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Census Data Confirm Migration from Big Cities

By | | City planning
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Eight of the ten American cities with more than one million people lost population in 2020, according to estimates released by the Census Bureau. Note that these are only estimates; not official 2020 census numbers.

Seattle grew in 2020 despite having more than 7,000 people per square mile, but most American cities that dense or denser lost population.

The two exceptions, Phoenix and San Antonio, both have fewer than 3,000 people per square mile, while the cities that lost population all had densities more than 3,000 people per square mile, and most were well over 5,000. (We don’t yet have accurate 2020 densities, so I’m using densities from the 2010 census.) Continue reading →

No, We Don’t Have to Sacrifice Neighborhoods to Save the Planet

By | | Regional planning, Urban areas
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Here’s a video of Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick saying the city needs to “sacrifice” its single-family neighborhoods in order to stop climate change. We’ve known that planners feel this way, but rarely do they say it in so many words.


From portland politic on Vimeo.

Previously, many Portland politicians have promised to preserve existing neighborhoods by keeping all high-density developments within a half mile of light-rail and other major transit lines. The unspoken truth was that nearly all single-family homes were within a half mile of a major bus corridor, and Portland wants to build so many rail lines that soon most homes would be within a half mile of one of those lines as well.

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Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By | | Regional planning
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When the Antiplanner read the headline–“Suburban sprawl cancels carbon-footprint savings of dense urban cores”–I thought this was going to be just another smart-growth study. But the study by University of California (Berkeley) researchers actually makes some good points.

People living in dense centers of large urban areas tend to have low carbon footprints. But those dense centers are invariably surrounded by low-density suburbs, as if dense areas cannot exist in isolation from low-density areas. (The reverse isn’t true: some low-density areas, such as Phoenix and San Jose, have no dense centers.)

So is the solution to increase suburban densities, as smart-growth advocates claim? Nope. “Increasing population density in suburbs is even more problematic,” says one of the researchers. “Surprisingly, population dense suburbs have significantly higher carbon footprints than less dense suburbs, due largely to higher incomes and resulting consumption.” I was wondering when someone else would notice that: density increases land prices which makes housing less affordable for low-income people. Moreover, those dense suburbs themselves are surrounded by lower-density suburbs of their own.

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California Judge Shoots Down Smart-Growth Plan

By | | City planning
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A Los Angeles judge has ruled that a densification plan for Hollywood is “fatally flawed because the city failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts and alternatives. The plan called for lifting height restrictions so developers could construct higher-density housing.

In an all-too familiar refrain, planners argued that the plan would transform the community into a “vibrant center of jobs, residential towers and public transportation.” But neighborhood groups opposed the plan, saying it would “push out longtime stakeholders, harm neighborhoods, overtax our infrastructure, and overburden our already gridlocked streets and freeways.” The judge’s 41-page decision concluded that the environmental impact report contained “errors of fact and of law.”

California environmentalists persuaded the legislature to pass so many environmental laws that it is practically impossible to comply with them all, and then used those laws to beat down proposals for new roads and suburban development. Now those laws are coming back to bite them as they try to impose their high-density visions on various communities.
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