Demography

New Hope for Old Cities?

There is comfort to be taken from a new study which shows that even cities which are losing population can attract empty nesters and yuppies. These will be cities organized around consumption as much as production.
But the hope they offer should be tempered by the recognition that the newcomers can settle in, in part, because being childless, they are far less dependent on the services cities are supposed to provide. San Francisco looks like the future.

Aging industrial cities get boost: Population falls, but residents' income rising In Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and St. Louis …planning professors William Lucy and David Phillips (have found that while) population declined from 2000 to 2004, the per-capita income of residents went up slightly compared with those in the suburbs. (They explain that when) a family of six with an annual household income of $65,000 moves from the city to the suburbs and a single, young professional who earns $80,000 moves in, the city ends up with five fewer people who need government services while the per-capita income of that household soars. Places, they explain, have lost population, but it doesn't mean they're out of business. It gives them a chance to redefine what they are.”

Hip, Cool Cities Losing their Middle Class

Five of the countries hippest, coolest cities – Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles - are losing their educated middle class populations. Mr. Hip, Richard Florida, acknowledges that single and childless couples with more disposable income are displacing middle class families by bidding up the cost of housing. But not to worry, all, he insists, is for the best because top/bottom cities with the wealthy on one hand and an immigrant service class on the other are the wave of the future. But a look at Paris with its recent riots, where Mr. Florida’s future has arrived, suggests a bumpy road ahead. The idea that cities can thrive without a civic middle class is an enormous gamble we are likely to lose.
BAY STATE EXODUS 2D ONLY TO NY 4/20/06 Boston Globe

Massachusetts lost more residents than it attracted in recent years, at a greater rate than any other state but New York, according to Census Bureau estimates released today…. Demographers William Frey pointed to the region's precipitous loss of high-tech jobs and the continued high cost of housing as factors driving Massachusetts residents elsewhere.
Frey said metropolitan Boston has been losing people since 1990, but in recent years the loss has been occurring at greater rates than at any time since the recession of 1990 and 1991. Today's report found that among large metropolitan areas, Greater Boston trailed only San Francisco and New York City in its rate of loss….. the native residents who are relocating are disproportionately younger, better educated, and more likely to be employed in a high-tech industry, he said. Paul Harrington, an economist at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, discounted housing prices for the exodus. ''I think that's a tired excuse for poor performance," he said, criticizing Governor Mitt Romney, saying he failed to turn around the jobs market. The governor, a venture capitalist, swept into office promising to woo CEOs and their jobs to the state. Since the third quarter of 2003, the nation has added jobs at four times the rate Massachusetts did, said Harrington.