Phoenix

Dispersion in US Metros Increases Even Before COVID-19: New Census Estimates

Wendell Cox — Tue, 05 May 2020 20:29:01 -0400

The latest US Census Bureau metropolitan area population estimates (for 2019) were largely lost in the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet the new results, released a few weeks ago, indicate that people are moving to where social distancing is less challenging — the suburbs and exurbs, with their lower density and perhaps from a pandemic point of view, their lower exposure density — with less intense human interaction and hence lower infection risk associated with ground-oriented housing (detached and attached houses and townhouses), travel by car and generally less crowded conditions, such as in stores.

Moving to Lower Densities

The new data indicates that within the major metropolitan areas, domestic migration away from the core counties was 2.23 million from 2010 to 2019. In contrast, the suburban and exurban counties gained 1.94 million. The suburban and exurban counties attracted 4.2 million more moving residents than the core counties (Figure 1). The rate has been accelerating. In the first two years of the decade, the suburbs and exurbs had about a 175,000 domestic migration advantage over the core counties. In the last three years, the suburban advantage has widened to over 600,000 (Figure 2).

This is just another manifestation of the trends that have been underway since World War II. Most recently, since 2010, 92% of major metropolitan area growth was outside the functional urban cores (Figure 3). Employment dispersion continues, with more than 90% of new jobs being created outside the downtowns (central business districts) of the major metropolitan areas since 2010 (Figure 4).

Generally Declining Growth

Population growth has fallen off strongly among the major metropolitan areas. Eight of the largest 10 had slower growth from 2015 to 2019 than the first four years of the decade. Only Atlanta and Phoenix had larger growth rates in the later period (Figure 5).

Declining Megacities

The nation’s two megacities continued their decline. New York has lost nearly 120,000 residents since 2016. Domestic migration accounted for a loss of 196,000 New York metropolitan area residents in just the last year, 1.02% of its 2018 population. Second largest Los Angeles has lost more than 60,000 residents since 2017, while its net domestic migration loss was 122,000 in the last year. This is a loss of 0.92% of its 2018 population.

Wannabe megacity Chicago continues to slip away from the 10 million status, with a population stuck at less than 9.5 million. The metropolitan area has lost about 90,000 residents since 2014 and has slightly fewer residents than in 2010. If Chicago had continued to grow at its tepid 2000s rate, the 10 million figure might have been achieved by the mid 2020s. Now, that may never occur. But as grim as things may seem, Chicago’s net domestic migration was the lowest in five years, and less as a percent of its population (0.79%) than in New York or Los Angeles.

All three largest metropolitan areas lost overall population at a similar rate last year, with New York dropping 0.31%, Los Angeles 0.27% and Chicago 0.26%.

The “Five Million” Metros

Dallas-Fort Worth retained its fourth position, three other over-5 million metropolitan areas, Houston, Washington and Miami each moved up a place, as Philadelphia fell from 5th to 8th. Philadelphia had been ranked fourth from 1950 to 2000. There was a time when Philadelphia was the nation’s largest urban center, with the city and adjacent suburbs (Southwark and Northern Liberties) having a population greater than New York City in 1790 and 1800.

Phoenix: The Next 5 Million Metropolitan Area

The “star” of this year’s population estimates was Phoenix (photo above), which reached 4,948,000 and has probably already passed five million. Phoenix became the 10th largest metropolitan area, having displaced long time top 10 incumbent Boston. It also moved past San Francisco earlier in the decade. Phoenix grew 2.0% over the past year, a feat exceeded only by Austin (2.8%) and Raleigh (2.1%) among the nations 53 metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population.

Phoenix added 399,000 net domestic migrants between 2010 and 2019, trailing only Dallas-Fort Worth (449,000). In the last year (2018-2019), Phoenix led the nation, with 71,000 net domestic migrants, easily outdistancing Dallas-Fort Worth (46,600).

Moving Away from the Largest Metropolitan Areas

Overall, domestic migration patterns have shifted away from the largest metropolitan areas. The metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population had net domestic migration of a minus 328,000 from 2010 to 2019. Metropolitan areas with from 500,000 to 1,000,000 gained 583,000. Metropolitan areas with 100,000 to 500,000 population gained 460,000. The balance of the nation, which includes smaller metropolitan areas as well as all areas outside metropolitan areas lost 716,000 (Figure 6).

After COVID-19?

The big question is how things will change in light of the COVID-19 epidemic and the lockdowns.

The metropolitan areas with the greatest pockets of urban density have a substantial challenge in controlling an epidemic that requires social distancing. The problem, as we have discussed before is not so much the population density at any macro level, but rather the personal level (See: Exposure Density and the Pandemic). Exposure density is intensified for individuals by crowded conditions (such as crowded subways, residences, elevators, shopping, events, etc.) far more than any theoretical area-wide population density. Combined with all this is the evidence that low-income citizens are more likely to fall victim to the epidemic than the rest of the population (see: Data Suggests Many New York City Neighborhoods Hardest Hit by COVID-19 Are Also Low-Income Areas).

The ability of commerce and public policy — companies, governments and people — to respond to the necessity of social distancing through internet meetings has been a revelation. Business meetings, not all, but most, can be conducted without any concern about social distancing. There could be substantial benefits to the extent that technology can virtualize the work place for millions of people.

Foremost could be the environmental gains as millions more eliminate the work trip (working at home, mostly telecommuting), along with shorter commutes made possible by lessened traffic congestion. Even before the epidemic, working at home had raced ahead of transit as a commute option in the United States. In 2018, working at home led transit in 44 of the 53 metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population.

Not being tied to a physical commute every day could make it possible for households to move to places they would prefer more. This is not just the continuing movement of people away from the crowded urban cores to the suburbs and exurbs, but even beyond. The key, obviously, is that they be able to carve out an affluent standard of living out of the post-COVID economy.

Little of this seems to portend any sort of greater centralization. It seems likely that the dispersion that has been going on for decades in the United States (and around the world) will continue.

Photograph: The Central Avenue corridor (downtown) in Phoenix (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.

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)

Adding Space to Suburbia

Rick Harrison — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 11:36:27 -0400

Space has value. Even the mere perception of space has value. As land becomes more scarce, space becomes more valuable, and has a direct impact on housing costs and a developer’s profit (or loss). Both developers and the New Urbanists who preach that dense cities are good places know this, even as they pressure town councils and planning commissions to authorize reduced lot sizes. Where they have succeeded, the resulting compressed lots sacrifice quality organic space — green space — to the point of oblivion.

Less than a half century ago, Phoenix was a sleepy retirement town with vast openness and desert character. A few years ago, my wife Adrienne and I visited the city. Today’s Phoenix, like Las Vegas, Albuquerque, etc., is a blanket of rooftop and pavement with a few strip malls spattered about. We met with developers to demonstrate a new way to design that increases lot size (value), while reducing infrastructure (costs). Without exception, developers responded: "People move to Phoenix to have a smaller lot. They do not want space." So we visited the new, compressed developments, and asked residents about their new homes. Without exception, all the residents we interviewed loved their new places, but wished they had more space, especially between themselves and their neighbors.

Simply put, a larger lot with more space is likely to be more valuable to residents, but builders are interested more in selling ‘product’ — homes. The more, the better.

A buyer will pay more for a large home than a small one; for a large lot than a small one. They will pay a premium for a home with a view of space over that what they would pay for a view into a neighbor’s adjacent yard.

Space has value, and value translates to an increased tax base.

The social engineer will argue that it’s OK to sacrifice space because there will be a small park a five or ten minute ‘walk’ away. Reality check: A very small percentage of residents will actually walk to that park, but the homes that can view that space will be priced at a premium, costing well above the homes in a sardine-like placement far from the park. In denser suburbs or new urban communities, the haves will enjoy space; the have-nots, not so much.

If space does not have value, as the proponents of dense neighborhoods claim, then why is it so heavily featured in home builders' sales and marketing materials? When a home builder uses a marketing photograph, it is taken at a wide angle to make the lot appear larger than it actually is. When a builder uses a rendering on their web site or sales materials, it’s never shown with adjacent homes compressing the visual space.

How can we feed the hunger for space? The conventional design methods that have been used since the dawn of civilization can't work. To achieve increased space while preserving a higher density standard, the housing industry needs to take an approach that incorporates innovation and attractive value.

That begins with the recognition that space is something that you feel, even though it is limited by non-transparent objects that form a physical barrier in our three dimensional world. When we are inside a structure, it’s the walls around us in reference to the flat floor; when we are outside, it's the distance we perceive between homes. We might estimate a distance as longer or shorter, depending on whether the terrain was hilly or flat.

Does five acres within a neighborhood park constitute open space? It sounds like it will, but if it's along steep slopes or thickly wooded land with natural underbrush it won’t feel open. If it’s a park that residents must stroll to from their homes, the space has less value than if it can be viewed through their windows.

As for conventional interior space, the perimeter of a home is often determined by the lot size, depending on local zoning. In the case of a Phoenix lot that is 50 feet wide by 100 feet deep, with a 5 foot side yard setback and a 20 foot front and rear yard setback, the home would be allowed to be 40 feet wide and 60 feet deep. Assuming a 20 foot by 20 foot garage and 6 inch exterior wall, that leaves 1,880 square feet of living space within the home.

But— that only would result if the home were expanded to the largest possible perimeter. Included in that perimeter would be 145 feet of side yard, the entry door, and two car spaces in the garage, leaving only 55 feet for possible window locations that would overlook the front and rear yards. Within that footprint, the architect must lay out the bedrooms, closets, bathrooms, kitchen, living and family rooms, and any other living space.

A great architect will make the resident ‘feel’ the most of the available space. A bad designer will make the home feel smaller than it actually is. Neither the good nor the bad architect (especially when the project is created by production builders) will consider the views from within the home, because, simply put, with New Urban and suburban cookie cutter subdividing, there are none. In most southern cities the rear view overlooks a wall or fence 20 feet away, and the next house structure is at a 40 foot distance. The front view (if any windows exist at all from front-placed living space) will be the garage door across the street, 90 feet away, along with driveways, the street, and parked cars. This is why modern home living spaces are rear, not front, oriented. Not much to look at. That is, unless you pay more – much more – to be in a neighborhood with larger lots.

Conventional exterior space is also dictated by city regulations. Local zoning ordinances determine the allowed width and depth, to limit density with the promise of more space and a larger home footprint. In conventionally subdivided developments, side yard space is not a quality area, since the sides of homes typically are void of windows, and even if there were views, those windows would look directly into the neighboring wall just 10 to 20 feet in the distance.

The image below shows two streets:

The left one has a 90 foot wide lot; the right one has a 60’ foot wide lot. Both use the same 25 foot front yard setback. From a ‘human’ perspective, looking down the street, both have the same 100 foot wide swath of open space, yet the smaller lot achieves 33 percent more homes with the exact same infrastructure (street) expense. Because the street covers the same land area in both cases, the actual density gain on the smaller lot would be about 25 percent, while providing the very same ‘feel’ of space as the larger lot. Assuming that the intention of suburban zoning is to set both space and value, the typical ordinance does a terrible job on providing extra actual perceived space.

Considering that space has real value, educators at colleges, and at design conferences, and all teachers of architecture and of urban and/or suburban design, should be concentrating more on how interior and exterior spaces can merge in more meaningful ways than on the trim of a front porch. Craftsman trim on a porch railing may add a wee bit of value, but living spaces coordinated with views of open space add a huge increase in value. A park may add overall neighborhood value, but living on a street that has park-like space adds tremendous value.

Cookie-cutter Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) plans generated specifically to build to the regulatory minimums will never satisfy the hunger for space. These two videos demonstrate my solutions. Along with other innovative approaches that merge planning and architecture, they show the paths we need to follow if we are to achieve sustainable housing, and sustainable zoning.

Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of LandMentor. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and LandMentor.com.

Flickr photo by Joan of cat in a suburban yard

Forget What the Pundits Tell You, Coastal Cities are Old News - it’s the Sunbelt that’s Booming

Joel Kotkin — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 11:39:28 -0500

Ever since the Great Recession ripped through the economies of the Sunbelt, America’s coastal pundit class has been giddily predicting its demise. Strangled by high-energy prices, cooked by global warming, rejected by a new generation of urban-centric millennials, this vast southern region was doomed to become, in the words of the Atlantic, where the “American dream” has gone to die. If the doomsayers are right, Americans must be the ultimate masochists. After a brief hiatus, people seem to, once again, be streaming towards the expanse of warm-weather states extending from the southeastern seaboard to Phoenix.

Since 2010, according to an American Community Survey by demographer Wendell Cox, over one million people have moved to the Sunbelt, mostly from the Northeast and Midwest.

Any guesses for the states that have gained the most domestic migrants since 2010? The Sunbelt dominates the top three: Texas, Florida and Arizona. And who’s losing the most people? Generally the states dearest to the current ruling class: New York, Illinois, California and New Jersey. Some assert this reflects the loss of poorer, working class folks to these areas while the “smart” types continue to move to the big cities of Northeast and California. Yet, according to American Community Survey Data for 2007 to 2011, the biggest gainers of college graduates, according to Cox, have been Texas, Arizona and Floria; the biggest losers are in the Northeast (New York), the Midwest (Illinois and Michigan).

For the most part, notes demographer Cox, this is not a movement to Tombstone or Mayberry, although many small towns in the south are doing well, this is a movement to Sunbelt cities. Indeed, of the ten fastest growing big metros areas in America in 2012, nine were in the Sunbelt. These included not only the big four Texas cities—Austin, Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio—but also Orlando, Raleigh, Phoenix, and Charlotte.

Perhaps the biggest sign of a Sunbelt turnaround is the resurgence of Phoenix, a region devastated by the housing bust and widely regarded by contemporary urbanists as the “least sustainable” of American cities. The recovery of Phoenix, appropriately named the Valley of the Sun, is strong evidence that even the most impacted Sunbelt regions are on the way back.

A look at the numbers on domestic migration undermines the claim that most Americans prefer, like the pundit class, to live in and near the dense Northeastern urban cores. People simply continue to vote with their feet. Since 2000, more than 300,000 people have moved to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte; in contrast a net over two million left New York and 1.4 million have deserted the LA area while over 600,000 net departed Chicago and almost as many left the San Francisco Bay region. These trends were slowed, but not reversed, by the Great Recession.

The Sunbelt’s recovery seems likely to continue in the future. Immigrants, who account for a rising proportion of our population growth, are increasingly heading there. New York remains the immigrant leader, with the foreign-born population increasing by 600,000 since 2000 but second place Houston, a relative newcomer for immigrants, gained 400,000, more than Chicago and the Bay Area combined. The regions experiencing the highest rate of newcomers were largely in the south; Charlotte and Nashville saw their foreign-born populations double as immigrants increasingly beat a path to the Sunbelt cities.

The final demographic coup for the Sunbelt lies in its attraction for families. Eight of the eleven top fastest growing populations under 14, notes Cox, are found in the Sunbelt with New Orleans leading the pack. Generally speaking, roughly twenty percent or more of the population of Sunbelt metros are under 14, far above the levels seen in the rustbelt, the Left Coast, or in the Northeast.

This all suggests that the Sunbelt is cementing, not losing, its grip on America’s demographic future. By 2012 and 2017, according to a survey by the manufacturing company Pitney Bowes nine of the ten leading regions in terms of household growth will be in the Sunbelt.

If the population growth rates predicted by the US Conference of Mayors continue, Dallas-Ft. Worth will push Chicago out of third place among American metropolitan areas in 2043, with Houston passing the Windy City eight years later. Now seventh place Atlanta would move up to sixth place and Phoenix to 8th. Of America’s largest cities then, five would be located in the Sunbelt, and all are expected to grow much faster than New York, Los Angeles or the San Francisco area. Overall, the South would account for over half the growth in our major metropolitan areas in 2042, compared to barely 3.6 percent for the Northeast and 8.7 percent in the Midwest.

What drives the change? Not just the sun, but the economy, stupidos!

From the beginning of the Sunbelt ascendency, sunshine and warm weather have been important lures and this may even be more true in the near future. But the key forces driving people to the Sunbelt are largely economic—notably job creation, lower housing prices and lower costs relative to incomes.

Until the housing bust, states like Arizona, Nevada and Florida were typically among the leaders in creating new jobs but their performance fell off with the decline of construction. But other Sunbelt locales, notably Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma have picked up much of the slack. This resurgence has been centered in Texas, which created nearly a million new jobs between 2007 and 2013. In contrast, arch-rival California has lost a half a million.

Many other Sunbelt states have yet to recover jobs lost from the recession, but most of their big metros have shown strong signs of recovery. Since 2007 five of the seven fastest growing jobs markets among the twenty largest cities were in Sunbelt states. Looking forward, recent estimates of job growth between 2013 and 2017, according to Forbes and Moody’s project employment to grow fastest in Arizona, followed by Texas. Also among the top ten are several states hit hard by the Recession, notably Florida, Georgia and Nevada. No Northeastern state appeared anywhere on the list; nor did California.

For all its shortcomings, including what some may consider the overuse of tax breaks and incentives, the much-dissed Sunbelt development model continues to reap some significant gains. The area’s history of lagging economically has long spurred Sunbelt economic developers to utilize a policy of light regulation, low taxes and lack of unions to lure businesses to their area. Sunbelt states—Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Arizona—dominate the ranks of the most business friendly states in the union, notes Chief Executive magazine, findings they often cite when courting footloose businesses.

The clear economic capital of the Sunbelt is now Houston, with some stiff competition from Dallas-Ft. Worth. Houston, the energy capital, now ranks second only to New York in new office construction and is the overall number one for corporate expansions. There are fifty new office buildings going up in the city, including Exxon Mobil’s campus, the country’s second largest office complex under construction (after New York’s Freedom Tower). Chevron, once Standard Oil of California, has announced plans to construct a second tower for its downtown Houston campus while Occidental Petroleum, founded more than fifty years ago in Los Angeles, is moving its headquarters to Houston.

Houston’s ascendance epitomizes the shift in the geographic and economic center of the Sunbelt. The “original in the Xerox machine” for Sunbelt style growth, Los Angeles’ rise was powered by new industries like entertainment and aerospace and oil, ever expanding sprawl and a strong, tightly knit business elite. Pleasant weather and Hollywood glitz still inform the image of Los Angeles, but under a regime dominated by government employee unions, greens and developers of dense housing, it suffers unemployment almost four points higher than Houston . Nine million square feet of space is currently being built in Houston, compared to just over one million in Los Angeles-Orange which has more than twice the population. It is not in the rising Sunbelt but in places like Southern California, where jobs lag amidst high costs, that the American dream now seems most likely to die.

Movin’ on Up

In Houston particularly but throughout the Sunbelt, job growth critically is not tied to cheap labor, but to industries like energy which pay roughly $20,000 more than those in the information sector. According to EMSI, a company that models labor market data, energy has generated some 200,000 new jobs in Texas alone over the past decade. Although Houston is the primary beneficiary, the American energy boom is also sparking strong growth in other cities, notably Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City.

Once dependent on low-wage industries such as textiles and furniture, the energy boom is pacing a Sunbelt move towards generally better paying heavy manufacturing. Texas and Louisiana already lead the nation in large new projects, many of them in petrochemicals and other oil-related production. Of the biggest non-energy investments, three of the top four, according to the Ernst and Young Investment Monitor, are in Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina, which are becoming the new heartland of American heavy manufacturing, notably in automobiles and steel. Since 2010, Birmingham, Houston, Nashville and Oklahoma city all have enjoyed double digit growth in high paying industrial jobs that used to be the near exclusive province of the Great Lakes, California and the Northeast.

The Sunbelt resurgence is important in part because it offers some hope to millions of Americans who may not have gone to Harvard or Stanford, but have work skills and ambition. The region’s growth in what might be called “middle skilled jobs” that pay $60,000 or above has been impressive.

It may come as a surprise to some, but the Sunbelt is also pulling ahead in high tech jobs. In a recent analysis of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) job growth for Forbes we found that out of out of the 52 largest regions, the four most rapid growers over the past decade were Austin, Raleigh, Houston and Nashville, with Jacksonville, Phoenix and Dallas also in the top fifteen. In contrast New York ranked #36th out of 52 and Los Angeles, a long-time tech superpower, now a mediocre #38.

In another example of how much things are changing, when college students in the South now graduate, noted a recent University of Alabama study, they do go to the “big city” but their top four choices outside the state are in the Sunbelt—Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, Tenn., and Dallas—and followed then by New York. The biggest net gains in people with BAs and higher are primarily in the sunbelt, led by Phoenix, Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio; the biggest losers, according to Cox’s calculations, have been New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and, surprisingly given its reputation, Boston.

These trends may become more pronounced as the current millennial generation starts settling down into family life. Housing costs could prove a decisive factor. In terms of the median multiple, median housing cost as share of median household income, Sunbelt cities tend to be about half as expensive as New York, Boston or Los Angeles, and one third of the Bay Area.

To be sure, many of the “best and brightest” will continue to flock to New York, the Bay Area or Los Angeles, but many more—particularly those without Ivy degrees or wealthy parents—may migrate to those places where their paycheck stretches the furthest. The Sunbelt, with its job growth, strong middle class wages and lows housing costs, is a good bet for the future.

What will the future bring?

Prosperity, Herodotus reminded us, “never abides long in one place.” Certainly the Sunbelt economy could lose its current momentum but fortunately, having been schooled by the housing bust, many Sunbelt communities are increasingly focused on improving their basic economy—jobs, income growth, and skills-based education. Tennessee and Louisiana, for example, have led the way on expanding working training, and some of most ambitious education reform is taking place in New Orleans and Houston.

Yet, there are many threats to continued growth, both internal and external. Given his penchant for executive orders and his close ties to wealthy green donors, President Obama could take steps—for example clamping down on fossil fuel development—that could reverse the steady growth along the Gulf Coast. Any draconian shift on climate change policies would be most detrimental to the energy sector Sunbelt states.

But President Obama will not be in office forever. In the long run, the biggest threat to the Sunbelt ascendency is internal. Some fear that as more easterners and Californians flock to the area, they will bring with them a taste for the very regulatory and tax policies that have stifled growth in the states they left behind . Most worryingly, so called “smart growth” regulations could drive housing costs up, as occurred in Florida and several other states in the last decade, and erode some of the Sunbelt’s competitive advantage.

Perhaps the most immediate threat comes from the angry, reactionary elements on the right, who tend to be more powerful in the sunbelt than elsewhere. These groups, sometimes including the Tea Party, have taken positions on issues like immigration and gay rights that local business leaders fear could deprive their regions of energetic and often entrepreneurial newcomers. Equally important, the right’s anti-tax orthodoxy, although perhaps not as devastating as the huge burdens placed on middle class individuals in the North and California, could delay critical outlays in transportation, parks and other essential infrastructure in regions that are growing rapidly. This is particularly true of education, a field in which most Sunbelt cities, while gaining ground, remain below the national average.

Whatever one thinks of the motivations of the green clerisy, there are clearly environmental measures, particularly in the Sunbelt’s western regions, that these cities need to enact to protect future growth. This includes reducing the amount of concrete that creates “heat islands,” expanding parks, and shifting to more drought resistant plants.

Fortunately, many leaders throughout the Sunbelt, particularly in its cities, are aware of these challenges, and are looking for ways to tackle them. This is driven not by the doomsday environmentalism common in California and Northeast, but grows instead out of a practical concern with stewarding critical resources and creating the right amenities to foster continued growth.

Combined with basics like lower housing costs and taxes, it’s a common optimism about the future that really underlies the resurgence now occurring from Phoenix to Tampa. The long-term shifts in American power and influence that have been underway since the 1950s have not been halted by the housing bust. Disdained by urban aesthetes, hated by much of the punditry, and largely ignored except for their failings in the media, the Sunbelt seems likely to enjoy the last laugh when it comes to shaping the American future.

This story originally appeared at The Daily Beast.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. 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.

Houston skyline photo by Bigstock.

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)

Biggest Boomer Towns

Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:53:37 -0400

The boomer generation, spawned (literally) in the aftermath of the Second World War, will continue to shape the American landscape well into the 21st Century. They may be getting older, but these folks are still maintaining their power. Those born in the first ten years of the boomer generation — between 1945 and 1955 — number 36 million, and they will continue to influence communities and real estate markets across the country, especially as they contemplate life after kids and retirement.

Much has been written about where “empty nesters” might move as their children move off on their own. One longstanding favorite is the notion that, having jettisoned their children, the boomers will also desert their suburban communities for the bright city lights.

Unfortunately for developers — some of whom have invested heavily in high-end housing for urbanizing “empty nesters” — the actual data do not support this thesis. Indeed, our analysis of migration by this cohort in the past 10 years shows a 10.3% decline among core city dwellers, a loss of some 1.3 million people over the past decade. For this analysis, Forbes, with the help of demographer Wendell Cox, looked at population numbers from the Census for boomers aged 45 to 54 in 2000 and compared them with the numbers for those ages 55 to 64 in 2010.

These population changes include reductions due principally to deaths. Census data do not include mortality information. This cohort lost 3.2% of its population over the 10 years. This would only marginally reduce the changes between 2000 and 2010, while the scale of differences between the metropolitan areas would be identical.

So where are these surviving boomers settling as they enter their likely extended golden years? The results may surprise urban boosters who have confidently expected them to flock downtown.

To be sure, a few of the highly affluent — the ones mentioned in the mainstream media — may purchase homes, or pied-à-terres, in places like Manhattan, Chicago’s Gold Coast or San Francisco. But these areas actually have suffered an exodus of boomers over the past decade. In our ranking of the 51 largest metros in the U.S., the urban cores of San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago scored near the bottom, suffering double-digit percentage losses of boomers. According to the last Census, New York’s urban core, which the Daily News suggested is packed with aspiring seniors, lost 12% of boomers in their mid-50s to mid-60s — or about 274,000 people.

Over the past three years you could blame this loss on the economy, which has postponed retirements brought home many of the boomers’ young, largely unemployed or underemployed children back to the suburban homestead. Or you can credit it to more active lifestyles among boomers who appear to working later than ever. According to a Careerbuilder.com survey, over 60% of workers over 60 indicated they are postponing retirement.

Yet perhaps something more profound is at work here. An analysis of those who were 55 to 65 in 2000 and 65 to 75 in 2010 reveals an even stronger anti-urban bias, with an over 12% drop in city dwellers. Since these folks are far less likely to have kids at home and more properly retired, this cohort’s behavior suggests that aging boomers are if anything less likely to move to the cities in the next decade.

Indeed, if boomers do move, notes Sandi Rosenbloom, a noted expert on retirement trends and professor of Planning and Civil Engineering at the University of Arizona, they tend to move to less dense and more affordable regions. The top cities for aging boomers largely parallel those that appealed to the “young and restless” in our earlier survey. The top ten on our list are all affordable, generally low-density Sun Belt metros:

Las Vegas, Nev.
Phoenix, Ariz.
Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.
Orlando, Fla.
Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.
Raleigh, N.C.
Austin, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
Jacksonville, Fla.
Charlotte, N.C.-S.C.

But according Sandi Rosenbloom, a noted expert on retirement trends and a professor of planning and civil engineering at the University of Arizona, most boomers are staying put, largely in the suburbs they settled in decades ago. The propensity to move, she points out, starts to drop precipitously as people leave their early 30s. Roughly 1 in 3 people in their 20s move in a given year; by the time they enter their 40s, that figure slides to about 1 in 10. As people age into their 50s and beyond, the percentage drops to roughly 5%, or 1 in 20.

“The boomers are staying put more than anyone thought,” Rosenbloom says. “People of that generation tend to own their own homes and stay there. The idea that they are moving to the city really comes from the wishful thinking school of planning.”

The recession has exacerbated this stay-at-home trend. The number of people moving is at its lowest level since the early 1960s. When boomers do decide to move, Rosenbloom notes, they do so largely for prosaic reasons, such as being closer to children or, more important, grandchildren.

Others succumb to the temptation to cash out expensive housing in metros like New York, Los Angeles, the Bay Area or Boston for less costly residences in Sun Belt locales. Housing in and around these core cities, particularly in attractive neighborhoods, Rosenbloom adds, are simply too expensive for the vast majority of budget-conscious seniors.

Much of this also has to do with the lifestyle preferences of both boomers and seniors, which appear far different than those put forth by urban pundits. People over 55 that Rosenbloom has interviewed usually express a preference to stay or relocate in places that are less crowded and congested. Furthermore, most are reluctant to give up their cars, and many are less able to walk than drive. This may explain why most retirement communities end up on the urban fringe or farther.

This trend — which Rosenbloom has also encountered in the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand — is also reflected by the growing shift to smaller towns and cities among both aging boomers and seniors. The “young and restless” may head to suburbs, particularly in the lower-cost Sun Belt cities, but some older Americans appear headed to even less densely populated regions. Over the past decade over 1 million aging boomers and seniors moved to more smaller cities and rural locations from suburban or urban locations.

What do these trends suggest for the future of our communities and real estate? For one, the big opportunities for selling to aging boomers will remain primarily in the suburbs and some select more rural locations. We also can expect the new senior citizens to move to more affordable places close to their children.

These findings do provide some long-term hope for the housing market, particularly in suburbs. Leading demographers have been busy predicting a massive drop-off in single-family homes as boomers retire and their children leave. Yet our analysis on the Census reveals that most boomers — as well as those older than them — are staying in the suburbs a lot longer than expected. Many will likely to stay in their homes and old neighborhoods well into their 70s or even 80s, leaving either their home either in an ambulance or to an assisted living facility.

Developers and planners anxious to service aging boomers should, instead of building downtown towers, address the needs of this generation precisely where they now live and are likely to stay. This could include adding to new residential options in the suburbs to enlivening local shopping districts while boosting senior services in everything from recreation and public safety to health care. As the rock and roll generation heads toward its dotage, both business and communities need to adjust their strategies based not on fantasies but on the realities so clearly evidenced by the Census.

This piece originally 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.

The Next Boom Towns In The U.S.

Joel Kotkin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:20:24 -0400

What cities are best positioned to grow and prosper in the coming decade?

To determine the next boom towns in the U.S., with the help of Mark Schill at the Praxis Strategy Group, we took the 52 largest metro areas in the country (those with populations exceeding 1 million) and ranked them based on various data indicating past, present and future vitality.

We started with job growth, not only looking at performance over the past decade but also focusing on growth in the past two years, to account for the possible long-term effects of the Great Recession. That accounted for roughly one-third of the score. The other two-thirds were made up of a a broad range of demographic factors, all weighted equally. These included rates of family formation (percentage growth in children 5-17), growth in educated migration, population growth and, finally, a broad measurement of attractiveness to immigrants — as places to settle, make money and start businesses.

We focused on these demographic factors because college-educated migrants (who also tend to be under 30), new families and immigrants will be critical in shaping the future. Areas that are rapidly losing young families and low rates of migration among educated migrants are the American equivalents of rapidly aging countries like Japan; those with more sprightly demographics are akin to up and coming countries such as Vietnam.

Many of our top performers are not surprising. No. 1 Austin, Texas, and No. 2 Raleigh, N.C., have it all demographically: high rates of immigration and migration of educated workers and healthy increases in population and number of children. They are also economic superstars, with job-creation records among the best in the nation.

Perhaps less expected is the No. 3 ranking for Nashville, Tenn. The country music capital, with its low housing prices and pro-business environment, has experienced rapid growth in educated migrants, where it ranks an impressive fourth in terms of percentage growth. New ethnic groups, such as Latinos and Asians, have doubled in size over the past decade.

Two advantages Nashville and other rising Southern cities like No. 8 Charlotte, N.C., possess are a mild climate and smaller scale. Even with population growth, they do not suffer the persistent transportation bottlenecks that strangle the older growth hubs. At the same time, these cities are building the infrastructure — roads, cultural institutions and airports — critical to future growth. Charlotte’s bustling airport may never be as big as Atlanta’s Hartsfield, but it serves both major national and international routes.

Of course, Texas metropolitan areas feature prominently on our list of future boom towns, including No. 4 San Antonio, No. 5 Houston and No. 7 Dallas, which over the past years boasted the biggest jump in new jobs, over 83,000. Aided by relatively low housing prices and buoyant economies, these Lone Star cities have become major hubs for jobs and families.

And there’s more growth to come. With its strategically located airport, Dallas is emerging as the ideal place for corporate relocations. And Houston, with its burgeoning port and dominance of the world energy business, seems destined to become ever more influential in the coming decade. Both cities have emerged as major immigrant hubs, attracting on newcomers at a rate far higher than old immigrant hubs like Chicago, Boston and Seattle.

The three other regions in our top 10 represent radically different kinds of places. The Washington, D.C., area (No. 6) sprawls from the District of Columbia through parts of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. Its great competitive advantage lies in proximity to the federal government, which has helped it enjoy an almost shockingly ”good recession,” with continuing job growth, including in high-wage science- and technology-related fields, and an improving real estate market.

Our other two top ten, No. 9 Phoenix, Ariz., and No. 10 Orlando, Fla., have not done well in the recession, but both still have more jobs now than in 2000. Their demographics remain surprisingly robust. Despite some anti-immigrant agitation by local politicians, immigrants still seem to be flocking to both of these states. Known better s as retirement havens, their ranks of children and families have surged over the past decade. Warm weather, pro-business environments and, most critically, a large supply of affordable housing should allow these regions to grow, if not in the overheated fashion of the past, at rates both steadier and more sustainable.

Sadly, several of the nation’s premier economic regions sit toward the bottom of the list, notably former boom town Los Angeles (No. 47). Los Angeles’ once huge and vibrant industrial sector has shrunk rapidly, in large part the consequence of ever-tightening regulatory burdens. Its once magnetic appeal to educated migrants faded and families are fleeing from persistently high housing prices, poor educational choices and weak employment opportunities. Los Angeles lost over 180,000 children 5 to 17, the largest such drop in the nation.

Many of L.A.’s traditional rivals — such as Chicago (with which is tied at No. 47), New York City (No. 35) and San Francisco (No. 42) — also did poorly on our prospective list. To be sure, they will continue to reap the benefits of existing resources — financial institutions, universities and the presence of leading companies — but their future prospects will be limited by their generally sluggish job creation and aging demographics.

Of course, even the most exhaustive research cannot fully predict the future. A significant downsizing of the federal government, for example, would slow the D.C. region’s growth. A big fall in energy prices, or tough restrictions of carbon emissions, could hit the Texas cities, particularly Houston, hard. If housing prices stabilize in the Northeast or West Coast, less people will flock to places like Phoenix, Orlando or even Indianapolis (No.11) , Salt Lake City (No. 12) and Columbus (No. 13). One or more of our now lower ranked locales, like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, might also decide to reform in order to become more attractive to small businesses and middle class families.

What is clear is that well-established patterns of job creation and vital demographics will drive future regional growth, not only in the next year, but over the coming decade. 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.

Cities of the Future Rankings
Rank	Metropolitan Area
1	Austin, TX
2	Raleigh, NC
3	Nashville, TN
4	San Antonio, TX
5	Houston, TX
6	Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV
7	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
8	Charlotte, NC-SC
8	Phoenix, AZ
10	Orlando, FL
11	Indianapolis, IN
12	Salt Lake City, UT
13	Columbus, OH
14	Jacksonville, FL
15	Atlanta, GA
16	Las Vegas, NV
16	Riverside, CA
18	Portland, OR-WA
19	Denver, CO
20	Oklahoma City, OK
21	Baltimore, MD
22	Louisville, KY-IN
22	Richmond, VA
24	Seattle, WA
25	Kansas City, MO-KS
26	San Diego, CA
27	Miami, FL
28	Tampa, FL
29	Sacramento, CA
30	Birmingham, AL
31	New Orleans, LA
32	Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD
33	Minneapolis, MN-WI
34	St. Louis, MO-IL
35	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN
35	New York, NY-NJ-PA
37	Boston, MA-NH
38	Memphis, TN-MS-AR
39	Pittsburgh, PA
40	Virginia Beach, VA-NC
41	Rochester, NY
42	Buffalo, NY
42	San Francisco, CA
44	Hartford, CT
45	Milwaukee, WI
45	San Jose, CA
47	Chicago, IL-IN-WI
47	Los Angeles, CA
49	Providence, RI-MA
50	Detroit, MI
51	Cleveland, OH

This piece originally appeared at Forbes.com.

Photo by Exothermic Photography

Rethinking Urban Dynamics: Lessons from the Census

Aaron M. Renn — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:39:30 -0400

Much has been made of the vaunted “back to the city” movement by “the young and restless,” young professionals, the creative class, empty nesters and others were voting with their feet in favor of cities over suburbs. Although there were bright spots, the Census 2010 results show that the trend was very overblown, affecting mostly downtown and near downtown areas, while outlying ones bled population. One culprit for this discrepancy seems to be that the intra-census estimates supplied by the Census Bureau were inflated – in some cases very inflated.

Looking at selected core cities for major US metropolitan areas, many of them were materially over-estimated:

One particularly egregious case relates to Atlanta. Its huge projected population increase in the 2000s led me to describe it as “one of America's top urban success stories.” The reality proved to be quite different. Rather than strong population growth in the city, the population growth turned out to be basically flat, quite a different story. Other declines might be more predictable, such as Detroit, or those who had previously challenged estimates like Cincinnati and St. Louis. Still, even urban cores in rapidly growing regions like Dallas and Houston were not immune from this trend.

There were some exceptions. Cities like Indianapolis, Columbus, and Oklahoma City came in slightly ahead of expectations, but the number of cities with misses and the sizes of the positive and negative misses tilted towards the down direction.

It seems clear now that the justification for much of the “back to the city” story reflected bad estimates. People can't be faulted for relying on the official government numbers – I did. But the reality of the 2010 Census, as demonstrated by Wendell Cox and others, is that the 1990s were actually better for urban population growth in America than the 2000s in many respects.

One legitimate bright spot for cities lay in the growth of downtown and near downtown areas. Though often starting from low bases, these areas often showed impressive increases. For example, St. Louis showed good growth downtown despite a very disappointing decline in total city population:

The poster child for this phenomenon was Chicago, where a fairly expansive area in the greater core showed large population growth. Areas that were formerly almost all commercial, such as the Loop, added significant residential population, while areas that were nearly derelict like the near South Side have blossomed into thriving upscale neighborhoods.

The problem, from places ranging from Chicago to Cleveland, is that the gains in the “core of the core” have been more than offset by losses elsewhere, especially the flight of blacks and other minorities – many of them immigrants – to the increasingly diverse suburbs.

Cities across America have invested enormous sums into downtown redevelopment and major projects in selected districts. The good news: these investments have shown some ability to move the needle in terms of attracting young professionals downtown. The bad news lies with the fact that these developments have been extremely costly, and have not transformed the overall demographic or economic climates of the cities that tried them. This demonstrates the limits of the policies. Those who aren't in the young professional, empty nester, or creative class demographic have rightly figured out that they are no longer the target market of city leadership. No surprise then that many of them have decided to vote with their feet.

Given the resulting overall negative swings, cities may want to revisit their strategy of putting all their chips in the downtown redevelopment basket in favor of less glamorous improvements in basic neighborhood safety, services, schools and other critical elements. A handful of elite enclaves and talent hubs may be able to thrive on a “favored demographic quarter” strategy, but for most places there just aren't enough young professionals and artists to go around.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs based in the Midwest. His writings appear at The Urbanophile.

* Actual population minus projected population as of 4/1/2010 using a run rate projection based on the 2008-2009 estimated population growth.
** Base is the projected 4/1/2010 population above.

Photo by Ian Freimuth

Regional Exchange Rates: The Cost of Living in US Metropolitan Areas

Wendell Cox — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:36:24 -0500

International travelers and expatriates have long known that currency exchange rates are not reliable indicators of purchasing power. For example, a traveler to France or Germany will notice that the dollar equivalent in Euros cannot buy as much as at home. Conversely, the traveler to China will note that the dollar equivalent in Yuan will buy more.

Economists have attempted to solve this problem by developing "purchasing power parities," which are used to estimate currency conversion rates that equalize values based upon prices (Note 1). This helps establish the real value of money in a particular place.

When people move from one region of the United States to another they can encounter a similar phenomenon. For example, a dollar is not worth as much in San Jose as it is in St. Louis. Research by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), for example, found that in 2006 a dollar purchased roughly 35 cents less in San Jose than in St. Louis. BEA researchers estimated "regional price parities" for states and the District of Columbia and for all of the nation's metropolitan areas (Note 2). Regional price parities can be thought of as the equivalent of regional (state or metropolitan area) exchange rates. This research was covered in previous newgeography.com articles by Eamon Moynihan and this author.

This article uses Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics metropolitan area consumer price indexes to estimate the 2009 cost of living and per capita personal income adjusted for the cost of living.

Cost of Living: At the regional level (See Census Region Map, Figure 1), there are substantial differences in the cost of living (Figure 2). The lowest cost of living is in the Midwest, at 4.8 percent below the nation. The South has the second lowest cost of living at 3.9 percent above the national level. The West is the most expensive area, 13.5 percent above the national cost-of-living, while the Northeast’s cost-of-living stands 11.3 percent above the national rate.

The cost of living in the South may seem higher than expected. But if the higher cost metropolitan areas of Washington, Baltimore and Miami are excluded, the cost of living in the South falls to 1.5 percent below the national rate. If the California metropolitan areas are excluded from the West, the cost of living still remains 4.0 percent above the national rate.

Per Capita Income: The highest unadjusted per capita incomes are in the Northeast, followed by the West, the South and the Midwest. Yet when metropolitan area exchange rates are taken into consideration, the order changes significantly. The Northeast remains the most affluent, and the Midwest moves from last place to second place. The South is in third place, the same as its income rating, while the West falls from second place to fourth place (Figure 3).

Cost of Living: Variations in the cost of living, which is reflected by the metropolitan area exchange rates, remains similar in 2009 to the 2006 rankings.

The Top Ten: The lowest costs of living were in (Table 1):

1. St. Louis, where $0.891 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
2. Kansas City, where $0.903 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
3. Cleveland, where $0.921 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
4. Pittsburgh, where $0.941 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
5. Cincinnati, where $0.944 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.

Rounding out the most affordable 10 are two metropolitan areas in the South (Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth), two in the Midwest (Detroit and Milwaukee) and one in the West (Denver). No Northeastern metropolitan area was ranked in the top 10.

Table 1
Estimated Cost of Living: 2009
Metropolitan Areas over 1,000,000 with Local CPIs
Rank	Metropolitan Area	Metropolitan Exchange Rate: to Purchase $1.00 at National Average	Compared to Lowest Cost of Living
1	St. Louis, MO-IL	$0.891	0%
2	Kansas City, MO-KS	$0.903	1%
3	Cleveland, OH	$0.921	3%
4	Pittsburgh. PA	$0.941	6%
5	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	$0.944	6%
6	Atlanta. GA	$0.958	8%
7	Detroit. MI	$0.959	8%
8	Milwaukee. WI	$0.959	8%
9	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	$0.976	10%
10	Denver, CO	$0.996	12%
11	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	$1.000	12%
12	Houston, TX	$1.000	12%
13	Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	$1.006	13%
14	Phoenix, AZ	$1.011	14%
15	Portland, OR-WA	$1.034	16%
16	Chicago, IL-IN-WI	$1.041	17%
17	Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	$1.054	18%
18	Baltimore, MD	$1.068	20%
19	Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	$1.078	21%
20	Miami-West Palm Beach, FL	$1.085	22%
21	Seattle, WA	$1.120	26%
22	San Diego, CA	$1.151	29%
23	Boston, MA	$1.175	32%
24	Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	$1.181	33%
25	Los Angeles, CA	$1.222	37%
26	San Francisco-Oakland, CA	$1.258	41%
27	New York, NY-NJ-PA	$1.281	44%
28	San Jose, CA	$1.343	51%
Estimated from BEA 2006 data, adjusted by local Consumer Price Index for 2006-2009

The Bottom Ten: The most expensive metropolitan areas were:

28. San Jose, where $1.343 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
27. New York, where $1.281 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
26. San Francisco, where $1.268 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
25. Los Angeles, where $1.222 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.
24. Washington, where $1.181 purchased $1.00 in value at the national average.

The bottom ten also included three metropolitan areas in the West (Riverside-San Bernardino, San Diego and Seattle), one in the Northeast (Boston) and one in the South (Miami). There were no Midwestern metropolitan areas in the bottom 10.

Per Capita Income: Per capita income in 2009 was then adjusted for the cost of living.

Top Ten:Washington has the highest per capita income, adjusted for the cost of living, at $47,800. San Francisco placed second at $47,500. Denver ranked third at $46,200, while the cost-of-living adjusted income in Minneapolis-St. Paul was $45,800 and $45,700 in Boston. The top 10 also included two Midwestern metropolitan areas (St. Louis and Kansas City), two from the Northeast (Baltimore and Pittsburgh) and one from the West (Seattle).

Bottom Ten: The least affluent metropolitan area was Riverside-San Bernardino, with a per capita income of $27,800. Phoenix was second least affluent at $33,900 while Los Angeles was third least affluent at $35,000. The fourth least affluent metropolitan area was Tampa-St. Petersburg at $36,600 and the fifth least affluent metropolitan area was Portland at $37,400. The bottom 10 also included two metropolitan areas from the South (Atlanta and Miami), two from the Midwest (Cincinnati and Detroit) and one from the West (San Diego).

The cost of living adjusted income data includes surprises. New York, commonly considered a particularly affluent metropolitan area, ranked 17th in cost-of-living adjusted income, and below such seemingly unlikely metropolitan areas as Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cleveland, St. Louis and Milwaukee. These metropolitan areas also ranked above San Jose, which ranked first in unadjusted income in 2000, but now ranks 16th in cost of living adjusted income (Table 2).

Table 2
Personal Income Per Capita Adjusted for the Cost of Liviing
Metropolitan Areas over 1,000,000 with Local CPIs
Rank (Cost of Living Adjusted)	Rank (Unadjusted Income)	Metropolitan Area	Per Capita Income 2009: Adjusted for Cost of Living	Per Capita Income 2009: Unadjusted
1	2	Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	$47,780	$56,442
2	1	San Francisco-Oakland, CA	$47,462	$59,696
3	8	Denver, CO	$46,172	$45,982
4	9	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	$45,772	$45,750
5	4	Boston, MA	$45,707	$53,713
6	18	St. Louis, MO-IL	$45,288	$40,342
7	7	Baltimore, MD	$44,908	$47,962
8	15	Pittsburgh. PA	$44,848	$42,216
9	19	Kansas City, MO-KS	$43,862	$39,619
10	6	Seattle, WA	$43,730	$48,976
11	13	Houston, TX	$43,581	$43,568
12	16	Milwaukee. WI	$43,477	$41,696
13	11	Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	$43,247	$45,565
14	21	Cleveland, OH	$42,734	$39,348
15	12	Chicago, IL-IN-WI	$41,990	$43,727
16	3	San Jose, CA	$41,255	$55,404
17	5	New York, NY-NJ-PA	$40,893	$52,375
18	20	Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	$40,494	$39,514
19	23	Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	$40,437	$38,168
20	10	San Diego, CA	$39,647	$45,630
21	24	Detroit. MI	$39,147	$37,541
22	17	Miami-West Palm Beach, FL	$38,124	$41,352
23	26	Atlanta. GA	$38,081	$36,482
24	22	Portland, OR-WA	$37,446	$38,728
25	25	Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	$36,561	$36,780
26	14	Los Angeles, CA	$35,045	$42,818
27	27	Phoenix, AZ	$33,897	$34,282
28	28	Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	$27,767	$29,930
Estimated from BEA 2009 income data and 2006 regional price parity data, adjusted by local Consumer Price Index for 2006-2009

Some expensive metropolitan areas such as Washington, San Francisco and Boston ranked at or near the top, but their cost-of-living adjusted incomes were considerably less than the unadjusted incomes. On average, it took $1.20 to purchase $1.00 of value at national rates in these three metropolitan areas. Washington's unadjusted per capita income was 40 percent ($16,100) higher than that of St. Louis, however when the cost of living is factored in, Washington's advantage drops to 6 percent ($2,500).

Caveats: The analysis above does not consider cost-of-living differentials within metropolitan areas. For example, data from the ACCRA cost of living index indicates generally higher prices in the cores of the largest metropolitan areas, such as New York (especially Manhattan), Chicago and San Francisco. Further, these data make no adjustment for relative levels of taxation. A cost of living analysis using disposable income would produce different results, dropping higher taxed metropolitan areas to lower rankings and raising lower taxed metropolitan areas higher.

Cost of Living Differences: Will They Continue? The spread in cost-of-living between metropolitan areas have been driven wider over the last decade by the relative escalation of house prices in some metropolitan areas in the West, Florida and the Northeast. Whether these shifts in cost of living will be reflected in migration patterns will be one of the things to look for in the new Census.

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Note 1: Purchasing power parity data is published by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Note 2: The BEA research applied regional price parity factors only to employee compensation and excluded other income. It is possible that, had the analysis been expanded to these other forms of income, the differences in cost of living would have been greater.

Photo: Rosslyn, VA business district, Washington (by author)

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”

Time to Hate Those HOAs (again).

Andrew Kirby — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:54:32 -0400

The foreclosure crisis has been devastating for millions of Americans, but it has also impacted many still working as before and holding on to their homes. Even a couple of empty dwellings on a street can very quickly deteriorate and become a negative presence in the neighborhood, at the least driving down prices further, sometimes attracting crime. Untended pools can allow pests to breed. Many animals have been abandoned and shelters report overflowing traffic. The resulting impacts on local governments have been particularly visible, as property tax assessments have fallen and revenues have also gone south.

Less obvious is the impacts on home owner associations [HOAs], whose revenues have also taken a hit, albeit for rather different reasons. For the most part, HOA dues are not a function of the value of the home but rather the need to cover the costs of maintaining the common interests of the association: landscaping, security and so forth. These tend to be fixed, even if the values of the homes collapse, and may even rise if dwellings are empty and untended.

Many HOAs, especially in the newer metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas where foreclosures have been most concentrated, have taken a beating because the number of households paying into the association has been depleted, quite badly in some instances. The problem seems, from press reports, to cover the economic spectrum. Low-income first-time buyers may stop paying their dues as an economy measure, while more affluent owners are more likely to have pulled cash from their home and are walking away from their debts. There are also thousands of empty homes that were purchased as investments at the height of the boom and may have never even been occupied.

The foreclosure debacle is now old news, but the HOA situation is receiving attention because association boards are now aggressively trying to recoup their debts, even from those who have walked away from their mortgages. The debt, they argue, is attached to the individual, not to the dwelling, and is being turned over to collection agencies. Now, this is hardly a novelty. Municipalities have been turning household utility debts over to third parties for years, often with some success, and without a murmur of protest. So why is it different if HOAs do it?

The answer is that HOAs are extremely unpopular with two vocal constituencies. The first is the academic community, and its hostility is part of the professional opprobrium that is heaped on gated communities, privatization and pretty much anything connected with suburban development. Interestingly, while the design aspects of gated communities have caught the attention of planners and urbanists, relatively few have focused on the dimension of governance. Those that have written on the topic have tended to be critical of private clubs that are seen to exist at the expense of the municipal collective. For what its worth, I don’t think I’ve ever known of an academic colleague who lived in an HOA, in contrast to the bulk of my students, who live in one or grew up there.

The second constituency is more rowdy. Academics just disdain HOAs, but this group is committed to exposing them as a vast conspiracy to subvert the American way of life. This may sound like another version of contemporary “Teamania” but it is has been around for at least the past decade, during which time I’ve been monitoring Internet posts and the like. To this group, any restriction on personal freedom — from the color of one’s drapes or exterior paintwork through the display of the national flag — is clearly anathema.

Early this year, my research on neighborliness in HOAs was covered in the local paper, and by the end of the day there were dozens of online posts. In response to the basic finding — that there is little fundamental difference between HOA and traditional neighborhoods — we received a torrent of angry responses. With a single exception, they all dismissed the findings out of hand, using an example of someone’s experience (rarely their own) to prove the point, at least to their satisfaction. One reader even tracked down my email address in order to demand an assurance that no public funds were used to promote this nonsense.

Like much in contemporary American politics, this leaves me confused. I don’t understand why an exclusive residential association, freely entered into, with explicit rules that are presented at the outset, offering services-for-cash, is un-American. After all, this is in contrast to a municipality that levies taxes for services from which one cannot opt out (if one has no children in the schools, for instance) and which may not be available to all (such as public transport), and which could easily be seen as a redistributive institution, an example of that socialism we keep hearing so much about.

For the record, I am happy to pay my property taxes for services I don’t receive — its just part of the social contract. Nor do I live in an HOA. But I can understand why our research indicates that most people who live in them do prefer them (and, for example, often move from one HOA to another). Rather than displaying the angst of those who seem to get nervous if anyone tries to step on their toes, these residents embrace belonging to a small polity in which they have a voice. And we should remember that rules, like fences, make good neighbors. As these neighborhoods become more diverse, traditional and non-traditional households alike can find reassurance in the behavioral conformity demanded of neighbors by an HOA.

This brings us back to the recent stories about management boards ‘hounding’ those who have not paid their dues. Similar accounts have shown up for years, and the thrust is always the same: punitive, out-of-control boards attack those already in financial distress. There is clearly a lot of the latter to go round, but it’s hard to see why HOAs are much different than any other organization that is looking at a handful of bad debts. Are the HOAs the victims here? Absolutely not. Many embraced the housing bubble, and permitted speculators to buy in, even though they had no intention of living in the properties. At the height of the madness, up to one third of all housing transactions in Phoenix were initiated by out-of-state buyers who drove up home prices precipitately, and eventually caused the median house price to double. This has since corrected. All CC&Rs (the rules of the HOA) that I have seen dictate however that the purchaser must live in the property and that rental units are not permissible. So, like all the other players, the HOA boards liked the price increases so much that they ignored their own rules and looked the other way, a lapse for which they are now paying the price.

Still, it would be a mistake compounding a mistake to climb on the anti-HOA bandwagon, now joined by the ACLU, which has recently joined the fray over a fight about a homeowner’s right to fly the Gadsden flag (motto: “Don’t step on me”). Libertarians should recognize that no-one has ever been forced to live in an association and that whipping up the wrath of state legislatures to control HOAs is a bad idea: it encourages even more government intervention, and it messes with the neighborhood, a form of governance that the vast majority rightly supports, even in HOAs.

Andrew Kirby has written about HOAs on several occasions, including the 2003 edited volume “Spaces of Hate”. He most recently wrote about ‘The Suburban Question’ on this site in February.

Photo by monkiemag