Out of the 53 metro areas with more than a million people, only four lost population last year. The two biggest losers were Pittsburgh and Chicago. Both cities are ones where a significant cadre of local boosters brush off population loss, arguing that a closer look shows that they actually are undergoing a demographic transition that is actually putting them in a stronger position. So let's take a look. In Pittsburgh's case, you have a city that was devastated by the steel collapse, lost a generation of people, and now skews very old. … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2018
Sprawl In Its Purest Form, Cleveland Edition
Jason Segedy tweeted the image below contrasting the amount of urbanized land in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County in 1948 vs. 2002. The county population was identical in both years: 1.39 million. I'm not a hater on suburbanization. Growing populations require new urbanized land on the fringes. But when population growth is flat or negative in a region, which is the case in Cleveland and many Rust Belt cities, then sprawl has negative effects. One of the them is the Chuck Banas quip that Buffalo has the same number of people, but three … [Read more...]
The Rise and Fall of Cities in Books
Google Books' ngram tool lets you search and compare mentions of various terms in books that they've digitized. I ran some city names through it to see how the relative level of mentions of these places has changed over time. These aren't perfect. Some city names are too generic to really isolate, like Columbus (could refer to Christopher) or Charlotte (a common name). Others I assumed do typically refer to the major city of that name, but have other uses as well (Paris, St. Louis). Also, these are English language city name searches, and I'm … [Read more...]
Is Mayor a Dead End Job?
We constantly hear that it's the era of cities. Benjamin Barber wrote a book called If Mayors Ruled the World. Mayors are touted as pragmatic problem solvers who are taking on the challenges politicians at other levels of government are afraid to face. One would think that if mayors were that much better than state or federal officials, then mayor would be a great stepping stone to higher office. However, that does not appear to be the case. Only three presidents had ever served as mayor: Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin … [Read more...]
When Politicians Fall
Today Nashville Mayor Megan Barry plead guilty to felony theft and resigned as mayor of Nashville. Barry had been carrying on an affair with the head of her security detail. Both of them were married at the time. As often happens with these things, this apparently involved activity that happened on the clock, questionable travel expenses, and getting the daughter of the person she was having an affair with a job. Meanwhile in Missouri, Gov. Eric Greitens is under indictment for felony invasion of privacy after he had an affair with his … [Read more...]