As I see it, the population gain between 1990 and 2000 wasn't real, and the estimated population decline from 2000 to 2002 isn't real. Minneapolis only posted a population gain in 2000 because we had an extreme low rental vacancy rate in 2000 compared with 1990. Mpls actually had 4000 fewer housing units in 2000 as compared with 1990, but 2000 more OCCUPIED housing units. Hence there was a population gain even though there was a decline in the real residential capacity of the city.
Since 2000, the converse has occurred. In just two years, there has been a net increase of about 2700 housing units in Minneapolis, but the rental housing vacancy rate has returned to a more normal level. (It went from under 2% in 2000, and around 6% in 2002.) I looked at the effect of the increased vacancy rates today and found that the resulting decrease in OCCUPIED units over the two year period is greater than the 2700 unit housing increase. And there are secondary effects that make average household size decrease when vacancy rates rise. So we should expect a numerical decline in the Minneapolis population even though the real residential capacity of the City has increased. Another way to say it is that if there was a way to normalize the population numbers to exclude the fluctuations in the rental market, you would have seen a population decline from 1990 to 2000, and a population increase from 2000 to 2002. In real terms, Minneapolis has grown since 2000. By the way, in 1996, only 1% of the region's housing production occurred in Minneapolis. In 2002, it was 7%. The same phenomenon can be seen in Saint Paul at a smaller scale. Tom Leighton Minneapolis Planning Department Seward TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
