More on Cities, Suburbs and Demographics

Yesterday I posted my reaction to a CBS News story on cities.  I said; “Middle class couples with school age children are still locating in new homes in edge cities but once the youngest starts college the parents seek out interesting and walkable areas. Those who can afford private schools aren’t waiting, they are living where they want while junior is still in school.” I reader asked for my source, which I didn’t have.  Today I have sources to look at the emerging trends:

In a historic first, many young, prosperous Americans are moving from the suburbs to the city. The flip side: The communities ringing big urban areas now have the largest poor population in the country, the [Brookings] report shows. The suburban poor rose 25% over the past decade, almost five times faster than in the cities. Suburbs are developing many of the same problems that are usually associated with cities – poverty, housing problems, crime. They are also accumulating a disproportionate number of elderly people. (WSJ: Bright Flight: Affluent Leaving Suburbs, Moving to Cities, May 2010)

In St. Louis we may think the city continued losing population, business as usual right?  But not so fast, lower income blacks are leaving cities and more affluent whites are moving into cities.

Suburbs still tilt white. But, for the first time, a majority of all racial and ethnic groups in large metro areas live outside the city. Suburban Asians and Hispanics already had topped 50 percent in 2000, and blacks joined them by 2008, rising from 43 percent in those eight years.

Suburbs are home to the vast majority of baby boomers age 55 to 64, a fast-growing group that will strain social services after the first wave of boomers turns 65 next year. (HuffPost: Suburbs Losing Young Whites To Cities, Brookings Institution Finds, May 2010)

Racial shifts are certainly happening:

The decline in major cities’ black populations is “one of the most important trends out of the 2010 Census, and I do think it’s a long-term trend,” says Mike Alexander, research division chief for the Atlanta Regional Commission, a planning agency.

From 2000 to 2010, the city of Atlanta’s black population fell by 29,746 people. During that period, the black population in the broader Atlanta metro area rose by 40%, an addition of 490,982. Those numbers tell Alexander that blacks are relocating in suburbs, not in other cities. “This black migration to the suburbs” mirrors what whites have been doing for decades, he says. (USA Today: Blacks’ exodus reshapes cities, May 2011)

Just like the white flight half a century ago, the blacks leaving cities are the stable middle class and up.  This has huge implications:

The problem with the changing demographics of urban areas is that many of the African-Americans fleeing places like Chicago and Detroit are wealthier and more educated than the ones staying behind. That means that Blacks with more money are taking that cash to less diverse suburbs, and buying homes in white communities. The Black communities left behind in the cities are then more shutoff from the world of money and political power, meaning whole Black neighborhoods have less of a chance of being revitalized. (BET: The Danger of Fleeing to the Suburbs, May 2011)

The Brookings’ State of Metropolitan America report from 2010 is a168 page PDF with a detailed analysis of the changes happening in America’s metro areas.  The report was finished last year so it wasn’t based on 2010 census figures released this year.

The report defined the various types of metropolitan areas listing St. Louis in the “skilled anchors” group:

Skilled Anchors are slow-growing, less diverse metro areas that boast higher-than-average levels of educational attainment. of the 19 nationwide, 17 lie in the northeast and Midwest, including large regions such as boston and philadelphia, and smaller regions such as Akron and Worcester. Many boast significant medical and educational institutions. (p9)

That is St. Louis! In the body of the report Brookings goes into more detail, comparing Skilled Anchor to Industrial areas:

Skilled Anchor and industrial core areas are more similar than distinct. They experienced rapid decentralization amidst only modest growth in the 2000s, and an above-average share of their commuting occurs by car (the highest rate in industrial cores). immigration to these metro areas—with a couple of notable exceptions—is quite low, though most retain significant African American populations as a consequence of their former manufacturing might. They have among the oldest age profiles of the metropolitan types, the result of low in-migration and a significant aging-in-place boomer and senior population. (p164)

So the black exodus isn’t as pronounced in St. Louis as in other regions.

Brookings did offer some suggestions for these regions:

Finally, new demographic realities must be met with new governance arrangements. More than ever, the lines between cities and suburbs—and the long, fruitless history of battles and mistrust between them—must be transcended. cities and suburbs increasingly share challenges like poverty, growing elderly populations, and influxes of new Americans. At the same time, the fiscal crisis has dramatically undermined the capacity of individual jurisdictions to address familiar existing needs, and has compromised their ability to react to new realities. States are facing their own intense fiscal stresses, which will get worse before they get better, and thus they can- not be counted on to support the local government status quo. (p165)

Once again this is a huge fit for the St. Louis region!  None of this is new, for several years now people such as author Christopher B. Leinberger have been writing about these shifts in population:

Perhaps most important, the shift to walkable urban environments will give more people what they seem to want. I doubt the swing toward urban living will ever proceed as far as the swing toward the suburbs did in the 20th century; many people will still prefer the bigger houses and car-based lifestyles of conventional suburbs. But there will almost certainly be more of a balance between walkable and drivable communities—allowing people in most areas a wider variety of choices. (Atlantic Magazine: The Next Slum? March 2008)

– Steve Patterson

Principal Cities vs. Edge Cities

As I was watching CBS Sunday Morning yesterday I was thinking about what to write for today, then I saw the segment Cities on the rise like never before and liked how it started:

Connie Curran remembers her years in the suburbs as “dull.” She told [Seth] Doane she started thinking about moving to the city a month after she moved into the ‘burbs.

“I bought this house – it had a white picket fence,” Curran said. “My sister saw it and she said, ‘You’re on Wisteria Lane!’ It was a great house and it was very peaceful. It was very homogeneous – and it was very boring.”

So last year, at age 61, this nurse-turned-healthcare entrepreneur – who found a new lease on life after beating stage-four cancer – settled into a spectacular home in San Francisco.

“When I saw that view I thought, ‘Now this is city, and this is a neighborhood. I’m living life. This is life. This is the luxury of middle age.”

She defined the luxury of middle-age as the ability “to move to the city and to enjoy the richness and vastness of the things that are here. I hang around 24th Street and usually pick up some flowers, pick up some fruit.”

Curran says walking everywhere keeps her fit. (full story)

By the end of the story, however, I grabbed my iPad and fired off an angry email to CBS Sunday Morning. What happened?  They talked about the fastest growing city in the U.S., Olive Branch MS. Olive Branch is technically a city, but it functions as an auto-centric suburb of Memphis TN. The fastest growing city in Missouri? Wentzville:

Wentzville is the fastest growing city in Missouri from 2000 to 2008, according to recently released data from the U. S. Census Bureau. Wentzville increased in population by over 200 percent, adding more than 16,000 residents to the city since the 2000 Census.

True, as a percentage increase it is higher but they remain the dull homogenous non-place edge cities many are fleeing for principal cities and first & second tier suburbs. St. Luislost population in the last census count but I suspect the changes are more dramatic. Areas like downtown, Lafayette Square to the south, and Old North to the north, saw population gains.  The biggest losses came from north St. Louis.

In the 1940s St. Louis’ planners didn’t see the middle class trend to the suburbs. The reverse is happening now.  Middle class couples with school age children are still locating in new homes in edge cities but once the youngest starts college the parents seek out interesting and walkable areas.  Those who can afford private schools aren’t waiting, they are living where they want while junior is still in school.

So the story started off great but ended with a family in an edge city as an example of “cities on the rise.”

– Steve Patterson

What A Difference A Year Makes

A year ago today people gathered at Washington Ave at 7th Street to witness the demolition of the massive pedestrian bridge betweem the shuttered St. Louis Centre mall and the former Dillard’s store. Here is my video from the event, the first 8:45 are various speakers:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvsl-eGi9f8

Here was the bridge before the demo crews began:

The sidewalks on both sides of Washington Ave were dark and depressing.

For a year now pedestrians and motorists have enjoyed the openness.

The former Dillard’s Store will soon open as the Laurel Apartments.  The increase in foot traffic I’ve observed in the last year has been remarkable.

– Steve Patterson

Readers OK With Cardinals 1966 Move Away From Sportsman’s Park

Last week readers weighed in on their thoughts on the 1966 relocation of the former Sportsman’s Park.  The single answer with the most responses goes along with my thought the Cardinals should have rebuilt rather than move downtown, but looking at all the answers it is clear readers support the move:

1. A great neighborhood ballpark, the Cardinals should have rebuilt at Dodier & Grand 23 [25%]
2. No opinion 15 [16.3%]
3. No choice but to move: the area was changing fast. 15 [16.3%]
4. Like people would have continued going to North St. Louis for a Cards game 14 [15.22%]
5. No choice but to move: too little parking and the streetcar line was replaced with buses in 1960. 10 [10.87%]
6. Other answer… 9 [9.78%]
7. A good neighborhood ballpark but it was no Wrigley Field 6 [6.52%]

It is the nine other answers provided by readers I find interesting:

1. How is this relevant to anyone?
2. A great ballpark that would’ve helped a great neighborhood evolve.
3. Cards set a popular trend moving downtown, too bad about Hop Alley though.
4. moving was part of a larger plan to destroy the northside
5. Looks like a great ballpark!
6. Best move ever, Busch II was a great stadium.
7. Why not look to the future? Use the space for something great for the city.
8. By buliding the new stadium downtown, really revitalized the downtown area.
9. Gave some definition to downtown – robbing NSTL to make the investment downtown.

Not sure where to start.  Relevant because the decision to relocate removed a source of revenue & jobs from one part of the city and placed it in another part that was bought and cleared via urban renewal.  We can’t undo the past but we can learn from our mistakes.

I don’t believe their was a plan to destroy the north side, that was just a casualty of the times. Busch Stadium II did not “revitalize” downtown, far from it.  A huge area was razed for the stadium, garages and other buildings.  The stadium did not create new development in that part of downtown.  MetroLink and renovations of nearby historic warehouses in Cupples Station a quarter center later helped offset the dead zone created in 1966.

– Steve Patterson

Cafe Tables Forcing Pedestrians Into Sidewalk Furnishing Zone

The steps of the Merchandise Mart building on Washington Ave between 10th & 11th create two points where the sidewalk gets restricted.  Otherwise there is room for pedestrians in the main part of the sidewalk with the outer “furnishing zone” left for bike racks and trees. Let’s look at how sidewalks are zoned:

Streetside Zones and Buffering

This chapter addresses the design of sidewalks and the buffers between sidewalks, moving traffic, parking and/or other traveled-way elements. The streetside consists of the following four distinct functional zones:

1. Edge zone—the area between the face of curb and the furnishing zone that provides the minimum necessary separation between objects and activities in the streetside and vehicles in the traveled way;

2. Furnishings zone—the area of the streetside that provides a buffer between pedestrians and vehicles, which contains landscaping, public street furniture, transit stops, public signage, utilities and so forth;

3. Throughway zone—the walking zone that must remain clear, both horizontally and vertically, for the movement of pedestrians. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) establishes a minimum width for the throughway zone; and

4. Frontage zone—the distance between the throughway and the building front or private property line that is used to buffer pedestrians from window shoppers, appurtenances and doorways. It contains private street furniture, private signage, merchandise displays and so forth and can also be used for street cafes. This zone is sometimes referred to as the “shy” zone.

The new restaurant Prime 1000 has changed the situation on the east end of the 1000 block of Washington Ave.

Tables and chairs now fill the sidewalk space, forcing pedestrians into the furnishing zone area.  If anyone were to use the bike racks the sidewalk would not be passable.

I’m a huge fan of sidewalk dining but this doesn’t work.  Perhaps one of the bike racks should be moved to the east of the steps to the restaurant, and the other just removed or relocated to another block or on 10th?

The other issue is the tables and chairs used  – they are too high for anyone seated in a wheelchair.  At least one regular height table should be available for disabled customers to be able to enjoy outside seating.  Lucas Park Grille & Flannery’s, both further west, also have high tables only.

– Steve Patterson