Posted on 10/22/2007 12:25:03 PM PDT by 2banana
Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets Published on: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 Written by: Elizabeth Smith
Although the overall U.S. population grew by 6.39 percent between 2000 and 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, certain areas of the nation actually declined in population during that period. Many of those areas also experienced negative economic factors and job losses.
An abandoned train station in Detroit, MichiganNuWire analyzed Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and divisions of MSAs with populations of more than one million to determine the Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets. Each of these markets experienced negative job growth between 2000 and 2006.
The statistics from the U.S. Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics are historical in nature and are not based on future projections. The markets considered in the analysis were limited to the MSAs and Metropolitan Divisions of MSAs included in the U.S. Census Bureau data.
One area—New Orleans—was omitted from the list, despite the fact that it had by far the greatest population decline of any U.S. market. We omitted New Orleans because that decline was clearly related to Hurricane Katrina (with a loss of nearly 300,000 people from 2005 to 2006) and may not be an accurate reflection of economic factors. In addition, we believe that because the major population decline has already happened, New Orleans has a greater potential for regrowth, as some of the people who moved away return. Areas that have declined because of economic factors are less likely to experience a returning population.
Below are NuWire's Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets, ranked in order of U.S. Census statistics on declining populations.
1. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn Metropolitan Division
Population:
July 1, 2000: 2,059,247 July 1, 2006: 1,971,853 Percent change: -4.24 percent
Jobs:
2000: 913,500 2006: 805,800 Percent change: -11.79 percent
Analysis:
It is no surprise Detroit is on this list; losses in the manufacturing and automotive industries have been widely publicized. The Detroit-Warren-Livonia metropolitan area lost 26.6 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2005, according to a Brookings Institution study. Job losses in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn division were particularly high compared to the rest of the nation. As foreign automakers gain steam and American companies struggle, the future outlook for the industry does not look bright.
However, it is important to note that the greater Detroit-Warren-Livonia MSA would not have made this list; it actually showed slightly positive population growth. Other areas within the greater MSA actually grew during this period, so the statistics may also reflect some population shifting from one area of the MSA to another.
Despite its natural beauty, the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region is losing residents Detroit has four four-year colleges and universities. Retaining young, educated people is a key factor in strengthening a city's economy, but the crucial population of 25 to 34-year-olds in the city of Detroit declined by 20.47 percent from 2000 to 2006, from 144,323 to 114,778, according to the U.S Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
2. Buffalo-Niagara Falls MSA
Population:
July 1, 2000: 1,169,013 July 1, 2006: 1,137,520 Percent change: -2.69 percent
Jobs:
2000: 559,100 2006: 545,800 Percent change: -2.38 percent
Analysis:
Buffalo ranks second on the list primarily because of manufacturing industry losses, although job losses were much less severe than those in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn division. The Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area lost 23.4 percent of its manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2005, according to a Brookings Institution study.
The population decline may also reflect a population shift from cold weather areas to the Sun Belt as retirees move south.
Buffalo has six four-year colleges and universities.
However, "The population of the Buffalo Niagara region is older on balance than its national counterparts," with nearly 20 percent of the population over age 60, compared to 15 percent for the state, according to a 2002 report by the University at Buffalo.
The key population of 25 to 34-year-olds in the city declined by 18.21 percent from 2000 to 2006, from 42,150 to 34,475, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
Pittsburgh's population figures have seen brighter days3. Pittsburgh MSA
Population:
July 1, 2000: 2,429,361 July 1, 2006: 2,370,776 Percent change: -2.41 percent
Jobs:
2000: 1,147,000 2006: 1,137,400 Percent change: -0.84 percent
Analysis:
Pittsburgh also experienced manufacturing industry losses; the city lost 22.8 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2006, according to the Brookings Institution. Older communities are "hollowing out," and the metro Pittsburgh area's migration patterns show continued net out-migration, according to the Brookings Institution.
"The Census Bureau's 2006 community survey showed that metropolitan Pittsburgh has a larger proportion of residents over 45, 65 and 85 than the rest of the country," according to ThePittsburghChannel.com. "Our region also shows a lower proportion of people 25 to 34, 18 to 24 and children under five."
Pittsburgh has nine four-year colleges and universities, according to a Brookings Institution study. In spite of this, Pittsburgh's population of 25 to 34 year olds declined by 29.02 percent from 2000 to 2006, from 48,860 to 34,679, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
An aging population, net out-migration and a suffering manufacturing industry are indicators that the area may continue to experience a population decline unless they are able to turn the job market around.
4. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City Metropolitan Division
Population:
July 1, 2000: 1,733,239 July 1, 2006: 1,698,282 Percent change: -2.02 percent
San Francisco's future population growth remains cloudy Jobs:
2000: 1,082,100 2006: 961,100 Percent change: -11.18 percent
Analysis:
It is somewhat surprising to see the San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City division on this list, but it is important to realize that the greater MSA would not make this list; Oakland and other parts of the Bay Area are experiencing growth, while the San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City division is not. Job losses in the division were particularly high.
The dot-com bust likely played a major role in San Francisco's high job loss rate; jobs declined by 2.61 percent from 2000 to 2001, by 6.34 percent from 2001 to 2002 and by 3.75 percent from 2002 to 2003. After that, the job losses slowed and have since begun a gradual period of growth, with job gains of 2.01 percent from 2005 to 2006.
San Francisco experienced its greatest population declines from 2001 to 2004, and has actually experienced positive population growth from 2004 to 2006. This may demonstrate that the market is recovering after the dot-com bust, but high real estate prices and cost of living may limit population growth.
The population of 25 to 34 year olds in the city dropped by 28.26 percent from 2000 to 2006, from 180,418 to 129,430, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. San Francisco County's population of 25 to 29 year olds dropped by 43.5 percent from 2000 to 2006, and its population of 30 to 34 year olds dropped by 12.8 percent during that period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In addition, San Francisco is among five U.S. metropolitan areas that are likely to lose between 3.1 and 4.3 percent of their jobs to service offshoring between 2004 and 2015, according to a Brookings Institution February 2007 study. Employment of computer programmers, data entry keyers and software engineers is projected to fall by at least 17 percent between 2004 and 2015 in San Francisco, according to the study.
Cleveland has suffered from many losses in the manufacturing industry5. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor MSA
Population: July 1, 2000: 2,148,010 July 1, 2006: 2,114,155 Percent change: -1.59 percent
Jobs: 2000: 1,136,000 2006: 1,076,100 Percent change: -5.27 percent
Analysis:
Like Detroit and Buffalo, Cleveland suffered from manufacturing industry losses. The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metropolitan area lost 24.0 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2005, according to a Brookings Institution study.
Cleveland has had a declining population since 1997, its overall employment market is weak and its population is older than that of Ohio and the U.S., according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Cleveland's median age was 36.9 in 2006, up from 33.0 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
Cleveland has eight four-year colleges and universities, according to a Brookings Institution study. However, the city's population of 25 to 34 year olds dropped by 31.72 percent from 2000 to 2006, from 71,847 to 49,057, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
"Cleveland resembles nearby metropolitan areas in the Northeast—Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh—more than it resembles those in Ohio," according to the Brookings Institution. It has experienced slow population growth, rapid decentralization, and "reductions in intensity and even abandonment of many industrial facilities that cannot be economically converted to other uses," according to the Brookings Institution.
* All population statistics are from the U.S. Census Bureau * All job growth statistics are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
For a full listing of the top 50 declining markets, regardless of population size, see NuWire's Population Growth Table from 2000-2006.
btt
I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you on point 4. I’ll take the weather in Detroit or Buffalo any day over that in South Carolina, and San Francisco has the best weather in the country in my opinion.
Except for Buffalo that gets many feet of lake effect snow, how is the weather bad in any other of the mentioned locations ?
Unlike the other 4 areas, Pittsburgh is a really nice place to live. I think it has bottomed out...with a resurgance of nuclear power, Pittsburgh based Westinghouse is have trouble hiring enough people.
Dont forget high crime rates
None of the places have good bbq either
Cleveland gets lake-effect too...
There was a great, very long and extensive WSJ article recently about the decline (in everything) in Buffalo.
It went into the historical reasons behind, and the historical data of, Buffalo’s decline.
What one can take from the lessons of Buffalo, and see them at work in other cities are:
(1)some reasons for some cities decline were/are unavoidable - the world that created a city changes (business, economics, technology, culture and their positive and negative contributions are neither fixed, assured or possible to maintain in all cases);
(2)local governance can ruin the productive climate for a locale, but even good local governance cannot save a locale from some attributes noted in (1) above;
(3)almost all state and federal “aid to cities” for economic development and redevelopment for America’s worst declining cities has not stemmed either their population loss or their declining economic performance on an aggregate or per-capita basis.
The authors concluded that the best social, moral and economic approach to cities in great decline could be assistance to those who want to leave and get started somewhere else.
One telling evidence of why this may be a better approach is that in-migration to some of our cities in great decline (like Buffalo) has witnessed a greater % of new residents coming from lower income levels. This generates a viscous cycle in the cost of local governance - a declining local tax base and expanding local requirements for assistance to lower income people, generating either a higher local tax burden (with both in-migration of poor and higher taxes making it less attractive to business) on the remaining productive segments of the population, and whereby more of them determine to leave as well, or an increased ratio of state to local funds is needed just for the locale to operate without a hugely increasing local tax burden.
If those with some job skills, but in lower income levels, in our declining cities were encouraged and assisted to get into jobs and job markets in more productive locales, the shrinking local population would remain economically healthier and might even remain more viable or even recoverable, with a smaller but stabilizing locale population.
Some cities, like Camden New Jersey, can never, in my opinion recover from the cycle of decline and high local poverty - which can become self-reinforcing attributes, particularly when the old cause of their once healthy state no longer exists and no new natural dynamic has replaced it. I have used the term natural in this case to mean free-market forces (in ideas, economics, technology and culture), because it seems that government cannot contrive for these forces to come into existence, in a sustainable manner - those efforts fail, if not sooner then later.
Except for a piece of property I literally gave away in east Texas because it had become a liability, I am not too familiar with the tax rates in other Texas counties. The west Texas property I was talking about is actually commercial property although I also have a home in the same small town and it has the same tax rates. My property taxes here have increased in the past six years although my appraisals have not. This makes sense in light of the serious lack of growth in the County for the past forty years. This is very hard to explain although many here believe the County has a secret death wish. The town actually has less people than it did in 1968 when I first came to the area. And we are talking about a town that is the county seat of Bailey County, TX and only 30 miles from a rapidly growing Clovis, NM and 75 miles from Lubbock, TX which also is fast growing. When asked about jobs and growth, the local Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture touts the cattle feedyards and dairies which employ very few people, pay less than a McDonald restaurant and hire few who speak English. It’s most definately a town that time and the U.S. economy has forgotten. Luckily my family’s primary home is in New Mexico which is experiencing growth all over.
A couple of things all these places have in common:
1. High Taxes
2. Democratic Leadership
3. Unions
4. Bad weather.
5.Four year Colleges
1. High Taxes
2. Democratic Leadership
3. Unions
4. Bad weather.
1 - 3, sure, but SF has great weather.
As an aside, the economy is actually quite strong in the SF Bay Area. The job/population loss seen in this survey is just because the starting point of the comparison is right before the dot.com bust.
And despite some knee-jerk reactions people may have, it's not some sort of infested slime pit. In many ways it's a nice place to live, albeit maddeningly liberal in others.
I agree. SF doesn’t really fit the bad weather scenario. I guess despite SF’s insanity, it is one of my favorite places to visit. It is a truly unique place and the weather is a nice break from warmer climates.
It is too bad that it is infested with so many weirdos. I remember my first trip to San Francisco as a teenager truly widened my eyes to how screwed up a place it had become. I was sitting on a trolly when a 6’4” something black guy in a pink tutu sat down beside me. Then i saw a guy eating out of trash can behind a diner on Geary St. From our hotel window, i watched male prostitutes pimp themselves out to the highest bidder in a Sherwin Williams parking lot across the street. Truly an eye opening experience for a young man from the Southeast.
Other than the freaky stuff, I loved the place. The wharf, Alcatraz, the Redwoods, Ghiradelli, the Golden Gate Bridge, China Town and the list goes on and on.
San Francisco is no Cleveland or Rochester. Agreed.
5.Four year Colleges
I don’t see this as a negative. In fact, some may move there for the colleges.
I’d disagree about the number of unions as well, as I didn’t notice much union activity when I lived there. At least not any more than most cities of similar size. For example, there is no strong Teamsters presence, unlike just across the bay with the Port of Oakland.
And the MSA in question includes areas that have high biotech work forces (S. San Francisco), along with other tech startups and businesses. None of those have unions. At least not yet.
I think it the oddball in this top 5 (in more ways than one).
4. San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City Metropolitan Division
Bogus MSA. This is equivalent to something like a “Manhattan MSA” - a built out core area of the metro, completely surrounded by other urbs and burbs, or natural barriers.
Obviously we have different backgrounds, but I personally find the weather in places like Detroit and Buffalo to be far better than in the South. I don’t know how you guys deal with all that heat and humidity. I love a good cold winter. Besides, how do you people go ice fishing, play hockey, snowmobile, sled, or many other fine winter activities? :)
I’m with you.
I live in Massachusetts and despise the summer-——which is taking it’s good old time leaving this year.
Well. I’m from the southeast, but my favorite place would have to be Alaska. Somewhere between Talkeetna and Healy i guess. I can surely appreciate the northern outdoors, but my blood is thin so i prefer warmer temps for my hometown. I do have a friend in Green Bay who has invited me to go snowmobile riding in Feb. She has a cabin in the UP to. So I’ll try some of those things and let you know ;-).
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