I announced yesterday I was retiring from daily blog posts, but I also said I would comment on new data when it was relevant. So I can hardly pass up noting that the Census Bureau just posted 2021 population data for the more than 800 American cities larger than 50,000 people. As I predicted in a recent policy brief, the new numbers show that most dense cities lost population while low-density cities grew.
Less than 2 percent of the jobs in the Phoenix area are in downtown Phoenix, making it one of the least downtown-dependent major cities in the country. Low-density housing throughout the region makes it attractive to people wanting to avoid crowded areas. Photo by Adam Fagen.
Of America’s largest cities, expensive ones such as Los Angeles and San Francisco lost residents (with the latter declining by 6.3 percent!), but affordable cities such as Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta also declined. The largest cities whose populations grew were Phoenix, San Antonio, Austin, and Jacksonville. With the exception of Austin, these are all low-density cities whose downtowns are tiny by traditional standards, each with well under 50,000 jobs before the pandemic. In other words, housing affordability was an issue, but more important was people were leaving dense areas for low-density areas.
As I noted when the Census Bureau released county data, dense suburban counties such as those around New York and San Francisco declined, while low-density suburban counties grew, even if they were around dense cities whose populations declined.
Wendell Cox has a more detailed analysis of the new census data. The question I’ll leave you with is: what are density advocates going to do about Americans’ unwillingness to go along with their schemes? Their plans to abolish single-family zoning in order to force density on cities aren’t working: people who have the option to work at home are leaving those cities and other people aren’t filling in the gaps. As with the anti-automobile movement, the planners are losing the battle and COVID has merely underscored their inability to get what they want.
Anyone who ever saw the movie “Friday”
It showcases sustained urban development.
Ice Cube and DJ Pooh expressed discontent regarding the portrayal of the hood in film, which they came to see as violent and menacing. As a result, they wished to counteract this, drawing on personal experiences.
What it showcases is African american communities NOT on forefront of new development, can successfully self police without outright violence.
The ghetto serves a purpose namely its a relief valve for low income folks to acclamate.
Thirty years ago, ghettos existed primarily because legal restrictions made it impossible for blacks to leave. But not all black neighborhoods shared the propensity for collapse, dilapidation. the neighborhoods simply werent perfect or picturesque.
Some repair was neglected but infrastructure still functioned. By not amping up value, their financial value stayed same, modest and unnoticeable repairs could be undertaken….
Ironically, racist realtors and home appraisors did a service by keeping their eyes out. It kept home prices down and rents low and property taxes low. They were starter homes for black families.
Jacksonville’s the Cleveland of Florida. It’s downtown is sparsely used and even less sparsely populated. It doesn’t have many neighborhoods for hipsters. It’s a logistics / warehousing hub.
Jacksonville has a below average number of college grads. It lacks protected bike lanes, hardly any of it is on a grid, until a year or so ago it lacked those rental scooters and it lack rental bikes, it is devoid of major research universities, a soccer team, restaurants serving house cured meats and the proverbial avocado toast.
While Jacksonville does have an Urban Outfitters, it’s not in some hipster neighborhood or downtown, it’s in the ( relatively ) posh St. John’s Center ( aka Jacksonville modern downtown; downtown being the main center of commercial activity ) . You can find a bike culture in Jacksonville but it’s about as tiny as the surfing crown in St. Paul. It’s art scene is just as small. It’s built more freeway lane miles in the last 3 years than pedestrian amenities in the last 30. It’s most well known ethnic restaurant – I kid you not – is a Filipino fast food franchise of a global chain.
Outside of Alaska, it’s the largest city in the country ( land area ).
In short, Jacksonville is the city in the US the Richard Florida crowd would expect to be booming.
And yet there it is, Jacksonville is booming.
Why is that? Anti Planner seems to touch on it without quite getting it. It’s not that most people as they age want to own a single family home and that Jacksonville has made that affordable. Yes, yes, that’s the thing but it’s got an important twist.
Urban Planners love to talk about place making. But what they focus on is collective, communal place making. That’s great for visiting and tourist towns like Asheville but not the sort of place making people deeply desire.
Yet what they miss — and I think Anti Planner was onto but hasn’t quite got it — is that the home is the the ultimate place making place. After all, home is where the heart is.
People want to be able to make their own place. Cities like Jacksonville enable that individual place making.
And that’s the funny thing about Florida. It’s gets all so many things wrong ( at least according to the experts ). While neighbors like Charleston and Alabama have their sh88 together and attract record amounts of foreign direct investment, Florida gets nearly none. It’s economic planning, economic leadership and economic culture is a mess. On top of it it’s a purple state that’s turning red, not the sort of ting known to attract youthful talent.
And yet despite all that, it’s one of the healthiest states, one of the fastest growing both economically and in terms of population. In terms of states, it’s approach has been arguably counter culture. And in that it’s had great success.
The urbanists are right, place making is damn important. They just got the wrong place making prioritized.
You mean it’s the place the Richard Florida crowd wouldn’t think would be booming. I admit that I’ve never been there. Yet with all that you didn’t quite pinpoint what makes Jacksonville enable individual place-making. You mention that affordable single-family housing is important, but not all of it. So what is that piece of the puzzle again?
I meant the “last” piece of the puzzle.