Mike Jensvold writes: > http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050523&s=kotkin052305 > > -Myth No. 1: Cities are again gaining people. > > "..Cities, meanwhile, are becoming ever smaller parts of their metro areas. > Minneapolis is a prime example. In the '90s the Midwestern city's > population grew roughly four percent. Since 2000 it has shrunk by 2.5 > percent, losing some 10,000 people; in contrast the surrounding suburban > region grew by over 100,000.
As forum members have discussed before, the post-2000 numbers are snap estimates, inherently unreliable, especially when compared to the 2000 Census. The paragraph above instead makes the drop look like a certainty. I won't argue the 'burbs are growing faster, but that's not what the "myth" states. > "..Overall, the back to downtown movement has constituted.. 'more of a > trickle than a rush.' " Guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "trickle" is. According to locally based Maxfield Research, the Downtown Minneapolis area has grown by 9,000 people in five years - that's 45 percent growth from about 20,000 people in the 2000 Census. That's about 2.5 percent of the city's 2000 population. That said, I'm a bit suspicious of Maxfield's numbers: they started with 2000 Census figures, calculated new units built since then (from real estate records), and assumed 1.7 people live in each unit (blended between apartments and condos). That works out to 5,294 new units Downtown from 2000 to 2005, which seems high to me. According to the Skyway News Condo Pipeline (http://tinyurl.com/a2yrg), there are 5,400 non-conversion units currently in the works through 2012; I have a hard time believing as many were added from 2000-2005. However, even if you slice the Maxfield number in half, that's a 4,500-person gain...still up 22 percent in half a decade. AND if you assume that half of the 5,400 condos in the pipeline get built (a conservative percentage, I feel), that's 9,000 more Downtowners through the end of the decade. That's real growth - 13,500 people during the decade, 67 percent growth, 3.5 percent of the city's existing population. > -Myth No. 2: Cities are where the successful people are. > > "..today, many educated people come to the cities for a relatively brief > period of their lives, notably their twenties, only to return to their > hometowns, smaller cities, or suburbs as they reach their thirties. And > with improvements in telecommunications technology, increasingly they find > they can compete just as well from outside cities as from inside them." If I wanted to assume motives, I'd say this is willfully incomplete. It's true people leave cities, especially downtowns, when they start families. However, the writer ignores the OTHER major group flocking to downtowns - empty nesters. The 50-60-year-olds are a MAJOR driving force behind Downtown Minneapolis growth, and at least half come from the suburbs, according to research I've seen. Given the prices they're paying, they're probably successful. Also, here's a little tidbit from local research firm DSU: nine of the 10 fastest-growing demographic groups in America are people without kids. So kidlessness is a growth industry. David Brauer Kingfield Editor, Skyway News & Southwest Journal REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
