survey, 2010

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.”

Photograph: Downtown Detroit (by author)

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Note 1: "Historical core municipalities," which are defined here. One such city is designated in each metropolitan area, except in Minneapolis-St. Paul and San Francisco-Oakland. In each of the metropolitan areas, these are the core cities of the metropolitan area at the beginning of the great automobile-oriented suburban expansion. These cities represent at least the urban core. However, in most cases, these cities include considerable post-war suburban development is not genuinely urban core, largely due to post-1950 annexations.

Note 2: The data in this analysis is extracted from the American Community Survey for 2010 and the United States Census of 2000. The metropolitan areas for both years are as geographically defined in 2010. The total population figures are the population for which poverty status has was determined by the Bureau of the Census (in each year this was approximately 98 percent of the total population).

Note 3: The city of Louisville reached its population peak of 390,000 in 1960. Its highest density was nearly 9,300 per square mile (3,600 per square kilometer) in 1950, when it had a population of 370,000 in 40 square miles (100 square kilometers). The suburban incorporating consolidation of 2000 left the city with under 600,000 population in 340 square miles and a population density of 1,700 per square mile (700 per square kilometer), one of the lowest core city population densities in the nation.

Note 4: The Brookings Institution report compared its "primary cities" to suburbs for 95 metropolitan areas. The primary cities included some that were little more than small towns at the beginning of the great automobile oriented suburban expansion, such as Aurora (Denver), Mesa (Phoenix), Santa Ana (Los Angeles), Fremont (San Francisco-Oakland) and Arlington (Dallas-Fort Worth), which is not served by mass transit. Each of these municipalities is classified as suburban in this analysis.

Misreferencing Misoverestimated Population

Chris Briem — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:48:41 -0400

I know the media confusion story of the past week is all about the momentary misreporting that got the story of the Supreme Court ruling backwards. Yet there was some real misoverestimating across the nation over the latest census numbers that were released recently on municipal population estimates for 2011.

Here are some recent headlines:

LATimes: U.S. population in cities growing faster than in suburbs

Chicago Tribune: Census sees Chicago’s population inching up

Boston Herald: U.S. population in cities growing faster than in suburbs, figures show

AP: Big US cities boom as young adults shun suburbs, census estimates show

Lots more just like those. Guess what… Pretty much all of those stories are wrong, or at the very least baseless when you really look at the data.

The census data reported was the 2011 population estimates for incorporated places across the US. So basically cities, towns, boroughs, and townships. We went through this yesterday, but if one read the actual census methodology for this particular data they were quite clear. The subcounty (i.e. municipal) population estimates are mostly based on an estimate of the change in housing units at the municipal level. The census changed their methodology on how they computed housing unit change for this particular data and as they explain:

“To produce subcounty housing unit estimates, we distributed the extrapolated county estimates down to each subcounty area within a county based on 2010 Census proportions.” (emphasis added)

Which means basically that there was very little 2011 data that went into these numbers. Without using new information it begs the question of how much the results should be interpreted. They basically took the estimated county level population data and allocated it to smaller municipalities based on the 2010 Census. They also just assumed that all the growth was even within counties. That assumption, that center cities grew the same as their immediate suburbs, produced the results being reported on everywhere. There appears to be no other supporting analysis for the assumption, it is just an assumption. Other than that, there is no new information here to lead to the conclusions making their way into the headlines. It may have even tripped up the experts out there because the Census folks explain they changed their methodology just for this particular data release, and are likely to change it again before next year’s update. But you have to read into their methodology notes to realize the changes for just this year. This is all probably an example of why some of us have the bad habit of reading footnotes first.

Was there any new growth in cities? Not at all. Or at least there is no data in any of this to tell us one way or another. The Census basically took the growth that likely continued to be mostly in the suburbs and just assumed it was spread evenly between center cities and suburbs within counties across the nation. The result was that it all of a sudden appeared cities were growing faster (or in some cases shrinking less) than they have been in other data. In reality, the new patterns were no more than an artifact of the temporary change in the Census Bureau’s methodology for this data. If they had ever used the same methodology in the past, namely taking county-wide population changes and distributed growth evenly across municipalities the results would have come out the same. If these municipal estimates had been calculated this way over the last decade, they would have wound up being very much different from the eventual decennial census enumeration.

So the headlines may be ok if there is data on ‘cities’ that are in themselves counties, but those areas are few; or in the case of New York City, multiple counties. For most cities are only parts of larger counties. Other than Allegheny County I looked at Cook County which includes Chicago and indeed both the city of Chicago and most all of its Cook County suburbs are being reported as having nearly identical growth rates since 2010. I bet that is no more true there than it isn’t here.

The only caveat to any of that is that the data reported does seem to have some new 2011 data on group quarters population incorporated into it, as their methodology says it should. So where there was a recent change in the population of college dorms, military barracks, prisoners are related types of institutions then you are seeing population changes different from the county-wide averages. That appears to me the main source of the disproportionate growth the 2011 data is showing for the City of Pittsburgh. So real growth for sure, but I would be careful in explaining its causes.

So this all may not be as egregious an error as the news cycle we once had in 2000 when population ‘growth’ Downtown was attributed to a big new influx of young people living in the Golden Triangle in the 1990’s. The truth was that the Allegheny County Jail was rebuilt and expanded in the 1990’s and that expansion more than accounted for a nominal reported increase in Downtown’s residential population. The eventual increase in Downtown’s population would come mostly a decade and several hundred million dollars in subsidies later. Nonetheless, this misuse of Census data is certainly more widespread and likely be misreferenced for years to come.

Chris Briem works at the Program in Urban and Regional Analysis at the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for Social and Urban Research. This article originally appeared at Nullspace on June 29, 2012 and The Urbanophile on June 30, 2012.

Photo by Flickr user quinn.anya, accessible online.

Staying the Same: Urbanization in America

Wendell Cox — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:06:36 -0400

The recent release of the 2010 US census data on urban areas (Note 1) shows that Americans continue to prefer their lower density lifestyles, with both suburbs and exurbs (Note 2) growing more rapidly than the historic core municipalities. This may appear to be at odds with the recent Census Bureau 2011 metropolitan area population estimates, which were widely mischaracterized as indicating exurban (and suburban) losses and historical core municipality gains. In fact, core counties lost domestic migrants, while suburban and exurban counties gained domestic migrants. The better performance of the core counties was caused by higher rates of international migration, more births in relation to deaths and an economic malaise that has people staying in (counties are the lowest level at which migration data is reported). Nonetheless, the improving environment of core cities in recent decades has been heartening.

The urban area data permits analysis of metropolitan area population growth by sector at nearly the smallest census geography (census blocks, which are smaller than census tracts). Overall, the new data indicates that an average urban population density stands at 2,343 per square mile (904 per square kilometer). This is little different from urban density in 1980 and nearly 10 percent above the lowest urban density of 2,141 per square mile (827) recorded in the 1990 census. Thus, in recent decades, formerly falling US urban densities have stabilized .

Urban density in 2010, however, remains approximately 27 percent below that of 1950, as many core municipalities lost population while suburban and suburban populations expanded. This resulted in the substantial expansion of urban land area reflecting the preference for low-density lifestyles among Americans and most people in other high-income areas of the world. Between the 1960s and 2000, nearly all of the growth in the major metropolitan regions of Western Europe and Canada has taken place in suburban areas, as these nations’ urban areas have dispersed in a manner similar to that of the United States. The trend continued through 2011 in Canada and domestic migration data in Western Europe shows a continuing movement of people from the historical cores to the suburbs and exurbs.

This dispersion, pejoratively called "urban sprawl" has been routinely linked with everything from obesity and global warming to "bowling alone." In fact, while population densities have fallen, households densities have remained steady, barely droppping at all. Average household size has fallen dramatically, as fewer children have been born and divorce rates have soared. New households have been formed at more than 1.5 times the rate of population growth. The result is that a 27 percent decline in urban density since 1950 translated into a much more modest 4 percent decline in household density. A more genuine target for anti-suburban crusaders would be household sprawl rather than urban sprawl (Figure 1).

Smaller Urban Areas Growing Faster

Even as urban densities have reached a floor, Americans still continue to move to areas of lower density and smaller populations. For example, the urban areas of more than 1 million population in 1990 attracted 48 percent of the nation's urban growth between 1990 and 2000. Between 2000 and 2010, these areas attracted a smaller 38 percent of urban growth (Figure 2).

The Exurbs: A Two-Way Exodus

For much of the last decade (and even before), the media has been heralding an epochal “return” to core cities. This idea is fundamentally misleading since most suburbanites actually came not from core cities but smaller towns and rural areas. The c ensus results have made it clear that the urban focus of population growth was largely anecdotal, although small inner city areas of some core cities (such as small sections of St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego and Portland) have experienced uncharacteristic growth. But overall, most growth continued to be in the suburbs and exurbs. Measured at the census block level, exurbs are constantly at risk of being converted into suburbs as they become a part of the continuously developed area. Even so, as of 2010, exurban areas accounted for 16.1 percent of the population in the 51 major metropolitan areas. The historical core municipalities accounted for 26.3 percent of the population, while suburban areas housed 57.6 percent of the population (Figure 3).

It should be considered, however, that in many urban areas --- such as Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Orlando --- many historic city neighborhoods were developed as and remain suburban in their form, being dominated detached homes and automobiles. It is unlikely that exurban areas (measured at the census block level) will exceed the historical core cities in population, since they are at constant risk of being merged with suburbs (as the urban area expands).

Smaller Urban Areas: Where the Sprawl Is

The principal urban areas of the major metropolitan areas are nearly twice as dense as the rest of America's urban areas. These urban areas have 53 percent of the urban population, but occupy only 39 percent of the urban land area. By contrast, the smaller urban areas have 47 percent of the urban population, while occupying 61 percent of the urban land area (Figure 4). It seems odd that the fury of urban planners is directed at the larger, more dense urban areas rather than the smaller, much less dense urban areas, that sprawl to a far greater degree (Figure 5).

Most and Least Dense Major Urban Areas

Among the major metropolitan areas, the most dense urban area is Los Angeles, at a density of 6,999 per square mile (2,702 per square kilometer). This is a 32 percent denser than fourth ranked New York whose hyper-dense core is offset by its low density suburbs. In fact, San Jose, which is virtually all suburban in its urban form and was a small urban area in 1950 (link to 1950-2010 data), ranks third and also is more dense than the New York urban area. Second ranked San Francisco is also more dense than New York (Figure 6). New Orleans ranked 10th most dense, however experienced a reduction in density of more approximately 30 percent due to the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina

It may be surprising that Portland, with by far the most radical densification policies in the nation, does not even rank among the 10 most dense urban areas. Portland ranked 13th, behind urban areas like Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Sacramento, Denver and exclusively suburban Riverside-San Bernardino (and even the much smaller urban areas of Fresno, Bakersfield, Turlock and Los Banos in California's San Joaquin Valley). However Portland did densify, reaching one-half the density of Los Angeles. Portland will catch Los Angeles in density by 2120 at the current rate.

The least dense urban area is Birmingham, with a population density of 1,414 per square mile (546 per square kilometer). Atlanta, the least dense urban area of more than 3 million population in the world right is the third least dense at 1,707 per square mile (659 per square kilometer). The second least dense urban area, Charlotte, had a density of 1,685 per square mile (651 per square kilometer), while increasing its land area over the decade at twice the rate of Atlanta (Figure 7).

Staying the Same

Urbanization in the United States over the last decade can be characterized by the old French proverb that "the more things change the more they stay the same."

As in Europe and elsewhere (see the Evolving Urban Form series), when they move, Americans go to less dense areas such as to suburban and exurban areas within the larger metropolitan areas as well as smaller, lower density urban regions. The extent to which they move, however, will depend more upon economic improvement than the lure of core areas that, in reality, continue to lose younger people in their thirties while continuing not attracting their boomer parents as they get older.

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: Urban Areas and Metropolitan Areas: An urban area is the area of continuous development and as Sir Peter Hall put it, is thus the "physical" urban form. The urban area is a similar, but fundamentally different concept than a metropolitan area and analysts routinely confuse the terms. The United States Census Bureau calls urban areas over 50,000 population "urbanized areas." The metropolitan area is larger, and includes one or more urban areas as well as economically connected rural areas. . The metropolitan area is the "functional" urban form. There is no rural territory within urban areas, but there can be substantial rural territory in a metropolitan area (For example, the US defines metropolitan areas by counties. This can lead to artificially large metropolitan areas. For example, the Riverside San Bernardino metropolitan area, in the West where counties tend to be larger, covers 27,300 square miles (a land area larger than Ireland). The Cleveland metropolitan area, with a principal urban area similar in population to Riverside-San Bernardino, covers only 2,000 square miles, because it is located in Ohio, where counties are smaller. At the same, the far lower population density of the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area is despite the fact that the urban area is approximately 50 percent more dense than the Cleveland urban area

Note 2: Historical Core Municipalities, Suburbs and Exurbs: For the purposes of this article, an area outside a historical core municipality is considered a suburb if it is in the urban area and an exurb if it is in the corresponding metropolitan area, but outside the principal urban area. Urban areas are delineated at a small census geographical area (the census block), which makes more precise analysis possible than is available at the county level, the lowest level at which domestic migration data is available.

Note 3: Principal Urban Areas: The principal urban area is the urban area within a metropolitan area that has the largest population. For example, in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area, the Riverside-San Bernardino urban area is the principal urban area. Other urban areas, such as Murrietta, Hemet and Indio (Palm Springs) would be secondary urban areas.

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Photograph: Exurban St. Louis (photo by author)

Population Change 2010-2011: Interesting Differences

Richard Morrill — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:56:44 -0500

The recently released estimates of population change and the natural increase and migration components of that change for 2010-2011 contain a few surprises, as well as much what has come to be expected. What we population freaks have been awaiting are estimates of the components of change for the whole 2000-2010 decade, but these are still being adjusted, in part because of the tremendous complexity of migration and immigration and, yes, estimating just who is in the country!

I provide four simple maps, one of population change, 2010-2011, one for the portion f that change due to natural increase (births less deaths), one for immigration and one for domestic or internal migration between the states. Overall the big news is a slowdown of growth, to only .92 %, the lowest since the 1940s. This was due to a fewer births, and thus of natural increase, because of folks not marrying or marrying later, and or postponing births because of the recession. It also has to do with a reduction in immigration, again because of the recession, and possibly because of anti-immigrant sentiment and policies.

The second big news is the somewhat surprising shift of some rapid growth to areas beyond the sunbelt and towards the northern tier. Still impressive absolutely, the pace of growth has slowed in states such as Florida and Georgia, more so in Arizona and even more in Nevada, from the housing collapse and lower immigration. The South Atlantic region remained strong, but the new locus of faster growth is the “northern tier” from Minnesota through the Dakotas to Oregon and Washington. The Dakotas’ growth, also affecting Montana and Wyoming, is energy related, while that of Washington, now the 6th fastest growing state, is a reflection of a young population, continuing immigration, both high tech and agricultural growth, and a relatively robust economy.

Natural increase. Natural increase is low in the states with the highest shares of the elderly, most obviously Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and northern New England, in general regions and states from which young people have moved, e.g., MI, OH, KY, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL and IA, across the eastern heartland. But natural increase may have picked up a little in economically stronger states like NY, NJ, IL, IN and WI. Natural increase rates are higher, as might be expected, across the southwest and in Mormon states like Utah and Idaho. The bigger surprise once again is in the the upper Plains, including MN, ND, SD, and NE. Again Washington surprises, behaving like a sunbelt state, due more to an influx of a young population, than high fertility.

Immigration. Immigration overall has slowed, but was a relatively significant part of growth for much of the northeast, especially NY, NJ, MA, CT, RI, MD and DE, and remained important in FL, CA, NV, AZ, and WA (and yes Texas, but at a lower rate). The pace of immigration fell most in Nevada and Arizona.

Domestic migration. This map is the one that most closely reflects the perceived and/or actual attractiveness of the states in the recent past. The states with the highest rates of net out-migration are mainly in the old urban-industrial core, including IL, MI, OH, NY, NJ and even CT, KS in the Plains and now Nevada. Even Alaska, Hawaii and especially California lost through domestic migration. The biggest change is the shift from net out-migration to net gains for the District of Columbia, Louisiana (after years of loss), and especially North Dakota, which made strong gains for the first time in decades. Missouri, New Hampshire, Utah and especially Nevada shifted from net gain to net loss.

The gains of Texas and Florida, and at a lower rate, North and South Carolina and Tennessee, continue a pattern seen throughout the 2000-2010 decade. But Arizona, Georgia and Virginia have slowed down, and Nevada went from big gains to a loss. The biggest winners are South and especially North Dakota and Montana, in a dramatic turnaround, Colorado, now with the 4th highest rate, and Washington, with the 5th highest. Colorado appears especially popular with retiree migrants, particularly from California. DC and ND, losers for 2000-2009 had the two highest rates of gain for 2010-2011!

Warning: These trends are fascinating, but we should remember that economic conditions – and even perceived attractiveness of states for cultural or environmental reasons – are volatile and can change again and again.

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).

The Shifting Landscape of Diversity in Metro America

Aaron M. Renn — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:38:58 -0500

Census 2010 gave the detail behind what we’ve known for some time: America is becoming an increasingly diverse place. Not only has the number of minorities simply grown nationally, but the distribution of them among America’s cities has changed. Not all of the growth was evenly spread or did it occur only in traditional ethnic hubs or large, historically diverse cities.

To illustrate this, I created maps of U.S. metro areas showing their change in location quotient. Location quotient (LQ) measures the concentration of something in a local area relative to its concentration nationally. This is commonly used for identifying economic clusters, such as by comparing the percentage of employment in a particular industry locally vs. its overall national percentage. In a location quotient, a value of 1.0 indicates a concentration exactly equal to the US average, a value greater than 1.0 indicates a concentration greater than the US average, and a value less than 1.0 indicates a concentration less than the US average.

While commonly used for economic analysis, the math works for many other things. It can be useful to measure how the concentration of particular values changes over time relative to the national average. In this case, we will examine the change in LQ for various ethnic groups between the 2000 and 2010 censuses for metro areas. Those metro areas with a positive change in LQ grew more concentrated in that ethnic group compared to the US average over the last decade. Those with a negative change in LQ grew less concentrated compared to the nation as a whole, even if they grew total population in that ethnic group.

To increase concentration level requires growing at a faster percentage than the US as a whole. This is obviously easier for places that start from a low base than those with a high base. In this light, places that have traditionally been ethnic hubs – such as west coast metros for Asians – can grow less concentrated relative to the nation as a whole even if they continue to add a particular ethnic group. Asian population, for example, can grow strongly in California, but at a slower rate than the rest of the country. This is indeed the case as groups like Hispanics and Asians have been de-concentrating from the west coast, and now are showing up in material numbers even in the Heartland.

Black Population

Black Only Population, Change in Location Quotient 2000-2010

The change in Black concentration is particularly revealing. Much has been written about the so-called reversing of the Great Migration. But contrary to media reports, there is no clear monolithic move from North to South. Instead, we see that the outflow has been disproportionately from America’s large tier one metros like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In contrast, Northern cities like Indianapolis, Columbus, and even Minneapolis-St. Paul (home to a large African immigrant community) grew Black population strongly, and actually increased their Black concentrations. Similarly, there were clearly preferred metro destinations in South for Blacks, like Atlanta and Charlotte. Many other Southern metros , particularly those along the Atlantic coast of Georgia and the Carolinas continued to lose their appeal to Blacks, relatively speaking.

Hispanic Population

Hispanic Population (of any race), Change in Location Quotient 2000-2010

Here we see de-concentration clearly in action. The Mexican border regions retained high Hispanic population counts, but they are no longer as dominant as in the past. Places like Nashville, Oklahoma City, and Charlotte particularly stand out for increasing Hispanic population percentage. Again, large traditionally diverse tier one cities like New York and Chicago show declines on this measure as smaller cities are now more in on the diversity game.

Asian Population

Asian Only Population, Change in Location Quotient 2000-2010

Again, we see here that America’s Asian population spread well beyond traditional west coast bastions. There were big increases in Asian population counts, with resulting LQ changes, in places like Atlanta, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Boston. Even New York (which now has over one million Asian residents within the city limits alone) and Chicago showed gains among Asians.

Children (Population Under Age 18)

As a bonus, here is a look at LQ change for metro areas for people under the age of 18.

Children (Population Under Age 18), Change in Location Quotient 2000-2010

Here we see that metros along America’s northern tier now have relatively fewer children than a decade ago, while metros like Denver, Dallas, and Nashville had more. Clearly, some places are increasingly seen as better – and perhaps also more affordable – locations for child rearing than others. Perhaps unsurprisingly many of the out of favor locales are either expensive, have poor economic prospects, and/or are excessively cold. Not surprisingly, for example, Atlanta, Houston and Florida’s west coast have gained in this demographic while much of the Northeast, particularly upstate New York, have lost out.

The overall key is while there are certain broad themes that emerge from the recent Census, such as America’s increasing diversity or signs of a reversing of the Great Migration, we need to take a more fine grained view to see which places are in fact benefitting and being hurt by these trends. What we see here is that traditional large urban bastions of black population and ethnic diversity are no longer the only game in town. Smaller places in the interior and the South are now emerging as diversity magnets in their own right, as well as magnets for families with children. This is the collection of places to watch to look for the next set of great American cities to emerge.

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

Note: The original version of this piece included incorrect charts for the Asian, Hispanic, and child measures.

New Geography's Most Popular Stories of 2011

Mark Schill — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:38:23 -0500

As our third full calendar year at New Geography comes to a close, here’s a look at the ten most popular stories in 2011. It’s been another year of steady growth in readership and reach for the site. Thanks for reading and happy new year.

10. The Other China: Life on the Streets, A Photo Essay Argentinean architect and photographer Nicolas Marino offers a set of stunning photographs from the streets of Chengdu and Shanghai.

9. Six Adults and One Child in China Emma Chen and Wendell Cox outline the rising numbers of elderly and increasing age dependency ratios in China and across the globe. Chen and Cox outline a number of solutions, including “extending work and careers into the 70s; means tested benefits; greater incentives for having children; and measures to keep housing more affordable and family friendly,” but conclude “the ultimate issue will be maintaining economic growth.”

8. The Texas Story is Real Aaron Renn takes a look at a number of broad-based economic measures of Texas over the past decade. He finds that “While every statistic isn't a winner for Texas, most of them are, notably on the jobs front. And if nothing else, it does not appear that Texas purchased job growth at the expense of job quality, at least not at the aggregate level.”

7. Let’s Face it High Speed Rail is Dead and Obama’s High Speed Rail Obsession Aaron Renn and Joel Kotkin look at high speed rail in America from two angles, Renn from the practical and Kotkin from the political. According to Renn: “In short, it’s time to stop pretending we are going to get a massive nationwide HSR rail network any time soon. Advocates should instead focus on building a serious system in a demonstration corridor that can built credibility for American high speed rail, then built incrementally from there.” Kotkin’s piece also appeared at Forbes.com.

6. America’s Biggest Brain Magnets Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox use American Community Survey data to estimate the biggest gainers of bachelor’s degree holders in U.S. regions. The big winners: New Orleans, Raleigh, Austin, Nashville, and Kansas City. This piece also appeared at Forbes.com.

5. The Next Boom Towns in the U.S. Joel Kotkin examines the U.S. regions most primed for future growth, based on my analysis of six forward-looking metrics. “People create economies and they tend to vote with their feet when they choose to locate their families as well as their businesses. This will prove more decisive in shaping future growth than the hip imagery and big city-oriented PR flackery that dominate media coverage of America’s changing regions.” The piece also appeared at Forbes.com.

4. The Decline and Fall of the French Language Gary Girod wonders if the French language is declining in worldwide significance.

3. Census 2010 Offers a Portrait of America in Transition Aaron Renn’s summary of this spring’s new Census 2010 results includes eight county and metropolitan area level maps showing population change and shifts in racial group concentrations.

2. The Golden State is Crumbling In this piece, also appearing at The Daily Beast, Joel Kotkin blames California’s stagnancy on self-imposed policy decisions. While the state has many assets and is rich in promise “the state will never return until the success of the current crop of puerile billionaires can be extended to enrich the wider citizenry. Until the current regime is toppled, California's decline—in moral as well as economic terms—will continue, to the consternation of those of us who embraced it as our home for so many years.”

1. Best Cities for Jobs 2011 Our best cities rankings measure one thing: job growth. This purposefully simple approach leaves out other less tangible measures of such as quality of life or other amenity indicators, leaving you with a tool to use creating policy for your region.

Is Suburbia Doomed? Not So Fast.

Joel Kotkin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:28 -0500

This past weekend the New York Times devoted two big op-eds to the decline of the suburb. In one, new urban theorist Chris Leinberger said that Americans were increasingly abandoning “fringe suburbs” for dense, transit-oriented urban areas. In the other, UC Berkeley professor Louise Mozingo called for the demise of the “suburban office building” and the adoption of policies that will drive jobs away from the fringe and back to the urban core.

Perhaps no theology more grips the nation’s mainstream media — and the planning community — more than the notion of inevitable suburban decline. The Obama administration’s housing secretary, Shaun Donavan, recently claimed, “We’ve reached the limits of suburban development: People are beginning to vote with their feet and come back to the central cities.”

Yet repeating a mantra incessantly does not make it true. Indeed, any analysis of the 2010 U.S. Census would make perfectly clear that rather than heading for density, Americans are voting with their feet in the opposite direction: toward the outer sections of the metropolis and to smaller, less dense cities. During the 2000s, the Census shows, just 8.6% of the population growth in metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people took place in the core cities; the rest took place in the suburbs. That 8.6% represents a decline from the 1990s, when the figure was 15.4%.

Nor are Americans abandoning their basic attraction for single-family dwellings or automobile commuting. Over the past decade, single-family houses grew far more than either multifamily or attached homes, accounting for nearly 80% of all the new households in the 51 largest cities. And — contrary to the image of suburban desolation — detached housing retains a significantly lower vacancy rate than the multi-unit sector, which has also suffered a higher growth in vacancies even the crash.

Similarly, notes demographer Wendell Cox, despite a 45% boost in gas prices, the country gained almost 8 million lone auto commuters in the past 10 years. Transit ridership, while up slightly, is still stuck at the 1990 figure of 5%, while the number of home commuters grew roughly six times as quickly.

In the past decade, suburbia extended its reach, even around the greatest, densest and most celebrated cities. New York grew faster than most older cities, with 29% of its growth taking place in five boroughs, but that’s still a lot lower than the 46% of growth they accounted for in the 1990s. In Chicago, the suburban trend was even greater. The outer suburbs and exurbs gained over a half million people while the inner suburbs stagnated and the urban core, the Windy City, lost some 200, 000 people.

Rather than flee to density, the Census showed a population shift from more dense to less dense places. The top ten population gainers among metropolitan areas — growing by 20%, twice the national average, or more — are the low-density Las Vegas, Raleigh, Austin, Charlotte, Riverside–San Bernardino, Orlando, Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio and Atlanta. By contrast, many of the densest metropolitan areas — including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and New York — grew at rates half the national average or less.

It turns out that while urban land owners, planners and pundits love density, people for the most part continue to prefer space, if they can afford it. No amount of spinmeistering can change that basic fact, at least according to trends of past decade.

But what about the future? Some more reasoned new urbanists, like Leinberger, hope that the market will change the dynamic and spur the long-awaited shift into dense, more urban cores.

Density fans point to the very real high foreclosure rates in some peripheral communities such as those that surround Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Yet these areas also have been hard-hit by recession — in large part they consist of aspiring, working class people who bought late in the cycle. Yet, after every recession in the past, often after being written off for dead, areas like Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., have tended to recover with the economy.

Less friendly to the meme of density’s manifest destiny has been a simultaneous meltdown in the urban condo market. Massive reductions in condo prices of as much as 50% or more have particularly hurt the areas around Miami, Portland, Chicago and Atlanta. There are open holes, empty storefronts, and abandoned projects in downtowns across the country that, if laid flat, would appear as desperate as the foreclosure ravaged fringe areas.

In many other cases, the prices never dropped because the owners gave up selling condos and started renting them, often to a far lower demographic (such as students) than the much anticipated “down-shifting” boomers. Contrary to one of the most oft-cited urban legends by Leinberger and his cohorts, demographics do not necessarily favor density. Most empty-nesters and retirees, notes former Del Webb Vice President of Development Peter Verdoon, prefer not just outer suburbs but increasingly “small towns and rural areas” Dense cities, he notes, are a relatively rare choice for those seeking a new locale for their golden years.

Verdoon’s assertion is borne out by our own analysis of the 2010 Census. Generally speaking, aging boomers tended to move out of dense urban cores, and to a lesser extent, even the suburbs. If they moved anywhere, they were headed further out in metropolis towards the more rural area. Among cities the biggest beneficiaries have been low-density cities in the Southwest and southern locales such as Charlotte, Raleigh and Austin.

What about the other big demographic, the millennials? Like previous generations of urbanists, the current crop mistake a totally understandable interest in cities among post-adolescents. Yet when the research firm Frank Magid asked millennials what made up their “ideal” locale, a strong plurality opted for suburbs — far more than was the case in earlier generations.

Generational analysts Morley Winograd and Mike Hais note that older millennials — those now entering their 30s — are as interested in homeownership as previous generations. This works strongly in favor of suburbs since they tend to be more affordable and, for the most part, offer safer streets, better parks and schools.

In the short run, suburbia’s future, like that of much of real estate market, depends on the economy. But even here trends may be different than the density lobby suggests. As housing prices fall, the much ballyhooed trend toward a “rentership” society may weaken. Already in many markets such as Atlanta, Las Vegas and Minneapolis and Phoenix it is cheaper to own than rent, something that favors lower-density suburban neighborhoods.

Longer term, of course, suburbs, even on the fringe, will change as growth restarts. Cities here and around the world tend to expand outward, and over time the definition of the fringe changes. To be sure, some fringe communities, particularly in highly regulated and economically regressive areas, could indeed disappear; but many others, particularly in the faster growing parts of the country, will reboot themselves.

They will become, as the inner suburbs already have, more diverse with many working at home or taking shorter trips to their place of work They will become less bedrooms of the core city but more self-contained and “village like,” with shopping streets and cultural amenities near what will still be a landscape dominated primarily by single-family houses.

In fact the media reports about the “death” of fringe suburbs seem to be more a matter of wishful thinking than fact. If the new urbanists want to do something useful, they might apply themselves by helping these peripheral places of aspiration evolve successfully. That’s far more constructive than endlessly insisting on — or trying to legislate — their inevitable demise.

This piece first appeared at Forbes.com.

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.

Photo courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com.

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.

Major Metropolitan Commuting Trends: 2000-2010

Wendell Cox — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:38:33 -0400

As we indicated in the last article, solo automobile commuting reached an all time record in the United States in 2010, increasing by 7.8 million commuters. At the same time, huge losses were sustained by carpooling, while the largest gain was in working at home, which includes telecommuting. Transit and bicycling also added commuters. This continues many of the basic trends toward more personalized employment access that we have seen since 1960.

Solo Automobile Commuting: Among the nation’s 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million population, 38 experienced increases in solo automobile commuting between 2000 and 2010. More than 80% of commuting is by solo automobile in 25 of the 51 largest metropolitan areas, with the highest rates being in Birmingham, Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Kansas City. Another 28 metropolitan areas have single automobile commute shares of between 70% and 80%, with Boston, Washington and San Francisco between 60% and 70%. As would be expected, the lowest solo automobile commute share was in New York at 51%.

Car Pools: The national data also showed a nearly 2.4 million loss in carpool use. The losses were pervasive, occurring in all 51 metropolitan areas. Riverside-San Bernardino had the highest carpool market share at just under 15%, while all other major metropolitan areas were below 12%. Car pools have been losing market share for decades.

Work at Home (Includes Telecommuting): In what we have previously labeled as The Decade of the Telecommute, the nation experienced a 1.7 million increase in working at home over the past decade. The market share gains in working at home were as pervasive as the losses in carpooling, with all 51 metropolitan areas registering increases. Austin had the strongest work-at-home market share, at 7.3%, followed by Portland at 6.5%, San Francisco and Denver at 6.2%, Phoenix at 6.0%, with San Diego, Raleigh and Atlanta above 5.5%. Overall, working at home exceeded transit commuting in 37 major metropolitan areas out of 51 in 2010, up from 27 in 2000. Three metropolitan areas had work at home market shares of less than 3%, including Memphis, New Orleans and last place Buffalo.

Transit: As noted before, transit enjoyed its first 10 year gain since journey to work data was first collected by the Census Bureau 50 years ago. Overall, transit added 900,000 daily commuters, roughly half that for telecommuters. Transit's market share increased in 25 of the top 51 metropolitan areas. It is also notable that in a number of the metropolitan areas with the largest expenditures for new rail systems, there were either losses or commuting gains were concentrated in the more flexible bus services.

New York: As so often has been the case, transit was largely a "New York story." More than one half of the new transit commuters were in the New York metropolitan area, more than 450,000 of the 900,000 increase. New York boasts by far the most extensive transit system in the nation, which serves the second largest central business district in the world and by far the nation’s most important. In 2000, New York had a transit work trip market share of 27.4%. By 2010, New York's transit work trip market share had risen to 30.7%, more than double that of any other metropolitan area. More than 70% of the new transit commuters in the New York area were on its subway (Metro), suburban rail and light rail systems.

San Francisco: San Francisco retained its position as the second strongest transit metropolitan area, with a 14.6% work trip market share in 2010. This is up from 13.8% in 2000.

Washington: Washington was the third strongest transit commuting market, with a 14.0% work trip market share in 2010. This modest increase from 13.4% nonetheless produced the second largest ridership increase in the nation, at more than 130,000. This reflects the strength of Washington's job market over the decade. Rail ridership accounted for 53% of this increase, while buses accounted for the other 47%.

Boston and Chicago: Boston passed Chicago to become the fourth strongest transit market, at 11.8% in 2010. This is an increase from 11.2% in 2000. Chicago ranked fifth at 11.2%, a small reduction from the 11.3% in 2000.

Los Angeles: Los Angeles had the third largest increase in transit commuting, adding 60,000 daily transit commuters. Approximately 75% of these new commuters were attracted by the region's extensive bus system as opposed to its very expensive but limited rail system. This increase placed Los Angeles in a virtual tie with Portland, with a work trip market share of 6.2%.

Portland: Portland continued to experience its now 30 year transit market share erosion, despite having added three new light rail lines between 2000 and 2010. Portland's transit work trip market share fell to 6.2% from 6.3% and now trails the work at home and telecommute market share of 6.5%.

Seattle:Seattle added 29,000 new transit commuters for the fourth strongest growth in the nation. Approximately 75% of the new commuters were on the metropolitan area's bus system.

Atlanta: Atlanta, which is home to the third largest postwar Metro system in the nation (MARTA) gained nearly 9000 new transit commuters, all of them on the bus, while losing more than 3000 rail commuters.

Miami:Miami added 16,000 new transit commuters, though more than 90% were attracted to the bus system, rather than the rail services.

Rail and Bus in Texas: Other metropolitan areas with new and expanded rail systems did not fare as well. In Dallas-Fort Worth, the light rail system was more than doubled in length, yet there was a reduction of more than 3000 daily transit commuters. The transit work trip market share in Dallas-Fort Worth dropped from 1.8% to 1.4%, approximately one quarter lower than that of any other major metropolitan area with a new light rail or Metro system. Houston, which built its first light rail line during the period, lost nearly 3000 daily transit commuters, with its transit work trip market share dropping by nearly one-third, from 3.2% to 2.3%. By contrast, the third largest metropolitan area in Texas, San Antonio, lost no commuters from its bus only transit system.

Other New Rail Metropolitan Areas: Other metropolitan areas with new rail systems experienced modest ridership increases, with 60 to 70 percent of the increase on the bus systems in Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Phoenix. Salt Lake City experienced a small decline in transit commuting.

Below 1 Percent: Four metropolitan areas had transit work trip market shares of less than 1%, including Indianapolis, Raleigh, Birmingham and last place Oklahoma City, with a market share of 0.4%.

Bicycles: It was also a good decade for bicycle commuting, with the national increase of nearly 250,000. The bicycle commuting market share rose in 45 of the 51 largest metropolitan areas. Portland had the highest bicycle market share at 2.2%, with three other metropolitan areas at 1.5% or above, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose. The lowest bicycle commuting market shares were in San Antonio, Cincinnati, Birmingham and Memphis, all at 0.1 percent.

Walking: There was little change in walking among the nations major metropolitan areas. The largest shares were in New York (5.9%) and Boston (5.4%), with the smallest shares in Raleigh (1.1%), Orlando (1.1%) and Birmingham (1.0%).

Drifting Away from Shared Commuting: In some ways, the 2000s were different than previous decades, especially with the reversals in bicycle commuting and transit. However, overall, shared ride commuting (transit and car pools) lost share due to the precipitous decline in car pooling. Longer term share increase trends also continued in single-occupant automobile commuting and working at home. The bottom line: personal employment access (personal mobility plus working at home) continues to carve away at the smallish share still held by shared commuting.

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Data: The 2000 and 2010 commuting market shares by mode are shown in Tables 1 and 2 (2010 metropolitan area boundaries).

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Table 1
Work Trip Market Share: 2000
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population in 2010

Metropolitan Area	Car, Truck or Van: Alone	Car/Van Pool	Transit	Bicycle	Walk	Other	Work at Home (Includes Telecommute)

Atlanta	77.0%	13.7%	3.4%	0.1%	1.3%	1.1%	3.5%
Austin	76.5%	13.7%	2.5%	0.6%	2.1%	1.1%	3.6%
Baltimore	75.5%	11.5%	5.9%	0.2%	2.9%	0.9%	3.2%
Birmingham	83.3%	12.0%	0.7%	0.1%	1.2%	0.7%	2.1%
Boston	71.1%	8.6%	11.2%	0.5%	4.6%	0.8%	3.3%
Buffalo	81.7%	9.4%	3.3%	0.2%	2.7%	0.5%	2.1%
Charlotte	80.7%	12.8%	1.4%	0.1%	1.2%	0.8%	2.9%
Chicago	70.4%	11.0%	11.3%	0.3%	3.1%	1.0%	2.9%
Cincinnati	81.3%	10.1%	2.8%	0.1%	2.3%	0.6%	2.7%
Cleveland	81.3%	8.8%	4.1%	0.2%	2.2%	0.6%	2.7%
Columbus	82.1%	9.7%	2.1%	0.2%	2.3%	0.6%	3.0%
Dallas-Fort Worth	78.7%	13.9%	1.8%	0.1%	1.5%	1.0%	3.0%
Denver	76.0%	11.7%	4.4%	0.4%	2.1%	0.8%	4.6%
Detroit	84.7%	9.2%	1.7%	0.1%	1.4%	0.6%	2.2%
Hartford	82.6%	8.7%	2.8%	0.2%	2.5%	0.6%	2.6%
Houston	77.0%	14.3%	3.2%	0.3%	1.6%	1.1%	2.5%
Indianapolis	82.8%	10.4%	1.3%	0.2%	1.7%	0.7%	3.0%
Jacksonville	80.3%	12.6%	1.3%	0.5%	1.7%	1.4%	2.3%
Kansas City	82.6%	10.6%	1.2%	0.1%	1.4%	0.7%	3.5%
Las Vegas	74.6%	14.7%	4.4%	0.5%	2.3%	1.3%	2.3%
Los Angeles	71.9%	14.6%	5.6%	0.7%	2.7%	1.0%	3.5%
Louisville	81.8%	11.2%	2.0%	0.2%	1.7%	0.7%	2.5%
Memphis	80.7%	13.3%	1.6%	0.1%	1.3%	0.9%	2.2%
Miami-West Palm Beach	77.3%	13.1%	3.2%	0.5%	1.7%	1.2%	3.1%
Milwaukee	79.7%	9.9%	4.2%	0.2%	2.9%	0.6%	2.6%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	78.3%	10.0%	4.4%	0.4%	2.4%	0.6%	3.8%
Nashville	80.5%	13.1%	0.8%	0.1%	1.5%	0.8%	3.2%
New Orleans	72.9%	14.6%	5.4%	0.6%	2.7%	1.3%	2.4%
New York	52.7%	9.3%	27.4%	0.3%	6.0%	1.5%	2.9%
Oklahoma City	81.6%	12.1%	0.5%	0.2%	1.7%	1.0%	2.9%
Orlando	80.6%	12.1%	1.6%	0.4%	1.3%	1.1%	2.9%
Philadelphia	73.1%	10.2%	8.9%	0.3%	3.9%	0.7%	2.9%
Phoenix	74.6%	15.3%	1.9%	0.9%	2.1%	1.4%	3.7%
Pittsburgh	77.5%	9.8%	5.9%	0.1%	3.6%	0.6%	2.5%
Portland	73.1%	11.5%	6.3%	0.8%	2.9%	0.8%	4.6%
Providence	80.7%	10.5%	2.4%	0.2%	3.3%	0.8%	2.2%
Raleigh	80.8%	12.1%	0.9%	0.2%	1.6%	1.0%	3.5%
Richmond	81.7%	10.9%	1.9%	0.2%	1.8%	0.8%	2.7%
Riverside-San Bernardino	73.5%	17.6%	1.6%	0.5%	2.2%	1.2%	3.5%
Rochester	81.7%	9.1%	2.0%	0.2%	3.5%	0.6%	2.9%
Sacramento	75.3%	13.5%	2.7%	1.4%	2.2%	0.9%	4.0%
Salt Lake City	76.0%	13.4%	3.3%	0.5%	2.1%	0.7%	4.0%
San Antonio	76.2%	14.9%	2.7%	0.1%	2.4%	1.2%	2.6%
San Diego	73.9%	13.0%	3.3%	0.6%	3.4%	1.4%	4.4%
San Francisco-Oakland	62.8%	12.7%	13.8%	1.1%	3.9%	1.3%	4.3%
San Jose	77.2%	12.4%	3.4%	1.2%	1.8%	0.9%	3.1%
Seattle	71.6%	12.7%	7.0%	0.6%	3.1%	0.8%	4.2%
St. Louis	82.5%	10.0%	2.2%	0.1%	1.7%	0.6%	2.9%
Tampa-St. Petersburg	79.7%	12.4%	1.3%	0.6%	1.7%	1.2%	3.1%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk	78.8%	12.1%	1.7%	0.3%	2.7%	1.6%	2.7%
Washington	67.5%	13.4%	11.2%	0.3%	3.0%	0.9%	3.7%
Top 51 Metropolitan Areas	73.2%	11.8%	7.5%	0.4%	2.9%	1.0%	3.2%

Calculated from Census Bureau data
Metropolitan areas as defined in 2010

Table 2
Work Trip Market Share: 2010
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population in 2010

	Car, Truck or Van: Alone	Car/Van Pool	Transit	Bicycle	Walk	Other	Work at Home (Includes Telecommute)

Atlanta	77.6%	10.3%	3.4%	0.2%	1.3%	1.5%	5.8%
Austin	75.6%	10.5%	2.3%	0.6%	1.9%	1.8%	7.3%
Baltimore	76.5%	9.6%	6.0%	0.2%	2.6%	1.0%	4.1%
Birmingham	84.8%	10.0%	0.6%	0.1%	1.0%	0.5%	3.1%
Boston	69.5%	7.5%	11.8%	0.7%	5.4%	0.8%	4.4%
Buffalo	82.0%	7.5%	3.8%	0.3%	3.0%	1.1%	2.3%
Charlotte	80.6%	10.0%	2.0%	0.2%	1.5%	0.6%	5.1%
Chicago	71.0%	8.5%	11.2%	0.6%	3.1%	1.0%	4.5%
Cincinnati	84.1%	7.9%	2.1%	0.1%	2.0%	0.4%	3.4%
Cleveland	82.3%	7.2%	3.6%	0.3%	2.2%	0.7%	3.7%
Columbus	82.4%	8.0%	1.7%	0.5%	2.3%	0.6%	4.6%
Dallas-Fort Worth	81.3%	10.1%	1.4%	0.2%	1.2%	1.4%	4.6%
Denver	76.3%	9.6%	4.1%	0.8%	1.9%	1.1%	6.2%
Detroit	84.6%	8.5%	1.5%	0.2%	1.4%	0.8%	3.0%
Hartford	81.5%	7.9%	3.1%	0.3%	3.0%	1.0%	3.2%
Houston	79.4%	11.5%	2.3%	0.3%	1.4%	1.7%	3.4%
Indianapolis	83.9%	8.2%	0.9%	0.3%	1.5%	0.8%	4.3%
Jacksonville	82.5%	8.9%	1.0%	0.5%	1.4%	1.2%	4.5%
Kansas City	83.7%	8.5%	1.2%	0.2%	1.4%	0.9%	4.1%
Las Vegas	78.9%	10.5%	3.8%	0.6%	1.6%	1.3%	3.3%
Los Angeles	73.5%	10.7%	6.2%	0.9%	2.6%	1.2%	5.0%
Louisville	83.5%	9.2%	1.9%	0.2%	1.3%	0.9%	3.1%
Memphis	83.6%	10.3%	1.0%	0.1%	1.5%	0.9%	2.7%
Miami-West Palm Beach	78.8%	9.4%	3.5%	0.6%	2.0%	1.4%	4.4%
Milwaukee	80.1%	9.3%	3.4%	0.5%	2.6%	0.7%	3.4%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	78.3%	7.9%	4.8%	0.7%	2.4%	0.9%	4.9%
Nashville	81.3%	10.7%	1.0%	0.2%	1.2%	1.0%	4.6%
New Orleans	78.1%	11.0%	3.2%	0.7%	2.6%	1.9%	2.5%
New York	50.5%	6.8%	30.7%	0.5%	5.9%	1.6%	3.9%
Oklahoma City	82.7%	10.6%	0.5%	0.3%	1.6%	1.0%	3.4%
Orlando	82.1%	9.2%	1.6%	0.3%	1.1%	1.4%	4.4%
Philadelphia	73.9%	8.0%	9.6%	0.5%	3.5%	0.8%	3.8%
Phoenix	76.7%	11.8%	2.0%	0.6%	1.5%	1.5%	6.0%
Pittsburgh	77.0%	8.9%	5.6%	0.3%	3.7%	0.9%	3.5%
Portland	72.1%	8.8%	6.2%	2.2%	3.3%	0.9%	6.5%
Providence	81.3%	8.3%	2.6%	0.5%	3.2%	0.9%	3.2%
Raleigh	82.0%	8.7%	0.9%	0.3%	1.1%	1.1%	5.9%
Richmond	81.2%	10.1%	1.8%	0.4%	1.2%	0.7%	4.6%
Riverside-San Bernardino	76.1%	14.8%	1.7%	0.4%	1.8%	1.4%	3.8%
Rochester	82.6%	7.1%	1.8%	0.4%	3.9%	0.7%	3.6%
Sacramento	75.6%	11.2%	2.9%	1.7%	1.9%	1.1%	5.5%
Salt Lake City	77.7%	11.3%	2.9%	0.8%	2.3%	1.0%	4.0%
San Antonio	79.5%	11.5%	2.1%	0.1%	2.0%	1.4%	3.3%
San Diego	76.2%	10.1%	3.3%	0.8%	2.8%	1.0%	5.9%
San Francisco-Oakland	61.5%	10.6%	14.6%	1.7%	4.2%	1.2%	6.2%
San Jose	77.5%	10.3%	2.9%	1.6%	1.8%	0.9%	5.1%
Seattle	70.5%	10.2%	8.2%	1.1%	3.5%	1.0%	5.5%
St. Louis	83.0%	7.7%	2.6%	0.2%	1.9%	0.8%	3.7%
Tampa-St. Petersburg	80.3%	9.5%	1.6%	0.8%	1.4%	1.4%	5.0%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk	80.9%	9.4%	1.8%	0.5%	3.3%	0.9%	3.1%
Washington	65.6%	10.6%	14.0%	0.5%	3.5%	1.0%	4.9%
Top 51 Metropolitan Areas	73.7%	9.4%	7.9%	0.6%	2.8%	1.2%	4.4%

Calculated from Census Bureau data
Metropolitan areas as defined in 2010

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”

Photo: Manhattan (New York), with the Woolworth Building in the distance (by author)