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Top Zip Codes for New Apartments: 2018 - 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

State Analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Huge Spike in Domestic Migration from Urban Cores

Wendell Cox — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 20:28:58 -0400

Net domestic migration losses spiked perhaps as never before in the pandemic year of 2021 among urban core counties --- the counties that contain the urban cores (Note 1). This article reviews net domestic migration trend in the major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 residents) based on US Census Bureau data for 2021 and going back to 2010. The analysis is limited to 51 of the 56 major metropolitan areas that have more than one county. Since the Census Bureau does not estimate domestic migration below the county level, urban core versus outlying (or suburban) can only be calculated for metros with more than one county (Note 2). As a result, there are no results for Fresno, Honolulu, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Tucson.

Urban Core Counties

Among these urban core counties there was a net loss of 1,122,000 net domestic migrants in 2021. (see Table) This is a 140% increase from the minus 466,000 in 2020 and nearly 10 times the average net domestic migration loss of 115,000 in the first five years of the decade (2010 to 2015). The peak net domestic migration for these metropolitan areas was in 2012, when there was a loss of about 2,000.

In the second half of the decade (2016 to 2020), the average urban core county net domestic migration loss was 425,000, as there was a pronounced shift of net domestic migration away from the larger metropolitan areas to other areas of the country. This was before the spike in net domestic migration that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, it’s likely that the out-migration will slow as the pandemic wanes. But still, central business districts are particularly vulnerable as many of its long-time workforce labor in “laptop economy jobs” to the shift to on-line work.

Outlying (Suburban) Counties

At the same time, the outer (suburban) counties of the major metropolitan areas experienced a net domestic migration gain of 395,000, their largest gain since 2011. Even as urban core domestic migration was plummeting, the outlying counties experienced a more than 50% increase from their 2016 to 2020 average (231,000), and an even stronger gain relative to earlier in the decade (2011 to 2015), when the average gain was 177,000.

Over the decade the suburban counties added net domestic migrants in every year. The outlying counties gained a minimum of 119,000 more net domestic migrants than the urban core counties (2012), which rose to an average of 656,000 in the last half of the decade. In 2021, the outlying counties gained 1,481,000 more net domestic migrants than the urban core counties. The 2021 results are consistent with research indicating substantial movement away from urban cores, to the periphery of metropolitan areas and even beyond.

Metropolitan Area Highlights

The largest net domestic migration loss occurred in the New York metropolitan area at 385,000. The city of New York accounted for 342,000 of this loss, with a much smaller net out migration of 43,000 from the suburbs.

Metro Los Angeles had the second largest net migration loss at 205,000, with a 180,000 loss in core Los Angeles County.

The San Francisco metropolitan area lost 129,000 net domestic migrants, 56,000 of which were from core San Francisco County and 73,000 from the other four counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo counties).

Chicago continued its long-lasting string of net domestic migration losses at a minus 107,000 in the metropolitan area. Most of the loss (98,000) was from core Cook County. The outer counties had a relatively modest loss of 9000 net domestic migrants.

The Washington DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan area lost 67,000 net domestic migrants. The net domestic migration loss in the core city (county equivalent) of Washington, stood at 23.000, while the outlying counties lost a larger 44,000 (only in San Francisco and Washington was the suburban loss greater than the urban core county loss).

Some metropolitan areas that have had strong net domestic migration fell on much harder times in 2021. Seattle had a net domestic migration loss of 31,000 in 2021, after having gained 147.000 between 2010 and 2020. The 2021 loss was concentrated in core King County which lost 33,000 net domestic migrants, while the other two counties had a net domestic migration gain of more than 1,000.

Portland Oregon lost more than 7,000 net domestic migrants, with a 13,000 loss in core Multnomah County, and a suburban gain of 6,000 net domestic migrants. This is after a 129,000 net domestic migration gain in the 2010s.

Denver had a 2021 net domestic migration loss of 7,000, with a 9,000 loss in the city of Denver (county equivalent) and a small gain in the outlying counties. This is after a 204,000 net domestic migration gain between 2010 and 2020.

In Seattle, Portland and Denver, the strong net domestic migration was strongest early in the decade and fell as the decade was closing.

So, if these stellar performers of the last decade lost migrants, which metros gained?

The largest net domestic migration gainer was Phoenix, with 67,000 net domestic migrants. This included a gain of 47,000 in core Maricopa County and 20,000 gained in the other core county. The Maricopa County gain was the largest of any urban core county.

Dallas Fort Worth gained 54,000 net domestic migrants for the second strongest gain. However, core Dallas County had a loss of 45,000, while the outlying counties gained 99,000 net domestic migrants.

Tampa-St. Petersburg had net domestic migration of 42,000, 10,000 to core Hillsborough County, with 32,000 to outlying counties.

Austin had the fourth largest net domestic migration in 2021. However, the core county, Travis, had a small net domestic migration loss (200), with suburban counties accounting for a 41,000 gain.

The situation was similar in Houston where core Harris County lost 44,000 net domestic migrants while the outer counties gained 64,000 for an overall gain of 19,000.

There is increasing evidence that the increased metropolitan core migration losses could continue given the less than robust return to the jobs in the nation’s largest central business districts (downtowns). In San Francisco, it has been projected that ridership on the regional rail system, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) may not reach pre-pandemic levels for a decade. The hybrid work and remote work arrangements, that have made the five day work week a thing of the past and facilitated the decentralization are being embraced not only by employees but also by corporate leadership.

Note 1: The urban core counties contain the city hall of the historic core municipality in metropolitan areas. In all but one case the historical core municipality is the largest in the metropolitan area (the exception is the city of Norfolk (county equivalent) in Virginia Beach. In the case of New York, there are five urban core counties, all of which comprise the city of New York.

Note 2: The use of counties for analyzing decentralization in metropolitan areas is not ideal, since there is such great variation among the urban core counties. Some urban core counties contain vast swaths of suburban development, such as Maricopa (Phoenix), with a 2010 urban density of 3,100 per square mile, King (Seattle), at 3,500, Multnomah (Portland) at 4,400 or Bexar (San Antonio (at 3,100) or Fulton (Atlanta) at 2,200. At the same time other urban core counties have little or no suburban development, such as the five New York City counties at 27,000, San Francisco, at 17,000, and Suffolk (Boston), at 12,600. In some cases, the much higher urban densities extend into adjacent counties, especially in Boston and New York. This lack of more local data on domestic migration limits the precision of the analysis. Factors other than net domestic migration can be assessed using census tract or zip code data (such as our City Sector Model).

Photo: Phoenix, AZ — Strongest major metropolitan area net domestic migration 2021

Table 1 (back to reference)

Net Domestic Migration: Urban Core and Outlying Counties: 2021
	Total	Urban Core Counties	Suburban (Outlying) Counties	Suburban Migration Compared to Urban Core
Atlanta, GA	19,358	(7,786)	27,144	34,930
Austin, TX	40,264	(172)	40,436	40,608
Baltimore, MD	(5,561)	(6,678)	1,117	7,795
Birmingham, AL	(2)	(5,283)	5,281	10,564
Boston, MA-NH	(48,040)	(28,850)	(19,190)	9,660
Buffalo, NY	(924)	(1,121)	197	1,318
Charlotte, NC-SC	23,970	(4,293)	28,263	32,556
Chicago, IL-IN-WI	(106,897)	(98,205)	(8,692)	89,513
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	(213)	(5,268)	5,055	10,323
Cleveland, OH	(6,089)	(10,359)	4,270	14,629
Columbus, OH	2,487	(9,799)	12,286	22,085
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	54,319	(44,650)	98,969	143,619
Denver, CO	(6,507)	(9,115)	2,608	11,723
Detroit, MI	(18,841)	(15,857)	(2,984)	12,873
Grand Rapids, MI	310	(2,472)	2,782	5,254
Hartford, CT	832	(1,161)	1,993	3,154
Houston, TX	19,426	(44,409)	63,835	108,244
Indianapolis, IN	6,732	(10,836)	17,568	28,404
Jacksonville, FL	24,815	646	24,169	23,523
Kansas City, MO-KS	748	(1,732)	2,480	4,212
Los Angeles, CA	(204,776)	(179,757)	(25,019)	154,738
Louisville, KY-IN	(358)	(4,458)	4,100	8,558
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	(3,041)	(6,132)	3,091	9,223
Miami, FL	(55,305)	(44,787)	(10,518)	34,269
Milwaukee,WI	(8,780)	(12,764)	3,984	16,748
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	(15,462)	(18,903)	3,441	22,344
Nashville, TN	12,328	(14,770)	27,098	41,868
New Orleans, LA	(9,824)	(6,699)	(3,125)	3,574
New York, NY-NJ-PA	(385,455)	(342,449)	(43,006)	299,443
Oklahoma City, OK	10,224	(1,277)	11,501	12,778
Orlando, FL	4,019	(16,184)	20,203	36,387
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	(14,763)	(28,226)	13,463	41,689
Phoenix, AZ	66,850	46,866	19,984	(26,882)
Pittsburgh, PA	(3,993)	(7,635)	3,642	11,277
Portland, OR-WA	(7,441)	(12,983)	5,542	18,525
Providence, RI-MA	2,427	(2,427)	4,854	7,281
Raleigh, NC	21,743	10,518	11,225	707
Richmond, VA	6,788	(887)	7,675	8,562
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	34,859	3,608	31,251	27,643
Rochester, NY	(2,938)	(3,381)	443	3,824
Sacramento, CA	6,963	(2,639)	9,602	12,241
St. Louis,, MO-IL	(7,277)	(7,577)	300	7,877
Salt Lake City, UT	(4,629)	(7,447)	2,818	10,265
San Antonio, TX	25,660	4,687	20,973	16,286
San Francisco, CA	(128,870)	(55,631)	(73,239)	(17,608)
San Jose, CA	(52,932)	(54,801)	1,869	56,670
Seattle, WA	(31,489)	(32,802)	1,313	34,115
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	42,089	9,600	32,489	22,889
Tulsa, OK	6,757	965	5,792	4,827
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	(321)	(3,540)	3,219	6,759
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	(66,811)	(23,030)	(43,781)	(20,751)

TOTAL	(763,571)	(1,122,342)	358,771	1,481,113
Derived from US Census Bureau data
Excludes metropolitan areas with only one county (Fresno, Honolulu, Las Vegas, San Diego & Tucson)

Can the South Escape its Demons?

Joel Kotkin — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 15:08:23 -0400

Out on the dusty prairie west of Houston, the construction crews have been busy. Gone are the rice fields, cattle ranches and pine forests that once dominated this part of the South. In their place sit new homes and communities. But they are not an eyesore; the homes are affordable and close to attractive town centres, large parks and lakes. These are communities rooted in the individual, the family and a belief in self-governance.

The new American Dream has its heart in the states of the old Confederacy. But its allure does not merely lie in a conservative embrace of lower taxes, less regulation and greater self-reliance, although these surely matter. More important are the opportunities that come from building businesses and owning new homes, not for the privileged few but for an increasingly diverse, and growing, populace.

As Marianne Pina, who came to Dallas as a young adult before founding a five-million-dollar business specialising in minority recruitment and job placement, told me: “The American Dream stereotype still exists here. If you work hard, you can make it. It’s still up to you as an individual.”

But lurking in the background, the South’s rebirth remains threatened by its historical demons: racism, white nationalism and overzealous religious fervour. This is partly because, as the political scientist V.O. Key noted, the South remains the only region of America that has been conquered and subjugated. It is, he wrote in 1949, a prisoner of its racial legacy in its politics and social structure; only when that problem has been addressed can the region ascend to its potential. Indeed, the economic consequences of slavery persisted well into the 1960s.

Even today, despite its ascendance, the South still lags somewhat behind the nation both in income and education levels. It is still castigated by progressive academics (increasingly a redundant concept) for being wedded to “racial conservatism”. It was only in 2013 that liberal chief justice Steve Breyer compared the region’s racial climate to “a plant disease”.

Anyone who has spent time outside academia knows this is increasingly no longer the case. Ever since the 1960s, business leaders in the South have worked overtime to embrace racial diversity, if not for moral reasons, but economic ones. Perhaps that explains why people from outside the region are pouring in: the Southern states account for six of the top ten gainers in interstate migration, led by Texas and Florida. In contrast, the biggest losers are the progressive strongholds of New York, Illinois, and California.

Significantly, while the African-American population has declined in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, it is expanding in cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), Atlanta, Houston, and Nashville. Immigrants, mostly from developing countries and Asia, are also moving in. According to research by demographer Wendell Cox, the fastest growth in a city’s foreign-born population over the past decade was in Nashville, where it exceeded 40%, while those in DFW, Houston and Austin increased by more than 25%. Once seen as a dominant immigrant melting pot, Los Angeles, by contrast, saw their foreign-born populations shrink.

“In the past, you would go to New York, but people have found life was very challenging there,” developer La Lou Davies, who moved to Houston from Nigeria, explains. “It’s hard to find a place to live. By the 1990s, people started going to places like Houston, which have lower entry costs for housing and better business environments. Getting that first apartment, or a lease for a business, is so much easier.”

Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo credit: Wesley Hetrick via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

International Traffic Congestion Extinguished by Pandemic and Remote Work

Wendell Cox — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 20:28:58 -0400

The 2020 TomTom Traffic Index reflects a huge drop in worldwide urban traffic congestion levels. Congestion levels (rated by the percentage of additional time required for auto travel during “rush hour”) dropped in 387 urban areas while increasing in only 13. Overall, TomTom rates 416 urban areas in 57 international geographies. The TomTom Traffic Index is produced by TomTom International BV. TomTom is known for its satellite navigation services for drivers and maps.

According to TomTom, “The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the way we live, work and move. Lockdowns, remote working and other restrictions on movement have transformed patterns of movement and reduced traffic congestion in most cities.” Similar results were just reported for many more US urban areas in Record Low Congestion Levels in Seattle, LA & San Francisco: The 2020 Urban Mobility Report, with congestion down by about 50% and greenhouse gas emissions from commuting also down 50%.

TomTom reports that: “This year we witnessed a mass exodus of people from capital cities across Europe. The day before new lockdowns went into force was the most congested day in Athens and London in 2020. Meanwhile in Paris, traffic jams reached record lengths,” where a congestion level of 142% was recorded. This an incredibly high traffic congestion index --- 2.6 times the highest annual congestion level recorded in the most congested urban area (Moscow, at 54%, below) and 4.4 times the Paris 2020 congestion level (Paris had the 42nd highest congestion index out of the 416 urban areas).

Congestion Levels by Nation

The TomTom Traffic Index provides congestion levels for 10 or more urban areas in eight nations (including the European Union).

The United States has the lowest congestion level, at an average of 13.8% (Figure 1). This is not surprising, given the comparatively low densities of US urban areas (Demographia World Urban Areas, Schedule 1, Page 19) and the unparalleled dispersion of employment and the fairly comprehensive limited access expressway system. Canada ranks second, at 17.3%, despite having urban population densities double that of the US, and more limited expressways. Australia has the third best congestion level at 20.2%. The United Kingdom, the European Union and China are bunched from fourth to sixth, within 0.7% of one another. Turkey’s congestion level is at 26.7% while Russia has by far the highest congestion level, at 36.6%.

Congestion Levels by Urban Area Population

As would be expected, the worst congestion levels are in the largest urban areas (over 5,000,000), at 28.9% (Figure 2). The 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 category has a congestion level of 22.5%, The smallest category (under 1,000,000) has a congestion level of 18.5%. Overall, the average congestion level is 21.2% (urban area population categories are based on data from Demographia World Urban Areas).

The highest and lowest congestion levels are reviewed below, by population category.

Urban Areas Over 5,000,000 Population

Because of ties (urban areas with the same congestion level), 13 urban areas have top ten congestion levels in the largest population category (5,000,000+ population), seven of which are in the United States and four are in China.

The lowest congestion levels were in Dallas-Fort Worth (USA) and Dongguan, China, both at 13% (Figure 3). Dallas-Fort Worth had the lowest congestion level in this population category at least twice before (2017 and 2015). Dongguan is a Pearl River Delta urban area of about 8 million residents, located between two much larger urban areas, Guangzhou-Foshan and Shenzhen.

Rio de Janeiro had the third least congestion, while Madrid and Boston tied for the fourth position. There was a three way tie for 6th place between Suzhou (Jiangsu, China), Houston and Wuhan. Quanzhou (Fuzhou, China), Atlanta, Washington, Chicago and Philadelphia made a five way tie for 10th best congestion level. Quanzhou may be China’s most decentralized urban area, with its “in situ” urbanization (urbanization in place, rather than by expansion from a core) that involves conversion of rural areas in place to urban areas, with agricultural employment being replaced by non-agricultural employment).

The highest congestion levels in the 5,000,000+ population category included six of the highest density urban areas in the world: Bogota, Manila, Bangalore, Delhi, Lima and Pune (all with more than 25,000 per square mile or 10,000 per square kilometer). By comparison, the average world urban area with more than 500,000 population is 10,800 per square mile or 4,200 per square kilometer.

The highest congestion level was in Moscow, at 54% (Figure 4). The next three, Mumbai, Bogota and Manila were in a three way tie for third worst congestion. Each of these three urban areas is very high density, at over 30,000 per square mile (over 12,000 per square kilometer). Istanbul and Bengaluru (Bangalore), India shared the 6th highest congestion levels. Delhi, the world’s third largest urban area had the seventh highest congestion level. Bangkok and St. Petersburg shared 8th position. There was a three way tie for 9th, which included Lima, Pune (India) and Chongqing (China).

Urban Areas 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 Population

There are 12 urban areas with top ten congestion levels in the 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 population category), 11 of which are in the United States and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

There was a seven way tie between US urban areas for the lowest traffic congestion level (9%) — St. Louis, Cleveland, Richmond, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City. Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) took 8th place. There was a four way tie at 9th place between Louisville, Memphis, Columbus and Detroit (Figure 5).

There are 11 urban areas with the highest congestion levels in the 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 population category. Four are in Ukraine and two are in Russia.

The worst congestion was in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, at 51%, a higher congestion level than all but six other urban areas of any size (Figure 6), despite a population of less than 3,000,000. Number two Novosibersk (Russia) has an even smaller population, below 2,000,000, but has a congestion level that ranks 9th highest out of the 416 urban areas. Ukraine’s Odessa and Kharkiv rank third and fourth, while Bucharest (Romania) ranks fifth, just ahead of Samara, Russia. Dublin and Dnipro (Ukraine) tied for seventh, followed by a three-way tie for 9th, consisting of Recife (Brazil), Tel Aviv and Changchun (Jilin, China).

Urban Areas Under 1,000,000 Population

There are 14 urban areas with top ten congestion levels in the under 1,000,000 population category, 12 of which are in the United States, along with Cadiz, Spain and Amere in the Netherlands.

Greensboro-High Point (US) had the lowest congestion level, at 7%. A six way tie for second place included Cadiz, Dayton, Little Rock, Akron, Syracuse and Winston-Salem. Worcester (MA) took 8thplace. There was an 8 way tie for 9th place including Buffalo, Albany, Columbia (SC), Omaha, Knoxville, Grand Rapids and Rochester, and Amere (Figure 7).

Among the 13 urban areas with the highest congestion levels in the under 1,000,000 category, five are in Poland. All of the others are in European nations.

The highest congestion level was in Lodz, Poland, at 42%, which was followed by two other Polish urban areas, Krakow and Wroclaw. Edinburgh was fourth, followed by another Polish urban area, Poznan. Sofia, Bulgaria had the sixth worst congestion level, while Palermo (Italy), Gdansk (Poland) and Geneva shared 7th place. Tomsk (Russia), Brighton and Hove, and Hull (United Kingdom) and Limerick (Ireland) were in a four way tie for 9th place (Figure 8).

Changing Traffic Forever?

As has been evident in international traffic congestion indexes before, the United States has dominated low congestion levels. Thirty of the 39 urban areas with top 10 congestion levels were in the United States. China had six of the top 39 urban areas with the lowest congestion levels.

TomTom suggests that “COVID-19 could change traffic forever” and imagines a future more based on remote work, in which “We'll no longer waste hours stuck in traffic as working from home will became the norm for most jobs. Rush hour traffic will all but disappear, making journeys faster and less stressful.” This more environmentally friendly future, with its more enriching lives could well be achievable.

Photograph: Downtown Dallas, Dallas-Fort Worth urban area: Tied with Dongguan (China) for lowest congestion level in 2020 TomTom Traffic Index (by author).

Combined Statistical Areas Lead Continuing Dispersion: 2010-2020

Wendell Cox — Sun, 23 May 2021 20:28:58 -0400

A commenter asked about population trends in combined statistical areas (CSA) in response to my article “Demographic Implosion in the San Francisco Bay Area?, posted on May 18. This article deals with CSA population trends in the 88 CSAs with more than 500,000 population.

More Evidence of the Dispersion

The nation’s largest combined statistical areas (over 1,000,000 residents) are showing a substantial decline in population growth and net domestic migration, while middle-sized CSA’s (500,000 to 1,000,000) are showing gains.

From 2010 to 2020, Census Bureau estimates indicate that the 58 CSAs with more than 1,000,000 population gained 9.1 million residents between 2010 and 2015, before dropping more than 30% from 2015 to 2020 to 6.3 million. By comparison, the 30 CSAs with from 500,000 to 1,000,000 population gained 933,000 residents both in the first and second half of the decade. Over the decade, the gross population increase rate was 8.0%, relative to the 2010 population.

Overall, the larger CSAs gained 127,000 net domestic migrants (people moving from into a CSA from another part of the nation) in the first half of the decade, then suffered a net loss of 635,000 in the second half. This represents a gross rate of minus 2.6% relative to the 2010 population. Among the middle-sized CSAs, net domestic migration increased from 121,000 in the first half of the decade to 451,000 in the second half. This calculates to a gross rate over the decade of 2.0% relative to the 2010 population.

This is more critical than simply a response to the pandemic. In reality these trends existed overwhelmingly pre-COVID — a single quarter out of 40 — during which multiple reports say has now increased more.

What is a CSA and How Does it Relate to Metropolitan Areas

A combined statistical area (CSA) is a set of overlapping labor markets (metropolitan and sometimes micropolitan areas) that have a significant interchange of workers (commuters) between homes and employment. There are 384 metropolitan areas in the nation and 543 micropolitan areas. The only difference between metropolitan and micropolitan areas is that metropolitan areas are based on urban areas of at least 50,000 residents, while micropolitan areas are based on urban areas of from 10,000 to 50,000. The 927 Metropolitan and micropolitan areas are collectively referred to as “core based statistical areas.”

There are also 175 CSA’s, made up of 551 complete metropolitan and micropolitan areas.

Observations on the Largest CSAs

Each of the six largest CSAs experienced much worse population growth trends in the second half of the decade (Table).

The 15 largest CSAs are summarized below: A number of metropolitan and micropolitan areas are not in CSAs and are not shown in the table. includes some of the largest metropolitan areas, such as San Diego, Austin, Las Vegas, and Rochester.

New York gained 441,000 from 2010 to 2015, but lost 205,000 in 2015-2020. In the last year New York lost 114,000.
Los Angeles gained 654,000 in the first half and only 99,000 in the second half. The Los Angeles CSA includes the Riverside-San Bernardino metro, which has grown rapidly in the past, but not enough to cancel out the loss in the rest of the CSA, particularly in the core Los Angeles County, which lost 69,000 Among the five counties, only Riverside and San Bernardino counties posted gains. Throughout the whole CSA, there was a 40,000 decline in 2019-2020.
Washington-Baltimore growth dropped from 554,000 in the first half of the decade to 261,000 in the second half and only 28,000 in the last year. Washington-Baltimore (9.865 million) has displaced Chicago (9.770) as the third largest CSA. Washington-Baltimore added 815,000 new residents in the 2010s, while Chicago lost 71,000.
Chicago added 84,000 in the first five years, but lost 155,000 in the last half. There was a loss of 50,000 in the last year. As noted above, Chicago’s CSA dropped from 3rd to 4th, now behind Washington-Baltimore.
The San Francisco Bay CSA, which stretches nearly halfway to Los Angeles (to the Merced County/Fresno County line), added 567,000 from 2010 to 2015, but only 117,000 from 2015 to 2020. In the last year, the Bay Area experienced a 40,000 loss. The San Francisco Bay CSA (San Jose-San Francisco) grew 684,000 to 9.608 million and is challenging Chicago for third place. However, the Bay Area’s strong start in the decade morphed into a loss so at the 2019-2020 rate, it will take the Bay Area 16 years to catch Chicago.
Boston's growth fell from 269,000 to 132,000, with the last year falling to a nominal 5,000.
Dallas-Fort Worth did the best of the top 10, gaining 689,000 in each of the five year periods, and exceeding a 1,000,000 gain for the second decade in a row. The last year gain was 127,000. Dallas-Fort Worth, unlike its more established rivals, has experienced stable growth, with the lowest year in the decade being 110,000 and the highest 159,000.
Houston also added more than 1,000,000 residents for the second decade in a row. In the first five years Houston’s gain was 755,000 — more than Dallas-Fort Worth. However, growth dropped to 486,000 in the last five years during the downturn in the energy industry. Houston added 92,000 in the last year, more than any CSA beside Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix.
Philadelphia's growth dropped from 100,000 in the first five years to 46,000 in the second five. In the last year Philadelphia gained 3,000.
Atlanta, hit very hard by the Great Recession, did not repeat its greater than 1,000,000 growth in this decade. In the first five years, Atlanta gained 429,000 residents, and 455,000 in the second five. Atlanta was the largest CSA to have greater growth in the second half of the decade and gained 68,000 in the last year. Atlanta passed Miami in population in 2020.
Miami grew strongly in the first half of the decade, at 446,000, but fell to 261,000 in the second half. Growth in the last year was 21,000.
For all its population loss reputation, Detroit gained 13,000 residents from 2010 to 2015, but dropped by 13,000 in 2015 to 2020. A 19,000 loss in the last year however suggests the area’s recovery may be limited.
Phoenix had the best second half growth relative to the first half, increasing from 387,000 to 461,000. The 106,000 gain in the last year was second only to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Seattle also gained more in the second half than in the first (345,000 versus 333,000) and added 51,000 in the last year.
Orlando had a strong second half gain of 425,000 compared to its first half gain of 357,000.

The table (image and PDF link below) also contains net domestic migration data.

A Dispersing Country

Despite America’s increasing diversity, the dispersion that has generally waxed but less frequently waned since 1920.An acceleration among all CBSAs toward greater dispersion, which was covered in “Domestic Migration to Dispersion Accelerates Even Before COVID”, is the reality, even if the media, pundits and planners continue in denial.

Click here to download a PDF document with the CSA data (opens in new tab or window).

Photo: Virginia suburbs in the Washington-Baltimore CSA, with Potomac River and Maryland in the background (by author).

Protect Neighborhoods by Saving Zoning

Bob Irvin — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 20:29:58 -0400

Atlanta, your city government is trying to trick you.

Now that sentence, all by itself, may not seem to you like a “man-bites-dog” lead.

But it is the truth, and you deserve to understand what your city government is up to. Under the cover of working to increase affordable housing, which everybody supports, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ administration is proposing to completely gut the zoning and development laws of the city. They know that not many people support that, which is why they aren’t talking about it much. In fact, every homeowner in the city should stand up and oppose it.

Here are some of the things that the Bottoms administration’s “housing plan” proposes to do, as found starting on page 43 of its massive 88 page document, “Atlanta City Design Housing:”

End single-family zoning, allowing any property owner by right to build an additional dwelling unit (called an “Accessory Dwelling Unit”, or ADU) on any lot now zoned for one family residence (p57). The city’s representatives say orally, though not in the document, that the ordinance will prohibit use of these ADU’s as short-term rentals, but that is an empty promise. The city can’t properly stay on top of the STR’s it has now, let alone adding possibly thousands of ADU’s.
Allow the property owner by right to then subdivide the lot and sell the ADU separately on its own “flag lot” (p67), then presumably build another and repeat the process, completely overbuilding the property
“Loosen” the building requirements, such as size and height, for ADU’s (p69), making them cheaper, and likely less attractive in the neighborhood
Reduce minimum lot sizes, and minimum set-backs from the street and adjacent properties (p82), in order to get more buildings onto every property
Allow, by right, any property owner within one-half mile of a MARTA station to build an apartment building of perhaps as many as 12 units, regardless of what the zoning is for that neighborhood (p73)
End minimum residential parking requirements citywide (p74), so that new apartment and condominium buildings would not have to provide parking for their residents, but can rather require them to park on neighborhood streets
End minimum parking requirements for commercial properties as well (p78), allowing more of them to be crowded into a given area, and overwhelming the local streets

This proposal is a trick the city administration is trying to play on every neighborhood in Atlanta. It should be called “The Developer Feeding Frenzy Ordinance.” The document features the softest possible examples, notably basement apartments, but as demonstrated above, it contains much, much more than that. It speaks of “homeowners building additional wealth,” but it won’t be homeowners who reap the profits. It will be rapacious developers, buying up a few lots, overbuilding them, changing that neighborhood forever, devaluing homeowners’ investments, and then moving on to the next neighborhood.

Read the rest of this piece at Saporta Report.

Bob Irvin is an Atlanta businessman, and former Republican minority leader in Georgia's House of Representatives.

Photo: A pre-fabricated accessory dwelling unit being placed onsite Credit: Homeplace Solutions

The Limits of Rhetoric

Charles Blain and Joel Kotkin — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 19:29:01 -0500

Deep-blue cities and states are eager to declare their social-justice credentials. New York mayor Bill de Blasio has set up a commission designed to uproot the city’s “institutional” racism, while California governor Gavin Newsom brags that his state is “the envy of the world” and will not abandon its poor. “Unlike the Washington plutocracy,” he proclaims, “California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few on one side of the velvet rope. The California Dream is for all.”

Yet California, though well known for its wealth, also has the nation’s highest poverty rate, adjusted for housing cost. If rhetoric were magic, metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago would be ideal places for aspirational minority residents. But according to statistics compiled by demographer Wendell Cox in a newly released report, these cities are far worse for nonwhites in terms of income, housing affordability, and education. New York and California also exhibit some of the highest levels of inequality in the United States, with poor outcomes for blacks and Hispanics, who, population-growth patterns suggest, are increasingly moving away from deep-blue metros to less stridently progressive ones.

The current focus on “systemic racism”—often devolving into symbolic actions like mandatory minority representation on corporate boards, hiring quotas, and an educational focus on racial redress and resentment—is not likely to improve conditions for most minorities. “If a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness,” Martin Luther King said. “He merely exists.” That remains true. Our lodestar should be upward mobility: improving how well people live, across the board. When it comes to that criterion, blue states and cities are falling short.

The Covid-19 pandemic has inflicted disproportionate harm to the health of Latinos and African-Americans, who, according to the CDC, have suffered rates of infections and deaths higher than the overall population, which makes a focus on upward mobility even more important. To measure progress, we have developed an Upward Mobility Index, with “opportunity ratings” for the nation’s 107 largest metropolitan areas—those with populations of 500,000 or more in 2018—by race and ethnicity. We examined the factors that underpin upward mobility and entry into the middle class. Then, we created a ranking by metro that combined these factors for the three largest ethnic and racial minorities: African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians.

The results confound assertions that nominally progressive policies—affirmative action, programs for racial redress, strict labor and environmental laws—help nonwhites. It turns out that places with low housing costs, friendly business conditions, and reasonable tax rates do much better than cities proclaiming their woke credentials.

African-Americans do best by these measurements in southern metros such as Atlanta, the traditional capital of black America; McAllen, El Paso, and Austin, Texas; and Raleigh, Virginia Beach/ Norfolk, and Richmond, Virginia. The Washington, D.C. metro area, well known for its large, middle-class African-American suburbs, also compares well. Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and (perhaps surprisingly) Provo, Utah rank high for black success.

At the bottom of the list, California dominates, with four of the worst ten locations, including Los Angeles, which a half-century ago was widely seen as a mecca of sorts for blacks. Two of the state’s most prominent political leaders of the late twentieth century—four-term Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and long-time assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor Willie Brown—came from poor Texas families, not Golden State metros. Other cities traditionally attractive to African-Americans no longer serve as leading places for black ambition, including Miami and New York.

Similar, though somewhat varied, results can be seen for Latinos, now the nation’s largest minority, and Asians, the fastest-growing. Latinos seem to be doing best outside the Northeast Corridor and the West. Fayetteville (Arkansas/Missouri), for example, ranks number 7; it’s an evolving economic hub paced by Walmart, JB Hunt, and Tyson Foods. Latinos have found opportunities in metros tied to basic goods as well as technological production (St. Louis); logistics and agribusiness (Kansas City, Des Moines, and Omaha); energy (Pittsburgh and Oklahoma City); and manufacturing (Grand Rapids and Akron).

In contrast, California, with the nation’s largest Hispanic population, now includes eight of the bottom 15 metros on the Hispanic Upward Mobility Index. The nation’s largest Hispanic conurbation, Los Angeles, ranked 105th out of the 107 largest U.S. metros. The remaining six worst performers, apart from Honolulu, are on the much-deindustrialized east coast, including New York, Bridgeport-Stamford, and Worcester.

Read the rest of this piece at City Journal.

Charles Blain (@cjblain10) is the president of Urban Reform and Urban Reform Institute. A native of New Jersey, he is based in Houston and writes on municipal finance and other urban issues. Joel Kotkin (@joelkotkin) is a contributing editor of City Journal, the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. His latest book is The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class.

Photo credit: Grendelkhan via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 License.

Dissecting Black Suburbia

Pete Saunders — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 20:29:01 -0400

By now, everyone who's paid attention to the Trump Administration lately knows that the suburbs, however defined, look to figure very prominently in the 2020 presidential election. Racially explicit appeals are being made by President Trump in an effort to prove up his "law and order" bona fides and offer protection to what he views as a largely white suburban demographic.

However, there is growing evidence that American suburbs are in the midst of demographic change, causing us to question our assumptions and even change our views of what "suburbia" actually is. Their demographic change likely prompts changes in how policymakers should establish a new set of public policies for a swiftly changing slice of the electorate. Today's suburbs are moving past the early ideal of being bedroom communities housing downtown office workers, or later models of serving nearby office or industrial parks. As urbanism theorist and researcher Richard Florida says in the article referenced above, "...globalization, the decline of the old manufacturing economy, and the re-urbanization of the knowledge economy, is redefining the role and function of the suburbs."

Without question, suburbia is far more complex, diverse, and heterogeneous than it's ever been in the U.S. Florida specifically notes the rise of Black suburbia as a key contributor to suburban demographic change:

Between 1970 and 2000, the share of African Americans living in suburban Atlanta increased from 27 percent to 78 percent; while in greater Washington D.C it rose from 25 percent in 1970 to 82 percent. Those trends have continued to accelerate, according to the Lacy’s research. There are two parts to this African-American suburbanization. On the one hand, it is the result of low-income African Americans being pushed out of gentrifying parts of cities. And on the other, it involves the black middle class choosing to move to more upscale suburbs. Taken together, they add up to considerable shift."

However, Florida is also clear that that the suburbs will no longer be as socio-economically homogeneous as they've historically been, either. Immigration, displacement related to urban gentrification, and the choice of upper-middle income people of color to choose the same upward path of previous groups to the suburbs, taken in total, create a much more economically diverse suburbs.

This makes some people pleased or fearful, depending on what side of the complexity/diversity/heterogeneity debate you're on. That's up to you. But what I can do is present some observations I've made regarding Black suburbia in particular, using the Chicago metro area as a case study.

Chicago's Black population isn't as suburbanized as described in Atlanta or Washington, D.C., perhaps because Chicago's central city is dramatically bigger than either Atlanta or D.C. If you saw my earlier piece about defining suburbia and apply the method I used for various demographic groups in metro Chicago, you'll find this:

According to the 2019 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, 51.5% of all Black residents of the Chicago metro area live in the central city, with 48.5% living in the suburbs or exurbs. Blacks are the only demographic group whose suburban population doesn't represent the majority, but there's still been a pretty dramatic shift over time. In 1990, about three-fourths of all Blacks in the metro area lived in the city.

It might be better to see the differences in city, suburban and exurban living patterns by demographic group by looking at this chart:

I like to put communities in a historical and geographical context, and Black suburbia is no different. Through my analysis of the Black suburban population nationwide, I've identified six types of Black suburban communities. As often happens when it comes to Blacks and Chicago, segregation plays a primary role in how today's Black suburban population is oriented. Here are the Black suburban community types:

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

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

The Twilight of Great American Cities is Here. Can We Stop It?

Joel Kotkin — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 20:29:01 -0400

The dreadful death of George Floyd lit a fire that threatens to burn down America’s cities. Already losing population before the pandemic, our major urban centers have provided ideal kindling for conflagration with massive unemployment, closed businesses and already rising crime rates.

The forms of disintegration vary. In overwhelmingly white cities like Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Minneapolis, violence has featured white radicals endorsing the extreme agenda of the neo-Marxist Black Lives Matter. In more diverse cities, such as Chicago and New York, protests have devolved into basic thuggery as law enforcement has been curtailed and large portions of the prison population have been released.

The pandemic has shaken the once confident ranks of new urbanists. At a time when even The New York Times is suggesting that density and packed transit lines worsened the contagion, some still embrace theology over data, with some advocating ever greater density, more crowding in cities, and mass transit. Fortunately, people tend to be less theological about their locational choices. According to The New York Times, 420,000 people left New York City between March 1 and May 1. This nearly equals the city’s total population increase from 1950 to 2019, according to demographer Wendell Cox.

Pandemic Impacts

The impact of dense conditions on the pandemic is clear. Overall, high-density locations have suffered three times the COVID-19 fatality rate of less dense, generally suburban areas and eight times those of more rural environments. Cities’ vulnerability comes not simply by calculating people per square mile, but by “exposure density” brought on continued contact with people, particularly in crowded, unventilated places like subways, small apartments, elevators and offices. After all, the New York area, the epitome of dense, transit-oriented urbanization, still accounts for roughly one-third of all U.S. COVID-19 deaths.

Even as the pandemic has spread to other parts of the country — notably meat packing plants, border towns and Native American reservations — the correlation is simply impossible to ignore. High rates of poverty and overcrowding, clearly factors in COVID-19 infections, can occur anywhere but seem most devastating in places where poverty meets density. The Brooklyn and Bronx boroughs, with higher rates of poverty than fashionable Manhattan, have endured a fatality rate 7.5 times the national average.

Urban planners, real estate speculators and their flacks may ignore these numbers, but people take their own health, and that of their families, more seriously. A recent Harris poll suggested that upwards of two in five urban residents are considering a move to less crowded places. More people, notes the National Association of Realtors, are seeking out single family houses with yards and workspaces.

Read the rest of this piece at Daily Caller.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo credit: ED Yourdon via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

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.