Atlanta

Of Niche Markets and Broad Markets: Commuting in the US

Wendell Cox — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 21:29:58 -0400

The six transit legacy cities - mostly urban cores that grew largely before the advent of the automobile - increased their concentration of transit work trips to 57.9% of the national transit commuting, according to the 2018 American Community Survey. At the same time, working at home strengthened its position as the nation’s third leading mode of work access, with transit falling to fourth. The transit commuting market share dropped from 5.0% in 2017 to 4.9% in 2018. Carpooling, after at least three decades of decline, has seen an increase in this decade.

Concentration of Transit Commuting Destinations in Legacy Cities

Based on transit work trip destinations (as opposed to residences of commuters) the cities of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington increased their share of commuting by 4.8% (2.6% points) in just eight years (from 2010 to 2018). The legacy cities are home to the six largest downtown areas (central business districts) in the United States, the destination for most of their transit commuting.

This increased concentration occurred even as transit commuting has begun to trend downward, from the 2015, the peak ridership post-1960 year (Figure 1). The transit legacy cities accounted for 6.1% of the nation’s employment in 2018. Their 57.9 share of transit commuting is nearly 10 times their equivalent share of jobs. The more favorable performance of the legacy cities in this decade resulted in their garnering 79.7%% of the increased commuting, more than 13 times their share of jobs.

The intensity of the concentration is illustrated in Figure 2, which compares employment, transit commuting and transit commuting increase (2010 to 2018) shares for legacy cities and the balance of the nation. The work trip market share to the legacy cities is 47%. By comparison, in the rest of the nation, transit’s work trip share is a miniscule 2.1%. Only 19 of the nation’s 53 major metropolitan areas has a transit work trip share of 3.0% or more.

However, to get to jobs outside the legacy cities (in the same metropolitan areas), transit commuting is only 8.6% of the national total. Strikingly, in New York, nearly 51% percent of the jobs are outside the city of New York. Transit’s share to these jobs is only 4.4%, a fraction of the 58.0% who use transit to jobs in the city of New York (the urban core)(Figure 3). Large differences between transit commuting to downtown and the suburbs occurs in most major metropolitan areas, not just those with legacy cities.

New York continues to have by far the largest transit commute share, at 30.9% (Figure 4). The lowest transit commute shares are in Birmingham and Oklahoma City, at 0.6%. Transit work trip data is provided in the Table below by mode.

Working at Home: The Big Winner

The American Community Survey data reveals working at home continues to be the big winner among the most popular employment access modes. Between 2017 and 2018, working at home (which includes telecommuting) gained 258,000 workers nationally, rising from 8.00 to 8.25 million in total. This was a considerable accomplishment. Working at home increased disproportionately relative to driving alone. Having only 7% of the driving alone volume in 2017, working at home added more than 20% of the entire commuting increase over the last year.

Working at home strengthened its number three position, following driving alone and vehicle pools, and now exceeding transit by more than 600,000. In 44 of the 53 major metropolitan areas, working at home accounted for more employment access than transit. The nine exceptions, in which transit led working at home included the six metropolitan areas with “legacy cities” plus Seattle, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Overall, working at home has increased 2.3 million since 2010. It now has a market share of 5.3%, up from 4.3% in 2010.

Raleigh again had the highest work at home market share, at 9.1%, followed by Austin, Denver, Portland and San Francisco. The great advantage of working at home is that it reduces traffic, and does so without public subsidy (Figure 5). The work at home market shares exceeded that of transit in all but one of the ten top metropolitan areas (San Francisco, with its legacy city). Meanwhile, among the other nine strongest work at home metropolitan areas, seven have built expensive rail systems. Each of these has cost from hundreds of millions to billions of tax dollars. Yet, working at home, which is virtually unsubsidized has attracted substantially greater use.

Working at home exhibits little of the concentration observed in transit. All 53 of the major metropolitan areas have work at home shares of 2.5% or more. By contrast, 28 major metropolitan areas have transit commuting shares below 2.5%. Memphis had the lowest work at home share. Second lowest Buffalo, at 3.5% had a work at home market share larger than the transit market shares in 39 major metropolitan areas.

Carpool Resurgence

Carpools increased 300,000 between 2017 and 2018 and more than 600,000 since 2010. This follows decades of decline. This, however, was not enough to keep the mode from falling to 9.0% of the market in 2018 from 9.7% in 2017. There were 19.1 million carpools in 1980, the first year carpool data was collected and only 13.9 million now. The high market share was in Salt Lake City, at 12.0% (Figure 6), while the lowest was in New York, at 6.3%.

Ride Hailing

The data show a huge increase in taxicab use, which is probably due to recently initiated ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft. Taxicab commuting has increased more than 150%, from 150,000 to 360,000. The impact may be even greater. “Other” means of commuting increased almost 300,000, for a 25% increase. This was greater than that of all other modes of employment access, except for work and home and taxicab. It is not hard to imagine some respondents ticking “other” if they did not associate these new services with “taxicab.”

Work Access: Niche Markets and Mass Markets

While transit used to serve the largest share of motorized urban trips (probably about 90 years ago, but I have found no data), it has become a “niche” market among commuters who have a choice (have a car).Transit is about downtown and the urban core, with much of the share of transit commuting being destinations in these areas. Mind you, these are important markets, but they are small in the overall context of employment and transit’s access to metropolitan area jobs is miniscule.

The other three largest modes, cars, car pools and working at home serve broad markets. They can reach virtually any job in the metropolitan area, or in the case of working at home, many jobs around the world. That’s why those three modes hold a near monopoly on commuting, and represent most of its growth. With them, you can get from here to there.

EMPLOYMENT ACCESS BY MEANS OF ACCESS
US Major Metroopolitan Areas: 2018
	Drive Alone	Car Pool	Transit	Taxi	Motor-Cycle	Bicycle	Walk	Other	Home
Atlanta, GA	77.3%	8.9%	3.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	1.3%	1.2%	7.6%
Austin, TX	76.9%	8.7%	1.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.8%	1.9%	0.7%	8.7%
Baltimore, MD	77.0%	8.0%	6.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	2.4%	0.8%	5.3%
Birmingham, AL	84.8%	8.8%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.9%	0.6%	4.2%
Boston, MA-NH	66.1%	7.0%	13.2%	0.3%	0.0%	1.1%	5.6%	1.0%	5.5%
Buffalo, NY	82.1%	6.8%	3.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%	3.0%	0.8%	3.5%
Charlotte, NC-SC	79.2%	9.4%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	1.4%	0.9%	7.3%
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	69.8%	8.0%	12.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%	2.8%	0.9%	5.4%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	81.6%	8.2%	1.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	2.2%	0.8%	5.1%
Cleveland, OH	81.6%	7.9%	2.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	1.9%	0.8%	4.6%
Columbus, OH	81.3%	8.2%	1.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	2.2%	0.7%	5.5%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	80.8%	9.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	1.3%	0.9%	5.8%
Denver, CO	75.0%	8.2%	3.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.9%	2.4%	0.8%	8.7%
Detroit, MI	83.2%	8.6%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	1.4%	0.7%	4.3%
Grand Rapids, MI	82.0%	9.1%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	2.2%	0.5%	4.2%
Hartford, CT	81.2%	7.7%	2.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	1.8%	0.8%	5.7%
Houston, TX	81.0%	9.4%	2.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.9%	1.3%	4.9%
Indianapolis. IN	83.4%	8.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	1.3%	1.0%	5.0%
Jacksonville, FL	80.3%	8.5%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.6%	1.6%	1.5%	6.4%
Kansas City, MO-KS	83.8%	7.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	1.2%	0.7%	5.2%
Las Vegas, NV	78.7%	9.8%	3.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	1.4%	2.1%	4.1%
Los Angeles, CA	75.0%	9.5%	4.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.6%	2.5%	1.1%	5.9%
Louisville, KY-IN	82.2%	8.5%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	1.3%	1.0%	4.9%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	86.1%	9.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.9%	0.6%	2.5%
Miami, FL	77.7%	9.2%	3.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	1.4%	1.4%	5.7%
Milwaukee,WI	81.5%	7.5%	2.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%	2.3%	0.3%	5.0%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	77.4%	8.1%	4.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.8%	2.4%	0.6%	5.9%
Nashville, TN	80.9%	9.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	1.5%	1.0%	6.2%
New Orleans. LA	78.6%	9.3%	2.6%	0.3%	0.1%	1.2%	2.5%	0.9%	4.5%
New York, NY-NJ-PA	50.3%	6.3%	30.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.7%	5.5%	0.8%	4.7%
Oklahoma City, OK	82.9%	8.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	2.1%	1.0%	4.2%
Orlando, FL	80.3%	10.4%	1.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	1.1%	0.9%	5.0%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	72.3%	7.2%	9.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.6%	3.4%	0.8%	5.5%
Phoenix, AZ	75.8%	11.2%	1.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.7%	1.3%	1.2%	7.4%
Pittsburgh, PA	76.6%	8.3%	5.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	3.4%	0.5%	5.1%
Portland, OR-WA	70.4%	8.8%	6.1%	0.2%	0.2%	2.0%	3.4%	0.7%	8.1%
Providence, RI-MA	81.3%	8.5%	2.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	3.0%	0.6%	3.8%
Raleigh, NC	79.0%	8.9%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	1.3%	0.5%	9.1%
Richmond, VA	81.2%	8.7%	1.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.7%	1.4%	0.9%	5.2%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	79.8%	10.9%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%	1.5%	1.0%	5.0%
Rochester, NY	80.9%	7.9%	2.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.5%	3.0%	0.4%	4.8%
Sacramento, CA	76.6%	9.2%	2.2%	0.2%	0.3%	1.3%	1.7%	0.8%	7.9%
St. Louis,, MO-IL	83.6%	6.9%	2.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	1.8%	0.6%	4.6%
Salt Lake City, UT	74.5%	12.0%	3.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.7%	2.2%	0.5%	6.7%
San Antonio, TX	79.2%	11.2%	1.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	1.8%	1.0%	4.6%
San Diego, CA	76.5%	8.8%	2.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.4%	3.1%	1.2%	6.6%
San Francisco, CA	57.2%	9.6%	17.3%	0.7%	0.4%	1.9%	4.7%	1.2%	7.0%
San Jose, CA	75.3%	10.3%	4.0%	0.3%	0.3%	1.6%	2.2%	0.9%	5.0%
Seattle, WA	66.1%	10.0%	10.7%	0.3%	0.3%	1.1%	4.1%	0.7%	6.7%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	78.9%	9.0%	1.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.5%	1.4%	1.1%	7.3%
Tucson, AZ	76.8%	10.0%	2.1%	0.2%	0.4%	1.5%	2.1%	1.3%	5.5%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	81.2%	8.5%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	2.8%	1.0%	4.4%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	65.8%	9.2%	13.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.9%	3.3%	1.0%	6.1%
UNITED STATES	76.3%	9.0%	4.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%	2.6%	0.9%	5.3%
Derived from American Community Survey 2018.

Photograph: Interstate 5 in Orange County California, with elevated express lanes (by author)

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism (US), Senior Fellow for Housing Affordability and Municipal Policy for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Canada), and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University (California). He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. Speaker of the House of Representatives appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council. He served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.

Atlanta as a Maturing City

Aaron M. Renn — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 01:30:38 -0400

My latest piece is now online over at City Journal. It’s a look at Atlanta, now bouncing back from a very rough 10-12 year period, but looking increasingly like a city that is maturing rather than a go-go boomtown in its hypergrowth phase. Here’s an excerpt:

"Though still growing rapidly, Atlanta’s fortunes have taken a hit in the new century. From 1980 to 2000, metro Atlanta grew in population by an astonishing 82.3 percent, outdistancing Dallas–Fort Worth and Houston. But in the 18 years since 2000, its population growth rate was only 39.6 percent, which trails its Texas peers. Since 2000, the population gap between Houston and Atlanta more than doubled, rising from less than 500,000 to more than 1 million. And growth has continued to slow. From 2000 to 2010, Atlanta’s average annual population growth reached only 2.13 percent, and that has fallen to 1.45 percent since 2010.

Any boomtown, as it reaches maturity, will eventually see a decline in population growth. But in Atlanta, this slowdown has come with troubling economic indicators. The city’s per-capita income as a percentage of the U.S. average declined from 110.5 percent in 2000 to 96.2 percent in 2017. Regional income levels have diverged across America, but what’s more troubling for Atlanta is that its real per-capita GDP started declining in the 2000s, especially during the Great Recession, which hit the city hard. It ranked 42nd out of 52 major metro areas in jobs performance during that era, and per-capita employment in the region fell from 51.2 percent to 40.6 percent from 2000 to 2013. Atlanta added 1 million people but lost jobs in that decade.

The economy turned around in 2013. GDP per capita started growing again, and per-capita incomes relative to the U.S. average started improving as well. Jobs are up 22.4 percent since 2010. Atlanta got great press for its Beltline, a greenway encircling the city along an abandoned rail corridor. Its urban center began growing and gentrifying, in the familiar pattern. The Census Bureau estimates that the city’s population has grown by 16 percent since 2010. Atlanta’s tech industry has blossomed, too, and the city has become an unlikely center for financial technology."

Click through to read the whole thing.

This piece originally appeared on Urbanophile.

Aaron M. Renn is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and an economic development columnist for Governing magazine. He focuses on ways to help America’s cities thrive in an ever more complex, competitive, globalized, and diverse twenty-first century. During Renn’s 15-year career in management and technology consulting, he was a partner at Accenture and held several technology strategy roles and directed multimillion-dollar global technology implementations. He has contributed to The Guardian, Forbes.com, and numerous other publications. Renn holds a B.S. from Indiana University, where he coauthored an early social-networking platform in 1991.

Photo Credit: Mike on Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Obstacle Course

John Sanphillippo — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 01:30:38 -0400

I was in Atlanta last month and was encouraged to poke around by the people who invited me. For my entire life the greater Atlanta metroplex has grown in population, geographic size, economic importance, and cultural relevance. As the locals like to remind everyone, Hartsfield-Jackson is the busiest airport in North America. Half the people I went to school with in New Jersey in the 70s and 80s migrated to places like Atlanta for all the usual reasons.

On my flight I sat next to a chatty couple who lived in what they described as a brand new 3,800 square foot house they bought for under $300K a few years ago. It was on the outer edge of Gwinnett County well outside the Atlanta city limits. They bought it because it offered lots of space, a big yard, a good school district, low taxes, and a half hour commute to their respective jobs which were in opposite by equidistant directions. This is the dominant American drive-till-you-qualify model of middle class suburban housing.

I chatted with a Lyft driver who explained his choice of neighborhood when he bought his home. He and his wife were focused almost exclusively on the quality of the schools their kids would attend. They paid significantly extra for a smaller less desirable home because of which suburban school district it was in. Commuting in to the city and Lyfting on the side was one of the ways he paid the bills.

As the middle class migrated out to shiny new developments on the periphery older suburban neighborhoods declined. The economic and cultural vacuum that formed lowered property values, suppressed rents, and encouraged an attitude of benign neglect from local government.

But a decade or so ago select older neighborhoods were identified by people who saw an advantage in these close-in areas. Property was super cheap and travel to downtown jobs and amenities was easy. Statistically only a quarter to a third of American households have school aged kids so these were mostly childless folks who were focused on other neighborhood characteristics. And these locations still offered fully detached homes with a garden because they were suburbs – just older and a lot closer in.

For people willing to take a risk and renovate properties in the right funky neighborhoods the upside can be significant. The process of decline goes in reverse and forms a virtuous cycle of new investment, increased value, higher rents, and boosted tax revenue. Money translates to political will and better government services once officials cotton on. And so long as you don’t change the existing buildings beyond basic maintenance and cosmetic upgrades the authorities generally don’t get in your way.

If good schools attract people with kids, then the appeal for other kinds of folks is often walkability. Driving twenty minutes to buy milk and eggs or get a cup of coffee isn’t as desirable for this slice of the population than walking to a corner shop. Can you twist your way through the cul-de-sacs of a newer development and find what you need at a strip mall on the side of an eight lane arterial road on foot? Sure. Do people enjoy doing it? Not so much. Reviving older Main Streets sometimes translates into bringing back the surrounding territory from economic decay.

There are two theories about how and why neighborhoods pivot from decline to reinvestment. One says market demand and a shifting culture lead the process of revitalization. Lending institutions gradually change their attitudes about risk and lending. Then slowly and reluctantly government begins to bend to the larger swing once tax revenues increase and voters and business interests exert themselves on the political process.

The other theory says government makes up front investments in public infrastructure and services which then embolden new private investments and help change the larger culture. I tend to believe it’s a little of both mixed with luck and good timing. I know of plenty of places where the private sector has attempted to invest in an area, but the political process stymied progress at every turn. I also know of examples where government invested in things the market and culture didn’t value so the new infrastructure sat vacant for thirty years with no takers.

But there’s a problem when administrators who are highly tuned to serving the needs of a suburban auto dominant landscape attempt to infill a more human scaled walkable environment. I shake my head when I see brand new improvements being installed in a manner that is out of touch with the intended use.

Yes, pedestrians and people in wheel chairs can wiggle around lamp posts and telephone poles plopped down repeatedly in the middle of the sidewalk. But why do this? Someone at the Department of Transportation in a remote office park went down a standard list. Concrete and brick pavers. Check. Decorative fake French light fixtures. Check. Minimum set back requirements. Check. But on the ground it doesn’t add up to a sensible whole. And this stuff is going to be stuck in place for decades.

Notice that not once was a pole placed in the center of a driveway curb cut or the middle of a freshly paved vehicular travel lane. Could cars slow down and drive around such obstacles? Sure. But engineers understand how ridiculous it would be to do that. The problem is that the folks who design and build pedestrian infrastructure never walk or bike themselves so these things never occur to them. So we’re left with this half assed obstacle course.

This piece originally appeared on Granola Shotgun.

John Sanphillippo lives in San Francisco and blogs about urbanism, adaptation, and resilience at granolashotgun.com. He's a member of the Congress for New Urbanism, films videos for faircompanies.com, and is a regular contributor to Strongtowns.org. He earns his living by buying, renovating, and renting undervalued properties in places that have good long term prospects. He is a graduate of Rutgers University.

Atlanta Remains Top World Airport in 2018

Wendell Cox — Thu, 09 May 2019 01:33:38 -0400

Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport continues to be the largest in the world in terms of volume, with 107 million passengers, according to preliminary 2018 data released by Airports Council International. Atlanta has held the top position since 2000. However, Atlanta’s passenger growth over the last eight years has been the smallest of the top 20 airports, at 20.2 percent. Should present trends continue, Atlanta could lose the top position, but it is not clear when that is likely, and which urban area will emerge with the top airport.

A review of the 20 busiest airports in the world reveals comparative stability since 2010. There are only three new entrants to the top 20.

Beijing’s Capital City International Airport ranked number two, with 101 million passengers. Beijing has been closing the gap with Atlanta, having trailed by 15 million in 2010. Current growth rates would suggest the Capital City International will overtake Atlanta within a few years. Yet this is unlikely to happen, because of the new Beijing Daxing International airport due to open in September. Daxing International Airport, designed by the late Zaha Hadid, is being built with a capacity of 100 million passengers and will split Beijing’s air travel business with Capital City International.

One or both airports still could be the largest in the future, but it is likely that neither will be in the short run, as they split Beijing’s air travel market. Capital City International will have more of a domestic focus (though not exclusively), justified by its more proximate location relative to central Beijing. Daxing International will have more of an international focus, but will still handle a substantial domestic volume, as the government seeks to encourage development of the nearby Xiongan New Area, to which substantial business and government decentralization is anticipated under the Jing-Jin-Ji development plan.

Third place Dubai International Airport had among the largest percentage gains (89.0 percent) and rose 10 places from 13th in 2010, to 89 million passengers.

Fourth place Los Angeles International moved up from sixth place and posted an increase in passengers of 48.3 percent to 88 million passengers, which was by far the largest gain among US airports in the top 20.

Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, located near the center of the urban area, unlike more remote Narita International, held onto 5th place, while increasing its volume 35.7 percent to 87 million passengers.

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, which preceded Atlanta as the largest in the world, fell from 3rd place to 6th place, handling 83 million passengers. Even so, Chicago’s 24.8 percentage volume increase was higher than Atlanta’s.

London Heathrow Airport also fell three positions, from 4th to 7th, handling 80 million passengers. Heathrow’s volume grew by 21.6 percent.

Hong Kong International Airport ranked 8th, and improvement from 11th in 2010. Hong Kong handled 75 million passengers, an increase of 48 percent.

Shanghai Pudong International Airport ranked 9th, up from 20th in 2010. Pudong’s passenger volume was 74 million, up 82.4 percent, the fifth largest increase.

Paris Charles DeGaulle Airport handled 72 million passengers, up 24.2 percent from 2010. Charles De Gaulle fell from 7th place to 10th place.

The three new entrants to the top twenty all rank in the second 10. This reflects largely the growth of airports in developing countries and in east Asia.

Delhi had the largest percentage increase, at 145.0 percent. In 2010, Delhi had 29 million passengers, increasing to 70 million in 2018. Delhi improved from a 44th ranking to 12th.

Seoul-Incheon improved from 33rd to 16th, with a passenger volume that was up 103.4 percent. Seoul-Incheon handled 34 million passengers in 2010 and 68 million in 2018.

Istanbul jumped from 37th position to 17th, with a volume increase of 112.0 percent. Istanbul had 32 million passengers in 2010, rising to 68 million in 2018. The aging, land constrained Ataturk Airport served its last year in 2018 and has now been replaced by the new Istanbul Airport (photo above), with an initial capacity of 90 million annual passengers, and an eventual capacity of 200 million. The new airport is located much farther from the urban center (35 kilometers).

Asian airports ranking in the second 10 had strong growth rates. Guangzhou, ranked 13th, was strong gainer, at 70.3 percent. Singapore (19th) gained 56.1 percent and Jakarta (18th) gained 50.8 percent.

Amsterdam (11th) had the greatest growth of any European airport, at 57.2 percent, with Frankfurt trailing (14th) at 31.1 percent.

Other American airports were among the slowest growing, including Dallas-Fort Worth (15th) at 21.4 percent and Denver (20th) at 23.5 percent.

As Asia continues its economic ascendancy, US and European airports are destined to become less important. All the three new entrants to the top 20 were in Asia. Five of the top 10 airports are now in Asia and 10 of the top 20. The United States and Europe each had five of the top 20 airports.

Meanwhile two of the three airports dropping out of the top 20 were in Europe and the United States, Madrid and New York’s JFK, while Bangkok also fell. The future of air travel, like much else, seems likely to be more about Asia and less about Europe and the United States.

Photograph: New Istanbul Airport (from the north). Credit: Jekader [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Why Rail Transit Doesn't Work in Atlanta

Randal OToole — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 01:33:38 -0400

One of the more interesting presentations at the 2017 American Dream conference was by Alain Bertaud, a French demographer currently working at New York University. He has compared urban areas all over the world to see how transportation has influenced the layout of those areas.

He started by comparing Atlanta with Barcelona, Spain. Although both have about the same number of people, Barcelona occupies about 63 square miles while Atlanta covers 1,650 square miles. Barcelona has about 62 miles of rail lines, while Atlanta had about 46 when Bertaud was making his comparison (it’s up to 52 today). In order for Atlanta’s rail system to provide the same level of service to its residents as Barcelona’s, the region would need to build another 2,350 miles of rail lines. At current construction prices, that would cost at least $700 billion.

The above charts show population densities within 30 kilometers of urban centers, with the first kilometer on the left and the 30th kilometer on the right. The European cities, including Paris, Warsaw, and Barcelona, shown in the first column, are very dense in the center with densities falling to nothing after 22 miles from the center. Asian cities in the second column–Beijing, Jakarta, and Bangkok–are similar. But American cities in the third column–Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York–look very different. Densities do taper off but the centers, even of New York, are nowhere near as dense as in Europe and Asia.

Moreover, Atlanta’s population growth in the 1990s was mostly in the outlying areas. Only 2 percent of new Atlanta residents located within a half mile of a rail station and only 13 percent located within a half mile of a bus stop, while 85 percent located more than half mile from either.

New job locations are even worse for transit, with jobs in four of the first five miles from the center actually declining. Only 1 percent of new jobs located within a half mile of a rail station, and 22 percent within a half mile of a bus stop, meaning 77 percent were not reached by transit. (The original chart said 32 percent, but that made the total add up to 110 percent. Dr. Bertaud updated and corrected the chart to read 22 percent.)

Even as American urban planners, particularly on the West Coast, try to make our cities more like European ones, European and Asian cities are becoming more like American ones. In Seoul, for example, most population growth was in the bands between 20 and 40 kilometers from the center, while most job growth was in the bands between 9 and 35 kilometers from the center.

The same is true for European cities. While the second chart shown above makes it appear that Paris and other cities are monocentric, in fact they have large numbers of suburban jobs. As Bertaud noted, “Even in metropolitan area like Paris, with an elaborate transit system, the majority of trips are made by cars from suburb to suburb.” Transit ridership in many European cities is flat or declining, while driving is rapidly growing.

When new technologies like automobiles change the shape of cities, there is no going back. Cities can build rail lines, subsidize dense housing projects, and try to discourage driving, but driving will continue to grow even as transit ridership stagnates, at best, and per capita ridership falls.

This piece first appeared on The Antiplanner.

Randal O’Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute specializing in land use and transportation policy. He has written several books demonstrating the futility of government planning. Prior to working for Cato, he taught environmental economics at Yale, UC Berkeley, and Utah State University.

Photo by Nicolas Henderson, via Flickr, using CC License.

New Year, Same Old Streetcar Named Disaster

Benita Dodd — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 00:38:33 -0500

On December 30 the city of Atlanta began Year 3 of operating its much-ballyhooed Atlanta Streetcar System, and so far, all that can be discerned is a lot of bally hooey.

This month, the Atlanta City Council approved the final payment to URS for the design-build of the 2.7-mile Atlanta Streetcar project, making the total payment $61,630,655. That was, according to Public Works Commissioner Richard Mendoza, “$6 million less than URS originally submitted.”

Not exactly. The 2014 URS contract authorized by MARTA (the transit authority designated to receive the $47.6 million federal grant for the Streetcar), was $59 million; the original URS contract, based on the preliminary design, was $52.2 million.

Asked about the project’s full cost, Mendoza told councilmembers, “The entire project came in a tad under $97 million, which was within the original budget.”

Not really. The original budget for the project, as listed in the TIGER federal grant application in 2010, was a capital cost of about $72 million. Annual operation and maintenance (O&M) costs in 2013, when it was originally slated to start running, would be about $1.7 million.

Later, the city projected a cost of about $3.2 million a year to operate the system. Then in February 2016, the city revised that cost to $4.8 million – a 52 percent increase. The city’s FY2017 budget includes nearly $5.3 million for the Streetcar O&M.

As for revenues: The grant application projected $420,000 in farebox revenue for the expected first year of operation (2013), making up 20 percent of O&M costs. In fact, the farebox recovery ratio is just 5.2 percent, as Mendoza told councilmembers on December 14 during his quarterly update on the system.

From January through November 2016, tickets brought in $177,580; by extrapolation, the 2016 farebox will bring in less than $195,000. That’s less than half (46 percent) of the grant application projection.

There were 809,000 passengers in 2015. From January through November 2016, there were just 348,043. The grant application listed projected average weekday ridership at 2,600; but this year (without breaking out weekend ridership) it is 1,462, just 56 percent of that original estimate.

The Streetcar had a late and spotty start, too. After construction and testing delays, operations began on December 30, 2014. It was supposed to offer free rides for three months; in March 2015, the mayor declared it would be free for the entire first year.

Ridership plunged after the $1 fare was implemented on January 1, although it did help reduce the number of homeless riding the vehicles. Fare evasion is a problem: The city reports 53 just percent of riders are paying the fare; hopes are better policing and a newly launched app will improve revenues.

State and federal audits found safety and management problems; in May, the Georgia Department of Transportation threatened to shut down the Streetcar unless corrective action was taken. This month, Mendoza told the Transportation Committee that nine (14 percent) items of 66 on the “Corrective Action Plan” had been completed.

This week, the city announced reduced Streetcar hours for the holiday weekend, “a modified schedule for New Year’s Eve to accommodate large crowds expected to attend holiday events in the downtown area. On Dec. 31 the streetcar will operate from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and then will resume normal operating hours on Jan. 1, running from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.”

Reducing hours when tourists are most likely downtown is a far cry from the hype in the grant application: “[I]t will provide connectivity and circulation for the core of the Downtown area of Atlanta, improving accessibility and making it possible to conveniently travel from key destinations and event venues without a car and connecting tourists, residents, students and workers to attractions, jobs and public amenities.”

Unfazed by the dismal results so far, the city has another 22-mile phase under environmental review, planning to leverage November’s transit sales tax proposals that won 72 percent voter approval. Apparently, the project is nowhere near big enough to fail yet. The biggest tragedy, however, is that in an era of rapidly changing technology, Atlanta residents will be stuck with this transit from a bygone era for another 40 years.

This piece was originally published by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation on their blog, The Forum.

Benita Dodd is vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an independent think tank that proposes market-oriented approaches to public policy to improve the lives of Georgians. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the view of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before the U.S. Congress or the Georgia Legislature.

Photo by Spmarshall42 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

What Price Urban Density?

Fanis Grammenos — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 00:38:57 -0500

We regularly hear the argument that living in a compact city is more affordable than living in one that is more spread out. But what does the data actually show about the cost of housing in compact cities, and the cost of transport in these dense places? The relationship between those two expenses and the compactness of a city could tell us much about which kinds of places are most affordable, since those two costs together dominate household budgets.

Advocates of denser urban environments have developed an index to measure the effects of a range of aspects of city living, such as vehicle miles traveled, traffic safety, congestion, the cost of housing, the cost of transportation, and health outcomes, among many other issues. The index takes into account several metrics, such as density, street accessibility and the mix of land uses.

The index was conceived with the intent to study presumed negatives of city growth, and to make such growth “smarter.” Since the impulse to create it was advocacy-driven, it may lack objectivity. Notwithstanding this potential bias, and lacking alternative data, we used it as the default measure for our analyses, and consider our work a chance to test the validity and reliability of the index.

First, we looked at housing costs. Casual and investigative observers seem to agree that housing costs do rise with city compactness. A recent report on the effects of compactness determined that housing costs increased by 1.1% for every 10-point increase in the compactness index. Other researchers have come to similar conclusions, using only population density as an indicator.

Chart 1, which plots data from the 2015 Consumer Expenditure Survey, confirms this general agreement on the correlation between compactness and housing costs. But questions arise from the sharp differences between pairs of cities.

For example, Boston and Atlanta residents use the same percentage of their budgets — 33% — for housing. Yet Boston’s compactness index is at least 90 points higher: 37.4 for Atlanta, vs 126.9 for Boston. According to Smart Growth theory, that difference should bring housing expenditures for Bostonians to 43%, about the same level that is experienced by New Yorkers.

In another comparison, Boston and Miami differ little in compactness: 126.9 vs 112. Yet these two cities differ substantially in the percentage of household budget residents devote to housing costs - 33% vs 39%.

Clearly, in both these examples and in the chart above, compactness is but one of many factors and, perhaps, not the dominant one in the relationship between a city's housing costs and its compactness. Others need to be identified, quantified and incorporated. The trend, however, is indisputable: Greater compactness increases housing costs.

Do transportation costs follow the same trend?

According to theory, cities that are more compact offer more transport options, particularly public transit systems, some of which, like subways, outperform all other modes for time — especially work commute time — and provide travel options that are more affordable. Walking and biking may also be alternate means of mobility that help hold down household transport expenditures in compact cities. The association between density and high non-auto share of trips has already been demonstrated.

Consumer Expenditure Survey data from 2015, when plotted, confirms this assumption. Chart 2 shows a decreasing proportion of the household budget being used for transportation as a city’s compactness index increases.

However, as with housing costs, a close look at the differences between paired cities raises questions. Atlanta and Philadelphia share the same percentage of household budget expenditure on transport, 16%. Yet they differ by 70 points on the compactness index, 37.4 vs 109.05. Meanwhile, Washington and Seattle register an almost identical compactness index — 107.6 vs 104.6 — but the latter, contradicting theory, has transportation costs that are 3 percentage points lower, even though it lacks a subway. Both these cases demonstrate that the current model for measuring the impact of compactness needs fundamental refinements to improve its predictive value.

So far, the data show two countervailing trends: Housing costs rise with compactness, while transportation costs fall. This finding leaves the question of whether more compact cities are more affordable to live in, at least with respect to these two expenditures that consume about half of a household’s budget.

Using the same data from the CES for the 18 cities, we plotted the results of combining the two expenditures, as a percentage of the household budget.

Chart 3 shows an inverse, albeit weak, association of compactness with combined household expenditures of housing and transportation. It clearly does not indicate that more compact cities are more affordable for the average household. Upon a closer look the chart reveals some instructive surprises.

First, Atlanta appears among a group of five most affordable cities, even though it has by far the lowest compactness index (40.9) of all eighteen cities in the CES survey. According to traded wisdom, its transport costs, being almost entirely based on automobile travel, should overwhelm its housing expenditures.

Contradicting theory, Atlanta posts next to lowest average housing cost ($16,316/year), and also one but lowest transportation costs ($8,086/year). When considering that average income in Atlanta is on a par with that in Los Angeles ($69,821 vs $69,118), and that its compactness index is 80 points lower than LA’s, its comparative affordability challenges current thinking about compactness and its effects.

Second, four cities hover around the same point of the index (#110), yet they cover almost the entire gamut of budget percentage expenditure (49% to 54%) for combined housing-plus-transport costs. The same is true for five cities aligning around the #130 of the index.

It's apparent that current theory falls short of adequately explaining field data. A city planner would find little comfort in knowing that a fourfold range of compactness can be equated with the same level of affordability, or that the same level of compactness can be associated with a wide range of combined transportation and housing expenditures. If anything, these results suggest that, because average housing expenses are double those of transportation, a yet-to-be-determined density ceiling might be an effective means of increasing a city’s affordability.

The CES data is only a snapshot in time that may reflect transient conditions, such as gasoline prices, local inflated real estate markets, congestion levels that affect gas consumption, effectiveness and reach of public transit and so on. Variability in these factors will always affect the average transport and housing expenditures. A predictive model should be robust enough to handle such fluctuations, if it is to have practical value.

Yes, greater compactness is associated with higher housing costs and lower transportation costs. But, contrary to unsubstantiated assertions, when these are combined, the result is less — not more — overall affordability.

Fanis Grammenos heads Urban Pattern Associates (UPA), a planning consultancy. UPA researches and promotes sustainable planning practices including the implementation of the Fused Grid, a new urban network model. He is a regular columnist for the Canadian Home Builder magazine, and author of Remaking the City Street Grid: A model for urban and suburban development. Reach him at fanis.grammenos at gmail.com.

Flickr photo by Tim Bartel of a San Francisco neighborhood

Cities That Locate Art In Odd Places

Richard Reep — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 10:25:37 -0400

The city sidewalk today is pretty empty, with online shopping and social media having replaced shoe leather on pavement. Restrictions in the name of safety have also become more common since 9/11. One result of these trends is a movement called Art in Odd Places : the work of artists that use public space itself as a huge, blank canvas. Orlando is the most recent city to experiment in this fashion. This month, more than fifty artists there reasserted the right to an unfettered exchange of ideas in public space, reinventing the sidewalk. It was an interesting experiment that led to some bigger questions about the relationship between public space and civic involvement.

Art in Odd Places was started by New York artist Ed Woodham in 1996 during the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta, which coincided with the Olympics. With the media focused on sports, few recall that the Olympics is a celebration of mind and spirit, as well as of the body. Olympic cities host poets on the street reciting verses, and painters and sculptors exhibiting their pieces. Woodham struggled with officials to bring performance art to the event, and went home determined to keep the town square in its rightful place as the unfettered medium of exchange for art and ideas.

All the way through the nineties, movies and television documented sidewalks thronging with people, parks full of activity, and public plazas alive with protests or festivals. Despite popular rhetoric that accuses the car of killing public space, something different was happening. Sidewalks and plazas have continued as the arena for public encounters in our cities. They reached capacity, but as cities spread out the car had little effect on, for example, Times Square, or on any other city’s sidewalk.

Something funny started happening however; something only a few like Ed Woodham noticed. “In Atlanta, we were placed in a designated ‘free speech zone,’ which I found odd,” he commented to me while preparing for Orlando’s event. “I wondered when the city was no longer a free speech zone in its entirety.” Woodham noted, in particular, the clampdown after 9/11. Any sort of organized activity on the sidewalk was more and more regulated, in part due to a heightened sense of security.

Today the value of public space is open to debate. Nicolett Mall, a pedestrian zone in downtown Minneapolis, is hardwired into the city’s soul and is being rejuvenated. Meanwhile, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is considering removal of the plazas in Times Square that have attracted a lively crowd and the presence of costumed characters and street performers, many of them seeking tips.

In 2013, Greensboro, North Carolina hosted Art in Odd Places, and the director of downtown Orlando’s Gallery at Avalon Island art curator Pat Greene visited. Two years later, Greene successfully co-curated the Orlando show, along with Voci Dance Director Genevieve Bernard. Between September 17th and 20th this year, Orlando became a host to dozens of artists on the street. The theme in Orlando is “Tone,” which is interpreted by each artist individually; pieces have been created around audio tones, color tones or other meanings of this word (I reviewed the work in a recent critique for the Orlando Weekly).

For example, Forrest MacDonald’s subtle water pipes, inserted next to actual storm water pipes, were sprinkled down Magnolia Avenue, with hands reaching out of the pipes to stroke tufts of grass. Nathan Selikoff fed a microphone into a computer, and then onto a giant screen, projecting an “Audiograph” that mapped the soundwaves of the city like a huge EEG.

On the more ethereal side, performance artist Masami Koshikawa created “Self Portrait as Butterfly Woman,” posing in white while an assistant invited passersby to place gold origami butterflies on her body suit. This gesture broke the barriers between strangers and the taboo of touch, and represented a sublime moment in the festival. Koshikawa eventually collected hundreds of butterflies.

Arvid Tomayko paraded up and down Magnolia Street in his “Wearable Tentacle Horn,” a suit with trumpets coming out the ends of various sleeves. And Chris Scala pulled a wire mesh camper into a parking lot and slept in it, LED lights washing over his sleeping form, in a piece entitled “X-Ray Camper”. These are only a few examples of artists using public space to make a spectacle in a traditional manner.

I visited Art in Odd Places at the height of the lunch rush on one day. A few scattered pedestrians wandered in and out of restaurants, and a preschool teacher led her little ones back to school from a library trip. The artists and their supporters comprised the largest single population group. (More people came by in the evening, according to Greene.)

In the last ten years, the number of people living in downtown Orlando has actually increased, with more and more residential housing available in and around the city’s core. What has sucked the life out of sidewalks, it turns out, isn’t the suburbs; instead, it's the tiny screen and the big screen that have occupied more and more of our lives, taking over the social space that was once reserved for the street. Casual shopping encounters, mixing social and economic activity, walking to business appointments, encounters on the once-active courthouse steps: all of this has become the archaic activity of yesteryear.

Art in Odd Places did interrupt the tiny screen focus of the average pedestrian who braved the sunny weather that day. Some of the artists deliberately sought to enter the cell phones of bystanders: Sound artist Jeff Knowlton created an app called “Sonify: Orlando” which, when downloaded, provided an acoustic narrative with sounds triggered by the immediate location. A new art form, which Knowlton describes as “locative media,” is born. And overall, Woodham, in an optimistic manner, has aroused artists in city after city to reinvent the sidewalk. In Orlando, the event was a success.

The darker issue of the regulation of the sidewalk, has, however, remained unaddressed. Woodham feels that well-meaning but overly stiff regulation has turned people out of their public space, and is working hard to reinvigorate the streets with art. Where a vacuum exists, artists often rush in, and the result reflects our contemporary culture. This type of activist art is not seeking to right a gross injustice or advocate a cause, except for that of free speech. It is spurred by open conjecture about the future use of the sidewalk, and asks pedestrians to re-invent the nature of our public space in the twenty-first century.

Richard Reep is an architect with VOA Associates, Inc. who has designed award-winning urban mixed-use and hospitality projects. His work has been featured domestically and internationally for the last thirty years. An Adjunct Professor for the Environmental and Growth Studies Department at Rollins College, he teaches urban design and sustainable development; he is also president of the Orlando Foundation for Architecture. Reep resides in Winter Park, Florida with his family.

Photos by the author: Anna McCambridge interacting with a piece of "Storm Water;" Koshikawa, right, with butterfly assistant.

Homebuyers Confront China Syndrome

Joel Kotkin — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:37:49 -0400

China has hacked our government, devastated or severely challenged our industries and enjoyed one of the greatest wealth transfers in history – from our households to its. China also benefits from by far the largest trade surplus with the United States and also owns 11 percent of our national debt.

Sometimes it seems to be increasingly China’s world, and we just happen to live in it. Some, such as columnist Thomas Friedman and Daniel A. Bell, author of the newly published “The China Model,” even suggest we adjust our political system to more closely resemble that of the Chinese.

Yet, a funny thing has happened on the way to global domination – the Chinese are coming here with their money, and, often, with their families. Rather than seeing China as the land of opportunity, more Chinese have been establishing homes in America, particularly in California, where they account for roughly one-third of foreign homebuyers, with upward of 70 percent paying cash. Overall Chinese investment in U.S. real estate has grown from $50 million in 2000 to $14 billion in 2013, surpassing all other foreign investors.

Read the entire piece at The Orange County Register.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is also executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is also author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He lives in Orange County, CA.

Aging America: The U.S. Cities Going Gray The Fastest

Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 13:12:39 -0400

For years we have been warned about the looming, profound impacts that the aging of the U.S. population will have on the country. Well, the gray wave has arrived. Since 2000, the senior population has increased 29% compared to overall population growth of 12%. The percentage of Americans in the senior set has risen from 12.4% to 14.1%, and their share of the population is projected to climb to 19.3% by 2030. There are two principal causes for this: the baby boom generation is reaching 65 years old, while the U.S. fertility rate has fallen markedly in recent decades, despite immigration, and now hovers around the replacement rate.

To find the cities that are going gray the fastest, we looked at the change from 2000 through 2013 in the share of seniors in the populations of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, the 52 metropolitan statistical areas that have more than a million residents. Some 13.2% of the residents of these 52 MSAs are seniors, a lower proportion than nationwide.

Before we look at where the biggest changes have occurred, let’s take a look at where the highest overall concentrations of seniors are: no big surprise, in Florida, and in the slow-growing Northeast and Midwest. Among the 52 biggest metropolitan areas, Tampa-St. Petersburg has the highest share of seniors in its population at 18.2%. The retirement mecca of Miami, where 16.7% of its population is over 65, ranks third in the nation, and Jacksonville is 18th, at 13.7%.

Outside of Florida almost all the retirement capitals are in the Northeast and Midwest. The second most senior region, for example, is Pittsburgh, where 18.0% of the population is over 65. The old Steel City is followed by a host of Rust Belt metro areas: Cleveland, Rochester, Providence, Hartford, St. Louis and Detroit, all of which have a senior set that makes up 14% or more of the overall population.

Austin, Texas, has the smallest proportion of seniors, at 9.2%, but its senior share is rising — more on Austin later on. Salt Lake City, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth are also below 10%, while Raleigh has the fifth-lowest proportion of seniors, at 10.2%. Not surprisingly, all of these relatively young cities are experiencing strong domestic in-migration.

Cities That Are Aging The Most

The metropolitan areas that have seen the biggest jumps in the senior proportion of their populations, have, for the most part, been the same ones that have drawn strong net domestic in-migration of millennials, families and working adults. The rise in the share of seniors in these cities isn’t because seniors are moving to them in overwhelming numbers — Census data shows they make major moves less than all other age groups. (In 2011-12, seniors moved to another state five times less frequently than those between the ages of 25-34, according to Current Population Survey figures.) Rather, many of those who have reached 65 since 2000 in the cities that top our list moved to them when they were younger, generally in search of economic opportunities or better lives, and have aged there.

However, when seniors do decide to move, they can have a disproportionate impact on metropolitan economies because of their relative affluence. Over-65 households have a net worth 2.5 times the national average, according to Census Bureau data. Seniors (over 62) were far less damaged in the housing bust than younger households, and their incomes increased more with the tepid economic recovery, according to St. Louis Federal Reserve studies.

In first place on our list is Atlanta, where the share of seniors in the population rose from 7.7% in 2000 to 10.4% in 2013, the biggest increase in the nation. In raw numbers, the over-65 population of the metro area rose to 572,534, an increase of 73.5% since 2000.

The percentage of the population in fast-growing Raleigh, N.C., that is over 65 grew from 8.0% to 10.2% in 2013, putting it in second place.

Austin may have a reputation as a youthful place, but it’s also getting older rapidly. The senior population has surged 91.7% since 2000 to 172,476, amid a general population boom – the share of seniors in the metro area has expanded from 7.2% to 9.2%, placing it third on our list. The metro area may be unprepared for a mounting “silver tsunami” of impoverished elderly, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Two of the cities that posted the biggest increases in the share of seniors in their populations also were among the largest overall domestic migration losers, San Jose, Calif., and Los Angeles. Since 2000, 1.7 million more U.S. residents moved away from the two metro areas than to them. Only Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans lost a larger share of its total population to domestic out-migration than San Jose, which ranks 4th in the increase of its senior population, going from 9.4% to 11.9%. Los Angeles, which trailed only New Orleans, San Jose and New York in the percentage of its population that it lost to domestic migration, went from 9.8% over-65 to 12.1%, the ninth biggest increase among the 52 largest metro areas. The combination of older households moving less and younger households leaving to take advantage of better job opportunities elsewhere may explain this.

The balance of the top 10 all experienced net domestic migration gains since 2000.

Meanwhile, the Rust Belt and Florida cities that already were among the oldest didn’t get much older. Tampa-St. Petersburg actually got younger, at least in part due to strong overall in-migration by younger people.

Are Seniors Headed To Big Cities?

One favorite meme of urban boosters is the assertion that seniors are heading to the inner city. The preponderance of evidence shows the opposite. Within the 52 largest metropolitan areas, the urban cores, measured at the small area level (zip codes) have lost seniors to the periphery. Between 2000 and 2010, the urban core senior population declined by 1.5 million, dropping from nearly 15% of the total population to 13%.The losses were pervasive, extending to all the 52 biggest MSAs except for San Diego (and there the urban core gain was miniscule, with 97% of the senior growth occurring in the suburbs and exurbs).

In contrast, suburbs and exurbs together gained over 2.82 million seniors. But the largest increases were farthest from core, in the newer, outer suburbs and exurbs. Together these areas gained 2.4 million seniors. Rather than headed into the core, the prevailing trend has been quite the opposite.

A similar pattern has been identified in Canada. A recent study of that country’s six largest cities found similar patterns, with older Canadians, if they move, tending to end up the suburban rings.

Just The Beginning

Over the next 15 years, cities are likely to age even faster. Those cities that attract the most among relatively few senior domestic migrants and which have seen their over-50 cohorts swelled by previous domestic migration should see the largest increases. At the same time, other cities with modest senior population gains could also age more quickly if more of the rest of the population moves away.

Seniors in America's Largest Metropolitan Areas, 2000-2013
Ranked by change in share of seniors, 2000-2013
Rank	MMSA	Seniors Share 2000	Seniors Share 2013	Seniors Share Change 2000-13%	Number of Seniors 2013	Change in Total Seniors 2000-13%
1	Atlanta, GA	7.7%	10.4%	34.0%	572,534	73.5%
2	Raleigh, NC	8.0%	10.2%	28.6%	124,285	96.0%
3	Austin, TX	7.2%	9.2%	27.2%	172,476	91.7%
4	San Jose, CA	9.4%	11.9%	26.7%	229,062	40.1%
5	Denver, CO	9.0%	11.3%	25.7%	304,698	57.1%
6	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	7.9%	9.9%	25.6%	676,537	64.4%
7	Jacksonville, FL	11.0%	13.7%	24.2%	191,000	54.2%
8	Houston, TX	7.7%	9.5%	24.0%	601,800	66.9%
9	Los Angeles, CA	9.8%	12.1%	23.7%	1,584,236	31.4%
10	Portland, OR-WA	10.4%	12.8%	23.5%	296,365	48.3%
11	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	9.7%	11.9%	23.1%	412,713	40.4%
12	Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	9.0%	11.0%	23.0%	656,678	51.3%
13	Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	10.3%	12.7%	22.7%	215,992	32.6%
14	Grand Rapids, MI	10.5%	12.7%	20.5%	128,805	31.6%
15	Las Vegas, NV	10.7%	12.8%	20.4%	260,156	77.5%
16	Rochester, NY	12.9%	15.5%	20.0%	167,497	22.3%
17	Detroit, MI	12.0%	14.3%	19.7%	616,033	15.5%
18	Sacramento, CA	11.3%	13.5%	19.1%	298,327	46.8%
19	Seattle, WA	10.1%	11.9%	17.9%	431,378	39.8%
20	Richmond, VA	11.4%	13.3%	17.1%	166,173	38.2%
21	San Francisco-Oakland, CA	11.7%	13.7%	16.8%	617,996	27.9%
22	New Orleans. LA	11.4%	13.2%	16.4%	164,372	8.0%
23	Memphis, TN-MS-AR	10.0%	11.7%	16.3%	156,792	28.7%
24	Salt Lake City, UT	8.0%	9.3%	15.6%	105,993	40.3%
25	Columbus, OH	10.1%	11.7%	15.5%	230,044	35.6%
26	Charlotte, NC-SC	10.5%	12.0%	15.2%	281,202	56.7%
27	Phoenix, AZ	11.9%	13.7%	15.1%	604,442	55.8%
28	Nashville, TN	10.3%	11.8%	14.9%	208,133	46.3%
29	Chicago, IL-IN-WI	10.9%	12.4%	14.3%	1,184,871	19.8%
30	Baltimore, MD	12.0%	13.7%	14.1%	379,722	23.8%
31	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	11.7%	13.3%	13.4%	283,518	21.5%
32	Kansas City, MO-KS	11.5%	13.0%	12.8%	266,749	27.9%
33	Louisville, KY-IN	12.4%	14.0%	12.4%	176,229	26.6%
34	Cleveland, OH	14.5%	16.2%	11.8%	335,054	7.5%
35	Boston, MA-NH	12.6%	14.1%	11.6%	658,710	19.0%
36	St. Louis,, MO-IL	13.0%	14.4%	11.1%	404,297	16.3%
37	San Diego, CA	11.1%	12.3%	10.8%	396,543	26.4%
38	Hartford, CT	13.9%	15.4%	10.5%	187,183	16.9%
39	New York, NY-NJ-PA	12.6%	13.9%	10.4%	2,768,694	16.3%
40	Birmingham, AL	12.8%	14.1%	10.1%	160,686	19.3%
41	San Antonio, TX	10.8%	11.9%	10.1%	270,480	46.5%
42	Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	10.5%	11.5%	9.8%	502,846	47.8%
43	Oklahoma City, OK	11.4%	12.5%	9.7%	164,481	32.2%
44	Indianapolis. IN	11.0%	12.0%	9.5%	234,973	29.0%
45	Orlando, FL	12.4%	13.4%	8.5%	304,660	49.7%
46	Milwaukee,WI	12.6%	13.5%	7.4%	211,527	12.3%
47	Providence, RI-MA	14.4%	15.4%	7.0%	247,689	8.4%
48	Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	13.4%	14.2%	6.5%	858,313	13.0%
49	Buffalo, NY	15.9%	16.5%	3.7%	186,693	0.5%
50	Miami, FL	16.4%	16.7%	1.8%	975,529	18.5%
51	Pittsburgh, PA	17.7%	18.0%	1.6%	425,102	-1.3%
52	Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	19.2%	18.4%	-4.3%	527,861	14.6%
	52 Major Metropolitan Areas	11.4%	12.9%	13.2%	22,588,129	29.2%
	Outside MMSAs	13.6%	15.7%	14.8%	22,115,945	26.4%
	United States	12.4%	14.1%	13.8%	44,704,074	27.8%

This piece first appeared at the Orange County Register.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. His newest book, The New Class Conflict is now available at Amazon and Telos Press. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. He was appointed to the Amtrak Reform Council to fill the unexpired term of Governor Christine Todd Whitman and has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.

"Senior Citizens Crossing" photo by Flickr user auntjojo.