California's War on the Suburbs, Part 2

This past weekend, demographer Wendell Cox writes about California's continued war on the suburbs in the Saturday Wall Street Journal.  Complete with a six minute video.

Walter Russell Mead on the Future of Housing

In his Beyond Big Blue, Part 7, Walter Russell Mead takes a look at the future of housing.  Mentioning work by Joel Kotkin on the subject, Mead points out a couple of trends that seem to be escaping the new urbanist conventional wisdom,

"Surveys do suggest that Millennials actually prefer living in the humble detached home to unaffordable yuppie pods on top of tram lines, but something much more interesting may be happening.  Home improvement companies like Lowe’s and Home Depot report an uptick in the number of investors into multi-generational homes, or homes with integrated professional office spaces.  Some builders, like Pulte Homes and Lennar, are even specializing in ‘multi-generational’ homes with cordoned-off space for Millennials, Baby Boomers, and grandparents to live and maybe work under one roof."

The Future of the Single Family Home

The future of the single family is home is looking bright.  Futurist Joel Kotkin explains how the Smart Growth crowd is getting is wrong.

Lileks on the Suburbs

Glenn Reynolds, the InstaPundit, reprints a passage written ten years ago by Minnesota's-own James Lileks on life in the suburbs.  It was true then and it is still true today,

"Everyone I know who lives in the suburbs loves where they live.  That's why they live there.  The government did not put a gun to people's heads and demand that they pack up, head out on these new-fangled freeways and get out of Dodge.  If people leave a city, there's a reason, and it behooves the city to find out what it was.  Bad schools; small lots; taxes; crime; stupid civic leaders more interested in patronage and extortion than governing - that's why people leave.  And they're not going to come back because a light-rail line passes 15 blocks from their house.  They're certainly not going to be impressed by urban theorists who want them to walk to the corner store every day and schlep home the groceries instead of driving to a big store and buying a week's worth of foodstuffs.  I did that for four years.  I dreamed of a day when I could buy those big 24-roll packs of toilet paper instead buying a single roll every other day because I also had to carry beer, meat and milk."

The Suburbs are Not Dying, After All

In a happy convergence, the Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) interviews New Geography's Joel Kotkin at PJTV (registration required).  They talk about the refusal of the suburbs to die off, the static viewpoint of Urban Planning, telecommuting, and the war on the middle class.

Creative Class Fail

More evidence of the failure of the "Creative Class" economic development strategy in the Twin Cities Metro area, this time from the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The article focuses on the suburban city of Eagan, which led the metro area in job creation during the past decade, but has had a run of bad luck with its large employers, of late.

More interesting to me, was an accompanying graphic on relative job growth during the past ten years.  It showed that the largest gainers in jobs were suburban communities, and the largest losers were the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with the area's largest suburb, Bloomington, the third largest loser.

After spending billions of tax dollars on building attractions--like sports stadia and theaters--to lure employers and employees to the core cities, the result was job losses, not gains for these core communities.  Outlying communities were the gainers, flying the face of what we are constantly told, that suburbia is dying.

As I note in my essay "Creative Class Fail," Minneapolis-St. Paul--following the Creative Class economic development strategy--ranks a disappointing 46th out of 65 large cities in 2011 job growth.  What the Pioneer Press data show is that the strategy has failed further to attract jobs to the core cities.

Forget the “Creative Class,” Try Attracting Young Families, Instead

The main, above-the-fold headline on page one of Saturday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune is a self-congratulatory piece on the success of the Twin Cities area in attracting young professionals from elsewhere.  (“Young, educated flock to the Twin Cities”)

I have previously written about the misguided emphasis that Minneapolis puts on its status as a “cool city” and the attraction it holds for the “creative class” and “knowledge workers.”  But here I want to dig a little deeper on why that approach to economic development is ultimately self-defeating for a community.
 

In explaining why this focus on the “creative class” of twenty-something college grads represents a bad long-term economic development strategy, it will help to give you some of my personal biography.

Mr. Glahn Goes to Washington

In the late-1980’s I found myself as a newly-minted college graduate, lured from the hills of Virginia to the bright lights of the imperial capital across the river in Washington, DC.  I toiled as a minor functionary in one of the lesser Crown ministries for more than four years in my mid-twenties, exactly the sort of young, urban professional that local planners would kill to have move here in droves.

In enjoyed my sojourn on the banks of the Potomac, but I can’t say that I, on net, contributed to the social capital of the Washington-Baltimore Metroplex.  (More likely, I helped dissipate it.)  I did meet my future wife, though, and concluded that the fetid swampland of the Chesapeake Bay watershed region was no place to raise a family.  As it happened, neither I nor my roommate nor any of my friends stayed in the area for more than a few years.

So, Minneapolis got me anyway, not as a young professional, but closer to middle-aged and soon to be a husband and father.

But Minneapolis is still in the business of attracting the young and rootless.  The Star Tribune tells us that “Minneapolis-St. Paul is holding its own in the race to attract young professionals,” and adds that this race is a “deadly serious national competition to attract the best and brightest.”

Flawed Theory of Economic Development

The idea seems to be that to succeed as a community, we need to prevail in attracting “creative-class young people” because, “We can't attract or help companies expand here in our region if we don't have workers.”

Surly this isn’t about merely collecting drones to populate the corporate/non-profit/public sector cube farms.

Don’t worry, the Star Tribune assures us that the stakes are much higher, “it's about maintaining youthfulness, period, at a time when the number of over-45 Americans is climbing 18 times faster than is the number of those under 45.”

By targeting the “Creative Class” the Star Tribune tells us that,

“Just one quirky nerd with a concept for a website can create multibillion-dollar firms these days, and one survey suggested that educated young people are twice as likely to choose a city for its quality of life than just go any old place as long as it has a job.  To that end, Minnesota has lavished billions on new and expanded stadiums, zoos, art museums, music venues, bike paths, rail transit and other amenities aimed in part at the affluent young.”

But has the Star Tribune and our civic leadership gotten the model right?  Is lavishing billions on “amenities” for the “affluent young” really the best bet for future growth?  Are the cities that we see ourselves in competition with actually succeeding in the “youthfulness game”?

Let’s be more specific.  Minnesota may have “lavished billions” on these amenities, but for the most part, these attractions have been built in the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  It has been part of a big bet on the back-to-the-city-movement that young people will abandon the soulless suburbs and countryside for the excitement of the core city.  The examples cited in the Star Tribune piece are all of young people relocating to downtown or uptown Minneapolis.

The Star Tribune includes a table with the article comparing Minneapolis-St. Paul with the other Kiplinger.com’s “Ten Great Cities for Young Adults.”  Those other nine include Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Chicago, Cincinnati, Colorado Springs, Washington DC, Madison, New York, and Seattle.  The article itself also mentions the cities of San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles as “more happening” and Portland and Denver as “key competitors.”  How are these other 14 doing compared to Minneapolis-St. Paul in youthfulness?

The Baby Bust Takes a Toll

No one is more youthful than a newborn.  Demographers calculate that a fertility rate of 2.1 per woman is needed to sustain a given population level.  Across the U.S., the fertility rate is estimated to be just at that level, at 2.05.  While the fertility rate reflects the number of children that a woman would have over a lifetime, a number easier to obtain for a city is the birth rate, the number of births in a given year. 

Here are the birth rates (births per 1,000 people, pre-recession 2006 data) for the 15 metro areas mentioned in the article, including Minneapolis-St. Paul.  For selected cities, I include the (2004) number for the core county,

Atlanta, 16.2

Baton Rouge, 15.1

Boston, 12.5

Chicago, 14.9

Cincinnati, 14.3

Colorado Springs, 15.1

Denver, 15.8

Los Angeles, 15.5 (15.3)

Madison, 12.9

Minneapolis, 15.0 (Hennepin, 14.9)

New York, 14.2 (Manhattan, 13.0)

Portland, 14.0

San Francisco, 13.4 (11.5)

Seattle, 13.7 (King, 12.9)

Washington DC, 15.5 (DC, 14.3)

Compared to the usual suspects of “cool cities” (Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle), Minneapolis-St. Paul compares quite favorably on birth rates.  So it’s not clear why we would want to emulate a group of cities that struggles to form families and produce new residents.

Another Model:  Focus on Job Growth

For a different take, Forbes columnist Joel Kotkin produces an annual list of “The Best Cities for Job Growth.”  His 2011 Large Cities Rankings produces a very different set of rankings than those focused on “hip cities” or young adults.  His top 5 large cities include four Texas cities, plus New Orleans.  Washington, DC, is Kotkin’s highest-ranked city from the “cool” list.  But DC’s job growth is fueled by the extraordinary, and unsustainable, growth in federal spending.  New York ranks 9^th, Boston 13^th, Denver 24^th, Seattle 32^nd, San Francisco 33^rd, Portland 35^th, Chicago 41^st, Minneapolis-St. Paul 46^th, Cincinnati 49^th, Atlanta 52^nd, and Los Angeles stands 60^th of the 65 ranked.

In his Midsized Cities Rankings, three of the top four are found in Texas.  Madison ranks 15^th, Baton Rouge 45^th, and Colorado Springs 58^th.

In reference to the stunning success of uncool Texas on the list, Kotkin writes,

Whatever they are drinking in Texas, other states may want to imbibe. California–which boasted zero regions in the top 150–is a prime example. Indeed, a group of California officials, led by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, recently trekked to the Lone Star State to learn possible lessons about what drives job creation.

How do these top job growth cities compare in birth rates?  Here are the figures for the top five from each of Kotkin’s Large and Mid-Sized cities lists,

Anchorage, 16.4

Austin, 16.6

Corpus Christi, 15.4

Dallas, 17.4

El Paso, 19.8

Fayetteville (AR), 17.4

Houston, 17.3

McAllen, 24.9

New Orleans, 13.5

San Antonio, 16.3

Minneapolis-St. Paul betters only New Orleans from this list of top job growth cities (you may recall that 2006 was not a good year for the Big Easy).

Just so we are clear that it’s not all about the oil, here are birth rates for a few other top job growth cities.

Nashville, No. 8 in job growth (and with lots of entertainment options), 15.1 births per 1,000 population in 2006

Raleigh, NC, No. 14 (and big with knowledge workers), 16.0

Salt Lake City, No. 20, 19.1

And it’s not just about the Sun Belt.  Here are some northern and mid-western cities that do well in both job growth and natural population growth,

Columbus, OH, No. 19, 15.5

Omaha, No. 21, 16.4

Lincoln, NE, N. 11 (Mid-Sized), 14.9

So there are models out there of communities that can produce both job growth and “youthfulness”, without relying on the constant importation of new, young adults from other states.

Needed:  Job Growth and Young Families

Merely having lots of smart, twenty-something adults around does not guarantee the future.  Joel Kotkin and his colleague, demographer Wendell Cox, recently studied top cities for growth in families.  Not surprisingly, their list correlates highly with Kotkin’s list of top job growth cities.  The Texas cities are on the list, as are the Sun Belt destinations of Raleigh and Charlotte, NC.  Minneapolis-St. Paul ranked 29^th out of 51.

Digging deeper, though, Kotkin and Cox find that,

“Overall, the places with the absolute fewest kids ages 5 to 17 tend to be dense core cities.  Children constitute barely 1 in 10 residents in the city of Seattle.  The urban cores of San Francisco, Washington and Boston show similar low rates.”

Kotkin adds, regarding his rankings of family growth,

“Other areas losing youngsters included the nation’s three legitimate megacities—Los Angeles (No. 44), New York (No. 38) and Chicago (No. 35)—as well as areas long associated with the migration of the “young and restless,” including Boston (No. 37) and San Francisco (No. 36).  Unlike young adults who move to Austin and Raleigh, the “young and restless” in these “hip and cool” centers may not hang around long enough to have children.”

Here are how our 15 “Young Adult” competitor cities rank on family growth,

Atlanta, 6^th

Boston, 37^th

Chicago, 35^th

Cincinnati, 34^th

Denver, 14^th

Los Angeles, 44^th

Minneapolis, 29^th

New York, 38^th

Portland, 22^nd

San Francisco, 36^th

Seattle, 27^th

Washington DC, 18^th

(Baton Rouge, Colorado Springs, and Madison were not ranked on this list.)

If these 15 are the magnet cities for the young and educated, then the system seems to have broken down for translating young adults into young parents.  Again, it is not just about oil and sun, as Indianapolis ranked 13^th and Columbus 17^th.

If the young, educated professionals that we are attracting are not likely to hang around and form families, then “youthfulness” will not be served, in the long run.  Further still, if the young are not sticking around the core cities, but are moving to the suburbs and exurbs, than those expensive investments in downtown sports stadia, art palaces, and bike paths would have been for naught.

In fact, Kotkin and Cox have found evidence in the latest census data for just such a conclusion.  They found that young people are not opting for the big city as they get older,

“Cox looked at where 25- to 34-year-olds were living in 2000 and compared this to where they were living by 2010, now aged 35 to 44.  The results were surprising: In the past 10 years, this cohort’s presence grew 12% in suburban areas while dropping 22.7% in the core cities. Overall, this demographic expanded by roughly 1.8 million in the suburbs while losing 1.3 million in the core cities.”

The hip cities fared even worse,

“More intriguing, and perhaps counter-intuitive, “hip and cool” core cities like San Francisco, New York and Boston have also suffered double-digit percent losses among this generation.  New York City, for example, saw its 25 to 34 population of 2000 drop by over 15%—a net loss of over 200,000 people—a decade later.”

From looking at the data that Kotkin and Cox have assembled, Minneapolis and St. Paul have picked the wrong models.  Getting young, educated professionals to move to the region and settle in our downtowns will not ensure future growth for the region.  An emphasis on young families would better serve the region’s long-term interests.  Kotkin writes,

“These findings should inform the actions of those who run cities.  Cities may still appeal to the “young and restless,” but they can’t hold millennials [today’s 25 to 34 year olds] captive forever.  Even relatively successful cities have turned into giant college towns and “post-graduate” havens—temporary way stations before people migrate somewhere else. This process redefines cities from enduring places to temporary resorts.”

It’s not about the best restaurants, or nightclubs, but boring old social capital, which holds the key to future prosperity.  Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, for example, notes the importance of social capital, not just to economic growth, but to the health of a democracy. 

Let’s face it, 25-year-old law associates are not the ones coaching youth soccer or presiding at Rotary Club meetings.  We need to foster policies that promote family formation and encourage people to plant deep roots in the community.  A focus on the “creative class” and the “young affluent” will not get us there.

The Decline and Fall of Los Angeles, Part 1

Joel Kotkin has a great piece in today's Wall Street Journal on "How Los Angeles Lost Its Mojo" (subscription only).  Once a great economic and industrial powerhouse, government policies have chased away much of the industry, a great deal of the economy, and now, many of the people.  If you suspect that "smart growth" lurks amongst the culprits, you're right.  But the problems often begets the solution, as this quote shows, from Ron Kaye, former editor of the Daily News, based in the San Fernando Valley,

"There are the places [the Valley] that reflect the whole idea of L.A., as opposed to the [Mayor] Vilaraigosa vision of a city of apartment dwellers."

Keep fighting back!

Rural US disappearing?

That's the AP headline now linked on Drudge.  Rural America is not disappearing, it's still there, but with fewer people.  In 1910, rural America housed 72 percent of  our total population, now we are down to 16 percent.  The share of Americans living in suburbs is at an all-time high of 51 percent.  We are a suburban nation.

It seems likely that this population shift has had profound implications for our society and our economy that we do not fully understand.

Return to the Suburbs

Over at New Geography, Joel Kotkin charts the return of young people to the suburbs.  It turns out that just wishing for big demographic and geographic shifts don't make them so.

More density equals less driving: just an urban legend?

From Grist of all places.

So much of our transportation, housing, land use, and urban policy rests on the notion that more housing density (think Soviet-style, high-rise apartment buildings) will result in less automobile use.  Turns out not to be true.

Visual Proof of Growing Suburbs

The Anti-Planner (Randal O'Toole) links to a series of maps showing how the suburbs continue to grow at the expense of cities.  Dig deep, though, and you see a little glimmer of hope (or a least a tiny blue dot) for the coolest urban neighborhoods, even in Detroit!

However,

"Nationwide, one feature stands out: the bumper crop of fresh suburbs that ring almost every metropolitan area. Where did all of these people come from? A zoom into the Midwest suggests the answer. The new tract developments appear to be sucking the life out the older neighborhoods, which bear the scarlet tints of waning population"

Here is the map for Minneapolis--St. Paul.

Documentary on "Waning" Suburbs to Air

Because all of the problems of the core cities have now been solved, PBS is airing a documentary on the "waning" suburbs, reports Cynthia Boyd on MinnPost.  Local PBS station TPT will show "The New Metropolis" at 8 p.m. on Sunday, May 1.

I look forward to an even-handed, non-judgemental portrayal of life beyond the city limits.  What?  Cynical you say?  Check out the slide show on The New Metropolis' website.  It alternates "Father Knows Best"-type photos, with shots of decay and decline.  Scenes not to be found, in say, Detroit?

Delusion is a river running through St. Paul

Amazingly, someone was able to look at this picture from the 2010 census:

...and conclude that Minnesota suburbs and exurbs are dead and will never return.  The map, put together by the U.S. Census Bureau, shows 2000-2010 population growth, by county.  The dark green areas represent the fastest growth, and are all suburban and exurban counties ringing the Twin Cities metro area.  The green counties, next fastest growth group, are all suburban or exurban counties near the Twin Cities, Rochester, or Fargo, North Dakota.

Somehow, the usually reliable St. Paul Pioneer Press published an article this weekend under the headline  "Suburban growth in Twin Cities loses steam.  It could be gone for good." 

The PP focuses on this graphic, showing population growth trends in the east metro area.  As a St. Paul newspaper, this makes some sense.  A more interesting question may be, "Why has the west metro grown faster than the east metro?".

But how to explain this howler, "In the east metro, most suburbs showed steep drops in population growth rates, while St. Paul's rate slipped only slightly."?  According to the U.S. Census, the population in St. Paul actually fell by 0.7 percent, reversing the growth trend from the previous two decades.  So we are to believe that shifting from population growth to population decline represents a better performance than a drop in population growth.

The PP gives away the real agenda in the first sentence of the article, "Maybe sprawl wasn't such a great idea after all."

Further down, the PP makes this claim, "The suburbs' growth also is declining because demand for their specialty — the single-family house — is falling."  Or rather, the anti-sprawl advocacy group Strong Towns makes the claim.  No figures are given to back up the assertion, only a narrative about high gas prices, etc.  I look forward to the PP dissection of St. Paul's actual decline.  Shouldn't high gas prices have people be flocking to the central city, home of mass transit?

Twin Cities Growth All in Suburbs

Wendell Cox comes through in New Geography--as we knew he would--with his quick take on the newest Census data for Minnesota.

The New Suburbia: Minnesota

[Temporarily doing the work of Wendell Cox until he finishes his Minnesota analysis.]

Much of Minnesota's transportation, housing, land use and taxation policy is geared toward promoting the tenets of "smart growth."  The idea is that loads of empty-nest baby boomers and the "creative" class is chomping to move to the central cities and abandon the sterile, soul-less suburbs for the vibrant urban experience.  So in the past ten years we have built stadia, museums, condo towers, transit systems, and other infrastructure to accomodate the coming crowds, who....never came.

The U.S. Census just released the county-and city-level data for Minnesota from the 2010 Census and the results are revealing, if not surprising.  Minneapolis stayed flat while St. Paul actually lost population.  Ramsey County, including St. Paul, fell in population.  Hennepin County, including Minneapolis, grew modestly.

What grew fastest were the the "donut" counties of the outer suburbs and exurbs surrounding the core cities.  Also showing better than average growth were the county including Rochester (think Mayo Clinic) and the county adjacent to the boomtown of Fargo, North Dakota.  People have voted with their feet.  It's time for the policies to catch up.

Joel Kotkin on TV: Regressive America

Pajamas TV, that is.  Glenn Reynolds (the InstaPundit) interviews Joel on PJTV.  They talk about North Dakota, Texas, California and where the growth will be.

The Protean Future of Cities

From New Geography, Joel Kotkin looks at the fresh data from the U.S. Census and divines the future of cities.  Hint, if you've been look at the label, below, you know where this is headed.

(via Forbes.com)

America is Becoming Even More Suburban

Yes, your read that correctly.  Joel Kotkin has been digging into the just released data on the 2010 census and has found some interesting facts that fly in the face of conventional wisdom.

Joel contemplates the "Possible Long-term Implications",

"These shifts suggest that the Obama administration might want to rethink its high-density and urban-oriented strategy. Despite all the media focus on an imagined “back to the city” movement, Americans continue to disperse to “opportunity regions” and toward the suburbs."

(Via Forbes)

The Still Elusive "Return to the City"

That's the headline for Wendell Cox's latest piece on the non-flight from the suburbs to the city.  We keep hearing about how empty- nesters and young adults are fleeing the suburbs for an exciting life in the big city.  Except that it's not happening and Wendell has the data to prove it.